C I N E M E M O R I E S

My Desert Island DVD's

2012-01-10T13:37:00.001-08:00

At some time or another all movie-lovers have encountered the notorious "desert island" question. You know what I'm talking about: the one that goes "If you could only have X number of movies with you while you were stranded on a desert island for the rest of your life, which ones would they be?" It's a question, I've noticed, not dissimilar from the one posed at the end of George Pal's 1960 adaptation of H.G. Wells' The Time Machine wherein Alan Young notices that Rod Taylor has returned to the post-apocalyptic future bringing only three books along with which to re-start civilization and he asks his friend's housekeeper, "What three books would you have taken?"

Although the likelihood of finding ourselves in such a situation is small indeed, answering such a unique query is an immensely fun and, quite frankly, challenging task because it forces one to consider what films one could absolutely not live without. The resulting list would not necessarily be a list of "favorites" or even of "greatest films ever seen" (although it could certainly include either) but rather a list of "personal essentials," the movies that one could watch over and over again for the rest of one's life and never get tired of.

Well, film critic Matt Zoller Seitz has addressed this question (and has inspired other critics, such as Jim Emerson, to do the same). Matt's parameters for the exercise involve "10 feature films, one short and a single, self-contained season of a TV series... NO CHEATING. Every slot on the list must be claimed by a self-contained unit of media." He elaborates, for example, that the Godfather series (and the Lord of the Rings trilogy I presume) would not count as "one long film."

So, with all this in mind, here are my answers to the "desert island" question. First, my picks for the short and the series and then my ten movie choices (in no particular order).

VINCENT - For my short film, I had a hard time thinking of anything that wasn't animated. I considered a number of Warner Bros. shorts including "The Rabbit of Seville," "What's Opera, Doc?" (which Matt chose), "Duck Amuck" (which Jim chose), as well as the Roger Rabbit shorts, some Pixar shorts and one of the Fleischer Superman or Popeye cartoons. In the end, though, I decided on a quirky, lesser-known stop-motion-animated black-and-white short from the fertile imagination of a young Disney animator named Tim Burton (and since I had to ultimately remove The Nightmare Before Christmas from my top ten, this seemed fitting). Vincent tells the tale of a relatively normal-looking but eccentric young boy named Vincent Malloy who lives with his mother, younger sister and dog Abercrombie. Secretly Vincent is obsessed with Gothic literature, horror stories and other strange subject matter. His primary wish is to be Vincent Price (who, appropriately, narrates this story) and as he pretends to engage in such quintessentially "Price-like" activities as burying his wife alive, running a wax museum and experimenting on his dog, Vincent tragically succumbs to his fantasies and gets sucked into the abyss of his own mind out of which his soul will be lifted "nevermore." Like all of Burton's stuff, it's odd and dark but also very funny. It's no accident, I think, that the character of Vincent resembles Burton himself and that in this early piece of work we see his affection for the grotesque and bizarre combined with a self-awareness that if he's not careful to keep himself grounded in reality, his own weirdness will eventually prove his undoing. Since I can often have a somewhat twisted sensibility myself, this is a good lesson to remember.

THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES - One of the limitations imposed by this exercise is that we are not permitted any other type of media on this island. No music, no paintings, no literature, etc. That being the case, I would be forced to leave my cherished hard-bound copy of The Complete Sherlock Holmes behind. However, in its stead — and taking the place of my pick for a television series — I would settle for the second season of the Granada Sherlock Holmes series titled The Return of Sherlock Holmes starring the great Jeremy Brett (who is, in my mind, the definitive Holmes). Some may wonder why I chose Return rather than the preceding Adventures or subsequent Casebook and Memoirs. My reasons are threefold. First, the latter two seasons, due to such unfortunate circumstances as Brett's rapidly declining health and the show acquiring new producers who departed drastically from the source material, are vastly inferior to the first two. Second, although I love and enjoy David Burke's Watson from the first season, the late Edward Hardwicke, who was introduced after Burke declined, is my all-time personal favorite Watson. Finally, Adventures ends with "The Final Problem" where Holmes presumably perishes in a fight to the death with his nemesis Professor Moriarty at Reichenbach Falls. Even though I know that Holmes actually survives and would eventually return, the program itself gives no hint of such a thing and I would rather spend the rest of my life watching Holmes' triumphant return rather than apparent death.

MANHATTAN - While there is a handful of Woody Allen movies that I consider the cream of his crop (including Annie Hall, Crimes and Misdemeanors and The Purple Rose of Cairo) Manhattan is the one that I find myself continually coming back to. Perhaps because it is by far his most gorgeous-looking movie (with stunning black-and-white cinematography by that genius know as Gordon Willis). Perhaps it is that luscious score of timeless Gershwin melodies. Perhaps it is the story's delicate balance between hilariously funny comedy and surprisingly moving drama. Perhaps it is the perfect cast of actors (featuring Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Michael Murphy, Mariel Hemingway, Wallace Shawn and Meryl Streep). Perhaps it is the collection of iconic sequences such as the wonderful montage of New York images cut to "Rhapsody in Blue" and featuring the opening lines of Woody's book, Woody and Diane discussing relationships as they wander among the cosmos, Woody's listing of things that make life worth living, Woody's running across town to reach Tracy, etc. I don't know. Whatever it is, it all works for me. I never tire of this lovely little gem of a movie.

DIE HARD - Sometimes you just want to watch the hero overcome all odds to be victorious and see the bad guys get theirs. To that end, you can't do much better than Die Hard (although it was extremely difficult to not include Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars or one of my favorite Bond movies). The film has watch-like precision in its construction of environment, character, suspense, emotion and, of course, action. Bruce Willis is the smart, resourceful and incredibly vulnerable cop who matches wits with the equally intelligent, classy and deadly Alan Rickman in the claustrophobic confines of a Los Angeles skyscraper. It's the closest an action film can get to being "high art," not to mention it's a tremendous amount of fun. I already watch it every Christmas. Can't break with tradition.

YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN - Being alone and isolated on a desert island, one would obviously have to be able to laugh at their situation to keep from losing one's mind. Consequently, an uproarious comedy would be an essential part of one's limited DVD stash. There are a number of comedies I would love to take with me (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Tootsie, Ghostbusters, Dr. Strangelove, Groundhog Day, etc), but Mel Brooks' 1972 spoof Young Frankenstein seems to make me laugh out loud the hardest and the most. I can barely recall certain classic lines ("I was gonna make espresso.") or comic moments (Gene Wilder's and Peter Boyle's "Puttin' on the Ritz" dance number) without at least cracking a smile. Having such an uplifting film in my possession should, at the very least, help me to accept my circumstances with "quiet dignity and grace."

SCHINDLER'S LIST - Besides being Spielberg's greatest achievement as a filmmaker, Schindler's List was a seminal film in my development as a cinephile. In fact, I have often referred to it as the greatest film I personally have ever seen or probably ever will see (although I was pleasantly surprised at how affected I was by Terence Malick's magnificent Tree of Life, proving once again that one should never assume they won't find something better than what they've already seen because you just never know). By now everyone is familiar with the inspiring story of the German war profiteer who risked his life, his fortune and his reputation to save the lives of 1,100 Jews during the Holocaust. A harsh, unflinching but essentially restrained and dignified depiction of man's inhumanity toward his fellow man, Schindler's List reaches higher and digs deeper than just about any other film out there. It seems strange to refer to such a brutal cinematic experience as one's "favorite" film, but it is mine. Not because it makes me feel good, but because it makes me want to be good (How many films can you say that about?). It is also a rich, nuanced work of art that yields more depth and truth with each subsequent viewing. I've often thought that if I had to be stranded on a desert island with just ONE movie, this would be it. Naturally it had to make my top ten.

JAWS - Anyone who knows me fairly well knows that Steven Spielberg is my favorite director. Combined with the fact that he is an amazingly versatile artist, it is only appropriate that I bring more than one of his films to the island with me (having already chosen Schindler's List). Picking a second one, however, is a virtually impossible task. Since I already jettisoned Raiders of the Lost Ark in favor of Die Hard, that leaves only two of my "Spielberg essentials:" E.T. or Jaws (Don't get me wrong; I also adore Saving Private Ryan, Munich, Close Encounters, Minority Report and Empire of the Sun, but they just don't quite make the cut). In choosing between the remaining two, it really just comes down to what emotion I feel is lacking from my collection. I already have a couple films to make me cry, but I don't have one to scare me (since the catharsis of fear that comes from watching a horror movie is an important element of dealing with fear in real life ). Since I was forced to leave off my favorite Hitchcock film as well (Psycho) Jaws should serve that function nicely. The truth is, I love the film so much I already watch the it at least once a year (usually in the summer), so I know I'll never tire of it. It should also keep me from going swimming in the waters surrounding my island.

THE SECRET OF NIMH - Like Matt, I also figured I should include an animated feature on my list. Pinocchio, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Prince of Egypt, The Incredibles or Wall-E were all candidates for this honor, but in the end I found myself leaning toward a lesser-known, almost forgotten, chapter in the history of cinematic animation: former Disney animator Don Bluth's 1982 The Secret of NIMH. Bluth's debut feature didn't garner quite the commercial success as some of his later efforts did (An American Tail, Land Before Time or Anastasia), but over the years it has gained quite a cult following who respond very favorably to its emotional, beautifully animated tale of a widowed mouse courageously fighting for the survival of her children in the face of some pretty overwhelming obstacles. It's a dark, haunting and surprisingly violent "kid's movie" (I still can't believe it got a G rating) and yet it's also funny, sweet and ultimately joyous. I saw it as a youngster and it still stirs my soul to this day.

THE HUDSUCKER PROXY - Naturally I just had to include a film by those wacky Coen brothers and although it may not be their best, their highly stylized homage to Frank Capra, Preston Sturges and Fritz Lang called The Hudsucker Proxy holds a special place in my heart as it is the film that introduced me to their bizarre, subversive and enormously entertaining world. It was either ignored or despised upon is release (though the Coens' next film Fargo made them filmmaking celebrities), which is a shame as I think it's just as intelligent, rewarding and visually striking (perhaps even more so in case of the latter) as anything else they've ever done. Fortunately, it's gained some popularity over the years... though not quite as much as the hula hoop itself. "You know, for kids!"

SINGIN' IN THE RAIN - I love musicals. Sometimes I wish I lived in one. Often, right in the middle of a fairly menial task, I will launch into a song of some sort and imagine that I am being accompanied by an entire orchestra. That being the case, I have little doubt that I would find myself singing quite a bit on my own little island ("On my own little island in my own little sea, I can be whatever I want to beeeee..." Uh, sorry!) and thus should have a movie musical in my collection. Several recommended themselves to me (such as Top Hat and Fiddler on the Roof) but when it comes down to it, if I had to have just one movie musical to watch over and over again for the rest of my life, it would have to be Singin' in the Rain. No other musical captures the optimistic nature of song and dance in the face of adversity than this one does (particularly in the now immortal sequence featuring Gene Kelly nonchalantly defying the elements). If it ever rains on the island, you can guess what I'll be doing.

UNFORGIVEN - Although westerns are not exactly my favorite genre, I have a small number of them which I happen to love (High Noon, Stagecoach, The Searchers, the remake of True Grit and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly). At the top of the heap, though, is Clint Eastwood's 1991 masterpiece Unforgiven. It is probably the best western I've ever seen and it accomplishes that feat by being a sort of "anti-western:" a de-mythologizing melodrama that removes all of the romance, heroism and glory of the genre and replaces it with the gritty ugliness and blind, stupid luck that probably more accurately reflected that period of our history. More than anything, though, Unforgiven is a meditation on the nature of human evil, the possibility of redemption and the dehumanizing effect of violence. It's a phenomenal film that I could watch over and over again.

THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION - Although I have several films on my list whose function is to help me "escape" and/or make me feel good in my loneliness, I also need films that acknowledge that life can indeed suck (sometimes a lot) and that keeping one's faith in the midst of so much suffering is really the right response to have. Schindler's List fulfills that role as does this one. Frank Darabont's brilliant adaptation of Stephen King's novella is a powerful, life-affirming expression of the courage and tenacity of the human spirit. It confronts the harsh realities of life but does not succumb to despair. In our increasingly bleak and nihilistic society, that is a precious commodity. Or as Tim Robbins says in the film "Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies." Hope springs eternal.

Incidentally, that final helicopter shot of the beach never fails to make cry. Ever.

A New Year! A New Look!

2012-01-01T15:05:00.000-08:00

In late 2009 I decided to start CINEMEMORIES with the hope of establishing, after an extended hiatus from blogging, an online presence once again (I announced my intentions in the inaugural post of my new film blog). At the conclusion of my first year here I reflected back, as people tend to do whenever "Big Daddy Earth starts one more trip around the sun," and several things occurred to me.

I noticed that over the course of the year I posted a total of 20 pieces. Not only is that less than an average of two per month, but the majority of them were "cross-posts" of articles I wrote for my friend Ed Copeland's blog (where I contributed a whopping 27 articles). If I intend to take my participation in the online community seriously, that is pretty pathetic. Thus, as a new year begins, I find myself not only wanting to write more pieces for my blog but to make them more substantial and thought-provoking (the truth is, I got a little lazy with some of my posts). Cinema is in a very significant transitional state right now, especially with the death of "film" becoming an ever-present reality, and although there may not be a huge number of readers out there dying to know what I think on various subjects, I should at least have the courage and character to express them.

I also found myself wanting to revamp my site. While I was pleased with the "Being There motif" I had created for the blog, an idea suggested itself to me that I thought could prove fun and perhaps, if I wanted to get myself writing more, even somewhat inspirational. What if I changed the layout of my blog every January? What if this became an annual thing? I liked it. As a new year presents itself, so does a new look for CINEMEMORIES. Once again I have chosen a very specific image which I think goes very well with the dual theme of cinema and memory.*

So, at the dawn of 2012, I look forward to a year of more, and hopefully better, writing about movies (both good and bad) and maybe even some good discussion. Hope you like the new look. Happy New Year, everyone!

*Where I could've gotten the idea to use a shot from this particular movie though, I do not know. It just came to me. I mean, it's not like anyone could've put it there, right? Right?

Now We Know Why They Call Him Dirty Harry

2011-12-23T14:38:00.001-08:00

The following is an article I wrote for the blog Edward Copeland on Film (for which I am a regular contributor) commemorating the 40th anniversary of the release of Dirty Harry.

I don't particularly like television, so I don't really watch a lot of it nowadays. Still, there are a few shows which I enjoy and one of those happens to be Fox's House, M.D. My wife had to turn me onto it because I thought it looked like just another hour-long medical drama in the vein of St. Elsewhere, ER or Chicago Hope. She told me that it was really more of a mystery show (she knows I love mysteries) and informed me that its protagonist, Dr. Gregory House, is a complex, charismatic and provocative character. His antisocial, unethical and misogynistic tendencies are matched only by his brilliant, obsessive and astute mind. Although it jumped the shark a couple seasons ago, I continue to tune in every week. Even through the worst of its outrageously cheesy and absurdly melodramatic plot twists, House himself (superbly played by Hugh Laurie) remains a fascinating character.

Right now, you're probably wondering to yourself why I'm talking so much about House in an article that, given the headline and picture above, is clearly about the 1971 Don Siegel film Dirty Harry, which celebrates its 40th anniversary today. Well, here's my reason. Although it is obvious that House is based on Sherlock Holmes, it occurred to me at a certain point that another fictional character has about equal claim to being a source of inspiration: San Francisco cop Harry Callahan. Harry may not be as brilliant as House, but he has about as much regard for social niceties, can be about as misogynistic and, just as House, always acts in the best interest of those he's trying to help (even if it means disobeying his superiors, putting his own life and career in jeopardy or even tricking, manipulating and sometimes even hurting those he's working to save) in his drive to ensure that justice prevails. The criminals' rights and the rules and regulations that his bosses demand he follow while pursuing those perpetrators concern him less. Harry, like House, just doesn't give a damn and when I realized that in many ways House could be described as "Dirty Harry with a medical degree," I understood not only how iconic Clint Eastwood's brave, tough-talking cop had become but what purpose characters such as Harry, House and their ilk serve for audiences.

Dirty Harry was made in a time when society wasn't feeling particularly safe. This seemed especially true in San Francisco, where the film is set, with the activity of the Zodiac Killer (on whom the movie's psychotic Scorpio Killer, broadly but effectively played by Andy Robinson, clearly is based). Much of that anxiety and frustration ended up being directed at the state and the filmmakers captured it. This anger doesn't seem aimed primarily at cops (indeed the film is even dedicated to San Francisco police officers who have given their lives in the line of duty) but rather to the system for which they work, a system that many people (much like today) felt had gone out of control. It presumed to function in the interests of the innocent but instead came off as more dedicated to preserving itself and/or the rights of the criminals. There is a very strong "anti-authoritarian" attitude present in Dirty Harry.

Throughout the film, Harry's desire to protect civilians from the malevolent force of evil, much to his dismay, constantly gets hindered or thwarted. Consequently, Harry, in essence, becomes a vigilante with a badge. He renounces his oath to serve the law and devotes his efforts to serving justice. In the film's final scene — with the Scorpio Killer in his sights — when he utters those famous lines ("I know what you’re thinking: 'Did he fire six shots, or only five?' Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I’ve kinda lost track myself., etc.) for the second time in the film, Harry clearly snarls the words with much more rage and menace — his own has changed. The incompetence of the bureaucracy always annoyed him, but he has become so "fed up" with the whole thing that he no longer wants any part of it. After dispatching Scorpio with his Magnum, Harry removes his badge and tosses it away. Obviously, no one planned any Dirty Harry sequels. This truly ends his character's story, not the subsequent adventures where Harry softens a little more in each new film.

When Dirty Harry was released in 1971, it caused quite a stir. Many critics, including Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert, articulated concern over the ideas and values expressed in it (with Ebert even calling it "fascist"). While I fully understand having such a reaction, I can't help but think that they are somewhat missing the point of what role such an extreme character can play for audiences and why Dirty Harry proved to be such a commercial success in its day. We all feel oppressed at times. We all feel abused or maligned and we all secretly wish we could act out the fantasies of retribution we have. Fortunately, we don't (or at least most of us don't) act on these impulses. Still, there is something appropriate about wanting to see good triumph and evil punished. Dirty Harry serves as a vessel for pent-up frustrations with our own impotence, an ideal of the kind of courage and tenacity it takes to do the right thing (regardless of the personal consequences) and watching him do what he has to do proves cathartic. We live vicariously through him as he says and does the things that we can't say and do but wish we could. He understands that the law is merely a man-made institution — it is not sacred — and if he must circumvent it sometimes in the name of the greater good, he'll do it. In fiction, one can get away with this. In reality, we don't have that luxury — reality always turns out to be far more complex, messy and nuanced than the simple black-and-white moral universe represented onscreen. So, we watch the rogue endeavors of vigilante heroes such as Harry, House, Robin Hood, Zorro, Batman or, even on occasion, James Bond (such as in Casino Royale when he just marches into an embassy, grabs a guy by the scruff of the neck and drags him out) and rightfully admire, respect and perhaps even envy them. As long as we don't imitate them, they fulfill their proper role in our lives.

Sometimes to do good, you gotta get your hands a little dirty.

A Riddle Wrapped In a Mystery Inside an Enigma

2011-12-20T18:33:00.000-08:00

The following is an article I wrote for the blog Edward Copeland on Film (for which I am a regular contributor) commemorating the 20th anniversary of the release of JFK.

While some might be of the opinion that Oliver Stone’s most archetypal movie is Wall Street or Platoon, I happen to think the film which holds that particular distinction is JFK (which celebrates its 20th anniversary today). It is not necessarily his greatest movie, but it is his most significant in a number of ways. In a career littered with provocative, politically charged works, it has proved to be arguably his most controversial. It marked the beginning of a stylistic period in Stone’s filmmaking (a fast, in-your-face approach to storytelling which culminated in Stone’s outrageously anarchic Natural Born Killers). Finally, it was (and still seems to be) one of Stone’s most personal projects: the result of years of research, overwhelming passion and righteous indignation. Indeed, of all Stone’s protagonists, the man at the center of JFK (who is, somewhat ironically, not the titular character) serves as perhaps the best representative of the ideals and opinions of Oliver himself. In reality, the motives and actions of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison (the only prosecutor ever to go to trial in the assassination of President Kennedy) are not entirely clear nor always seem purely honorable, but in the film, Garrison — wonderfully played by Kevin Costner — is a man on a crusade, a courageous hero of the highest intentions and noblest stature crying, “Let the truth be told though the heavens fall!” He is the director's alter ego, a lone wolf fighting the establishment in the name of truth, justice and, yes, the American way.

JFK was my first Oliver Stone picture. My dad took me to see it in the theater when I was a sophomore in high school and I was, as the expression goes, blown away by it. Incidentally, he was (and still is to some degree) a major expert on the Kennedy conspiracy, so he was able to lean over and tell me at various junctures "That's true" or "That's not true" which helped orient me in the somewhat overwhelming deluge of faces, names, dates and theories with which I was being bludgeoned. My dad once owned the largest collection of books, magazines, videos and even vintage newspaper articles about that specific event which I have ever seen. After watching the film and concluding that there definitely was a conspiracy and a cover-up, I even read a few of them myself, including the screenplay to the film which contained a footnoted source for every piece of information that Stone wrote into the expository dialogue and/or imagery of the film. It gave me a whole new appreciation for a movie's potential to tell a story which, if not "true" or "historically accurate," is at least "factual." Eventually I became somewhat of an expert myself and years later, after getting married and moving to Dallas, I finally visited the sixth floor museum and Dealey Plaza (the latter of which, I was shocked to discover, is a very small, and intimately contained space). Now, however, having read multiple accounts from different writers arguing for both sides of the conspiracy debate — including this very compelling website run by Dave Reitzes, whose experience with the film is remarkably similar to my own — I have no idea what really happened on that day in Dallas (though I still think there is more to the story than we are being told). However, one thing that has not changed, is that JFK remains a seminal film in my development as a cinephile.

Much can be said about the movie's many stellar qualities, such as the performances from its immense cast (a dizzying collection of such familiar faces as Sissy Spacek, Joe Pesci, Tommy Lee Jones, Kevin Bacon, John Candy, Ed Asner, Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Gary Oldman, Donald Sutherland, etc). In a nice bit of subversive casting, Stone even got the real Jim Garrison to portray Judge Earl Warren of the Warren Commission. Much could also be said about John Williams' suspenseful and emotional Oscar-nominated music score, but the main element of the film which captivated me upon my first viewing (and which I studied very carefully upon numerous subsequent viewings) was its visual aesthetic. In order to make a film which was heavy on talk into an arresting experience, Stone deftly employed various cinematic techniques that until that time had never been employed with such enthusiastic exuberance nor wild abandon in a historical epic. His approach to shooting and editing the film was considered confusing and indulgent by some and incredibly powerful and innovative by others. I personally fell into the latter camp. Jumping back and forth (sometimes in a seemingly random manner) from authentic to recreated footage, from color to black-and-white and from 35 to 16mm, JFK creates such an apparently chaotic product that people didn't know what to make of it. The more one delves deeper into it though, the more one discovers that there is indeed "method in the madness." Stone's is a stream-of-consciousness approach to examining history, a process that makes no distinction between past and present, between what has happened and what is happening and, perhaps most controversially, between theory and fact. To Stone, history is in the eye of the beholder and he presents so many different perspectives, ideas and judgments that he was essentially, as film critic Roger Ebert proposed, fighting the official establishment myth by "weaving a counter-myth." Not surprisingly, Stone's effort garnered a great deal of criticism from various esteemed news sources. It did not help their case that they were attacking the film well before it had come out and anyone, including them, had even seen it, their zeal and hostility seemingly inspired more by fear of losing their privileged authoritative status than by supposed journalistic integrity and objectivity.

In spite of (or perhaps because of) JFK's notoriety, it was very well-received upon its release in December 1991. The film grossed more than $50 million worldwide, which was impressive considering that the film was more than three hours long, and ended up receiving eight Academy Award nominations, including best picture, best director and best supporting actor for Tommy Lee Jones. It ended up winning two of those awards for the experimental cinematography and editing. It also, much to Stone's delight no doubt, incited a whole media discussion about the Kennedy assassination. Much like the media circus that surrounded the release of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, all you could see and hear on the news for several months was talk of what actually occurred on Nov. 22, 1963. In point of fact, we probably will never know what occurred. As Pesci's nervous David Ferrie quotes Winston Churchill in the film, "It's a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." Still, perhaps whether we ever know the truth (or, to be more precise, know THAT we know the truth since we may already know it) isn't as important as that we never give up looking for it. Maybe the real message behind the film is that the pursuit of truth is more important then the possession of it.

The Napoleons of Crime

2011-12-01T01:27:00.001-08:00

With the release of Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (the sequel to his hugely successful and surprisingly enjoyable 2009 film) only weeks away, I thought I would take a second and look back at some of the actors who have portrayed Holmes' brilliant archenemy Professor James Moriarty over the past century. Although Moriarty only appeared in one of Doyle's stories ("The Final Problem"), somehow he managed to capture the imagination of audiences. Perhaps because he seems to be the only character who, aside from Sherlock's elder brother Mycroft (who is also appearing in the new film), is Holmes' intellectual equal. Holmes referred to him as the "Napoleon of crime" and "the organizer of half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city... a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker. He has a brain of the first order." Moriarty was clearly someone whose mind Holmes greatly admired, even while despising his moral character. Every prominent hero needs a mortal enemy and Moriarty fulfills that role admirably. He is the Joker to Holmes' Batman, The Luthor to his Superman, the Blofeld to his Bond. While Moriarty's screen career is perhaps not as eminent as that of Holmes, it is nonetheless impressive. In fact, a few of the actors who played one role would later end up playing the other (particularly Richard Roxburgh and Anthony Higgins). Naturally this list is by no means exhaustive, but it is a helpful introduction to a character who can be regarded I think as one of the great villains of fiction.

Gustav von Seyffertitz, Sherlock Holmes (1922)

Ernest Torrence, Sherlock Holmes (1932)

Lyn Harding, The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes (1935)

George Zucco, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939)

Lionel Atwill, Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1943)

Henry Daniell, The Woman in Green (1945)

Laurence Olivier, The Seven Per-Cent Solution (1976)

John Huston, Sherlock Holmes in New York (1976)

Viktor Yevgrafov, Priklyucheniya Sherloka Kholmsa i doktora Vatsona, a.k.a. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson (1980)

Eric Porter, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1985)

Anthony Higgins, Young Sherlock Holmes (1985)

Paul Freeman, Without a Clue (1988)

Daniel Davis, Star Trek: The Next Generation (1993)

Vincent D'Onofrio, Sherlock: A Case of Evil (2002)

Richard Roxburgh, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)

Andrew Scott, Sherlock (2010)

Jared Harris, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)

A Timeless Love Story

2011-11-22T17:59:00.000-08:00

The following is an article I wrote for the blog Edward Copeland on Film (for which I am a regular contributor) commemorating the 20th anniversary of the release of Beauty and the Beast.

I was recently playing the board game Loaded Questions with my wife, her brother and his wife. It was my brother-in-law's turn to guess. The card asked the rest of us to name our favorite animated feature film. His wife picked Beauty and the Beast. I selected The Hunchback of Notre Dame (although I could just as easily have gone with Pinocchio, The Secret of NIMH, The Prince of Egypt or The Nightmare Before Christmas). Being fairly familiar with my wife's tastes in animated films, I suspected she would name either Sleeping Beauty, The Lion King or Hunchback of Notre Dame as well. To my surprise, she also named Beauty and the Beast. I knew she loved the film, but was not aware that it was her favorite. After her brother correctly guessed all of our answers, I told her I was surprised by her choice because I always was under the impression she favored these other animated films. "I admire aspects of the other ones," she informed me. "I think the backgrounds and music in Sleeping Beauty are beautiful and I like the story and themes of Hunchback, but with Beauty and the Beast, I just love the whole package." I not only learned something new about my wife that day, I was reminded of something that I guess I had forgotten: namely, that Beauty and the Beast (which celebrates its 20th anniversary today) is deservedly one of Disney's most beloved animated features because, unlike numerous others (which can be very uneven), it excels in ALL of its areas. It is arguably the perfect Disney movie.

Beauty and the Beast came at a time when Disney was experiencing a real renaissance in animation. Throughout the '70s and early '80s, some decent movies such as The Fox and the Hound, The Great Mouse Detective and The Black Cauldron were produced, but they failed to achieve the kind of critical or commercial success that had come to be expected from a Disney product. To make matters worse, the live-action arm of the studio (which was churning out such "clunkers" as The Black Hole, Tron and Return to Oz) wasn't faring much better. The studio was finding it tremendously difficult reaching contemporary audiences with its somewhat antiquated material. Their attempt to produce something more "modern" and "cool" with the pop song-heavy Oliver and Company only reeked of desperation. Meanwhile Disney's competitors (including former Disney animator Don Bluth's An American Tail and The Land Before Time) were gaining a lot of ground. So, in the mid-1980s some "new blood," in the guise of former Paramount executives Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg, was brought in to change things at the struggling studio and special attention was paid to the once-great animation department. Their plan was to try to recapture the essential elements of Disney's golden age: good stories simply but expertly told with gorgeous animation, interesting characters and memorable music.

The result was The Little Mermaid, an enormously entertaining creation that seemed to include all of the classic characteristics of Disney fairy tales as well as a few new qualities that made it resonate with both children and adults alike. I remember seeing it in the theater with my family in junior high and just being utterly charmed by it. It even went on to win two Academy Awards: one for the score and one for that catchy little tune "Under the Sea," proving that the music was a major ingredient for the film's success. That music came for the imaginative minds of the composer Alan Menken and his lyricist Howard Ashman, the team responsible for the subversive yet immensely melodic off-Broadway hit-turned 1986 movie Little Shop of Horrors. Thus, when Mermaid earned hundred of millions of dollars (much of it from the home video release, the first time a current Disney animated feature appeared in that format) and marked a real return to form for the endangered studio, it seemed only natural that its successor would try to build on the same foundation that it had laid (including the Menken/Ashman songs). Expectations were understandably high and whatever it was to be, they would have to make it something really special.

Disney decided to go with the well-known French fable of a beautiful woman (whose name was wisely changed from "Beauty" to "Belle") who stays in an enchanted castle run by a monstrous beast. Although she is repulsed by him initially, she eventually learns to see the kind, tormented and beautiful person hidden beneath the hideous veneer and in the process warms his own cold heart. In the end, she declares her love for him which transforms him back into the handsome prince that he was before being bewitched by an evil spell and the two live happily ever after. The story had been told onscreen before (most famously in Jean Cocteau's stunning 1946 adaptation La Belle et la Bête) but never in feature-length animation. Borrowing several elements from the Cocteau film (such as furniture within the castle coming to life) but adding quite a few touches of their own (including the heroine's rescue from a pack of wolves by the beast), the animators fashioned a colorful, sweet, funny and at times scary product. Not surprisingly the animation is gorgeous. The design of the beast is a particular standout. Whereas in other incarnations the beast usually resembles a really hairy human, this beast is fully animal with equal parts buffalo, lion, bear and various other carnivorous creatures. Despite all this, an undeniable humanity still comes through loud and clear in the character's facial expressions and body language.

This is no doubt due to the fact that his design was supervised by the eminent animator Glen Keane who has a track record of making huge, lumbering creatures look strangely graceful (see the bear in The Fox and the Hound and Professor Ratigan in The Great Mouse Detective). In fact, all of the characters in Beauty and the Beast, from the leads right down to the minor characters, are beautifully rendered with with distinct looks and interesting personalities. This is especially impressive when one considers that most of the characters in the film are sentient household objects such as clocks, teapots, candelabras, etc. The only other animated film I can think of that so effectively turns inanimate objects into living, breathing beings (not including the Toy Story trilogy) is the woefully underrated Brave Little Toaster. Of course, the believability of the characters is aided in no small way by the bravura vocal performances of the excellent cast. Beauty and the Beast followed another wise Disney tradition in that they decided to hire talented actors to give voice to these characters and not A-list movie stars. At the time I saw it, the only voice I really recognized was Angela Lansbury. Even though I was somewhat of a teenage movie buff, I had no idea who Jerry Orbach, Paige O'Hara, David Ogden Stiers and Robby Benson were and I suspect most audience members were like myself. Their ignorance of the actors working behind the scenes helped make it easier to merely accept the characters on screen at face value. Unfortunately, ever since Robin Williams was cast as the Genie in Disney's next animated blockbuster Aladdin, this turned into a practice that seemed no longer viable. Feature animation now appears to be populated primarily with celebrities (which is no doubt why so many distinguished voice actors such as Maurice LaMarche, Frank Welker and Rob Paulsen all have to work in television) and it creates a bizarre disconnect between the figures we see moving on screen and the voice we hear coming out of their mouths. We know that it's Cameron Diaz we are hearing but it is not Cameron Diaz that we are seeing (at least Pixar is trying to continue the tradition of casting the right actors for the roles regardless of their celebrity status).

Another significant development in the history of animation that occurred in Beauty and the Beast was the combination of hand-drawn characters with a completely three-dimensional CGI environment in the now iconic ballroom sequence. It wasn't the first time such a thing was attempted (the climactic clock tower scene from The Great Mouse Detective did the same thing) but this was the first time such a feat was accomplished so seamlessly. Though it may not be quite as impressive to us now, the sight of the "camera" gliding around the characters, swooping down toward them from above and even moving between them as they danced (almost as if we are dancing right along with them) really helped draw audiences even further into what was already an emotionally-charged scene a) because of what was happening in the story at that point and b) because of the lovely title song that was being sung by Angela Lansbury's matronly Mrs. Potts during it. As corny as it may sound, it really is a magical sequence that somehow seems to transcend all of the numerous technical achievements that helped make it so. One would have to be pretty jaded and heartless to not find themselves in some way touched by it.

Like The Little Mermaid, the songs that Howard Ashman and Alan Menken collaborated on for Beauty and the Beast are superb. Clearly modelling their work on Broadway showtunes, every song just pops. There is not a weak tune in the bunch. Also, every song either furthers the story or develops character. The opening number "Belle," for example, introduces the protagonist, establishes how the townspeople feel about her, acquaints us with handsome but obnoxious Gaston who is pursuing her and just generally sets the "stage" perfectly for everything that follows. Gaston even gets his own song wherein the townsfolk sing about how great he is and he in turn agrees with them mentioning all of his accomplishments and hilariously pointing out that every last inch of him is "covered with hair." The big show-stopping number of the piece, however, is "Be Our Guest," a massive extravaganza showcasing a parade of food and cutlery led by a spotlight-hogging candelabra named Lumiere (voiced and sung by the multi-gifted Jerry Orbach). Seriously, Joel Grey's Master of ceremonies from Cabaret has got nothing on him. Finally, the darker and more sinister "Kill the Beast," wherein Gaston reveals his true colors, rounds out an already impressive collection of melodies. It was a no-brainer that the film would receive Oscar nods for its music. The songs "Belle," "Be Our Guest" and "Beauty and the Beast" were all nominated but it was the title song that took home the statuette. What was unexpected, however, was that Beauty and the Beast would become the first animated feature film to ever be nominated for best picture. It was a milestone in the history of animation and made everyone who worked on it very proud. Alas, one individual who never got to see the awards, the critical acclaim or the commercial success that the film garnered was Howard Ashman. During production of Beauty and the Beast it became painfully clear that Howard was dying of AIDS and although he continued to work very hard on the film (helping with the script as well as with the music), on March 14, 1991, Howard died and what was perhaps the most auspicious musical teams since Rodgers and Hammerstein came to a sudden and tragic end. The film's final credits featured one of the most poetic dedications I've ever seen: "To our friend Howard, who gave a mermaid her voice and a beast his soul, we will be forever grateful."

Although some could argue it was The Lion King that represented the pinnacle of Disney's "renaissance period" (a time when Disney seemed to have the Midas touch, well before Eisner drove Katzenberg away and then proceeded to wreck the very company he had once saved), I think Beauty and the Beast is the true supreme achievement from that era. Everything just came together in such a way that the film managed to catch that ever elusive lighting in a bottle. Twenty years later it still looks, sounds and feels great. Recently it was released on DVD/Blu-ray in a "special edition" which included such notable features as a newly animated music number which was excised before the film's original release (the song was called "Human Again" and it's a charming little tune but I think they made the right decision cutting it as it sounds to my ears too similar to "Be Our Guest") as well as the "work-in-progress" version which the studio courageously premiered at the New York Film Festival. Though it gave birth to several inferior direct-to-video sequels and a successful Broadway show, its true legacy will be as one of the greatest (if not arguably the greatest) animated features that Disney ever produced. The word "masterpiece" gets thrown around a lot, but I feel it truly is a masterpiece, not just of animation but of cinematic storytelling. It is also the last time that a genuine fairy tale was depicted on the big screen. In our increasingly cynical culture, feel-good stories of princesses, monsters, villains, magic and, most of all, happy endings are becoming increasingly rare. Even when a film does attempt to bring a fairy tale to theaters it has to be done in a very sarcastic, self-aware manner (a la Shrek, Enchanted and Tangled); more of a "meta" fairy tale than an honest-to-God "true" fairy tale. Beauty and the Beast is a timeless love story with an enduring message, but it is also in some ways a relic of a bygone era. Unless Pixar's upcoming Brave can reinvigorate the genre, it may be a long, long time before we see another bona fide fairy tale told with such unapologetic enthusiasm and sincerity.

Stealing History

2011-11-06T10:11:00.000-08:00

The following is an article I wrote for the blog Edward Copeland on Film (for which I am a regular contributor) commemorating the 30th anniversary of the release of Time Bandits.

Time Bandits, which celebrates its 30th anniversary today, marked a significant turning point in Terry Gilliam's career. Gilliam first made his mark as the co-writer and animator for the now iconic British comedy troupe known as Monty Python. His directorial debut, which he shared with fellow Python member Terry Jones, was the hilarious Monty Python and the Holy Grail. His second film (the abysmal Jabberwocky) was another medieval spoof which featured Python members Michael Palin and Terry Jones as well as a whole host of typical Python gags. His third film, however, though it still has "Python-esque" moments (and features Michael Palin and John Cleese in small roles), was the first time Gilliam attempted to put on the big screen an actual story full of drama, action, horror and emotion as well as comedy. It was an important transitional point between Gilliam "the American Python member" and Gilliam "the serious filmmaker who tells stories such as Brazil and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus." Time Bandits was Gilliam's "breaking out" work. Naturally I didn't know any of this as a kid when I used to watch the film often. I didn't know about Monty Python and I certainly didn't know who Terry Gilliam was. All I knew is that it was a dark and imaginative fantasy adventure that I loved. Needless to say, I still do.

It tells the story of an intelligent young British boy named Kevin (played with a refreshing lack of precociousness by Craig Warnock) whose parents would rather sit on their plastic-encased furniture watching game shows on TV and lusting after the latest electrical appliances than spend time with their son. Kevin, on the other hand, occupies his time reading history books about ancient warriors and great adventurers. One night, while sleeping peacefully in his bed, six strangely dressed dwarfs emerge from Kevin's wardrobe (as if it were Lewis' gateway to Narnia) and drag him with them on an arduous trek through time and space. Kevin soon discovers that these dwarfs were former employees of the Supreme Being who helped assist in the process of creation (specifically designing things such as trees and shrubs), but eventually grew tired of their job and wanted to use their knowledge of the flaws inherent in the fabric of the space-time continuum to their financial advantage. Stealing from God the only map that charts the location of all the holes in existence (which can be used as doorways leading from one time to another), the dwarfs inform Kevin of their plan to rob some of the wealthiest and most famous figures in human history and invite him to join them, which he agrees to do. This endeavor brings them into contact with the likes of Napoleon Bonaparte (portrayed by Ian Holm who had previously played the famous Frenchman in the 1974 TV miniseries Napoleon and Love and would play him again in 2001's The Emperor's New Clothes), legendary Greek ruler Agamemnon (Sean Connery) and even Robin Hood (played as a jolly nice fellow by John Cleese) before ending up on the RMS Titanic (although they mistakenly refer to it as the S.S. Titanic in the film) where they get a little more ice in their drinks than they requested.

What they don't realize is that they are being watched by none other than Evil himself (played with delicious wickedness by David Warner). Incidentally, this is apparently a point of confusion for some critics. Warner does not play Satan. He is not the "father of evil." He is evil incarnate, a personification of the abstract concept. His plan is to overthrow creation itself with the intent of fashioning a world based solely on technology, which allows for his character to make some great speeches ("God isn't interested in technology. He knows nothing of the potential of the microchip or the silicon revolution. Look how he spends his time. Forty-three species of parrots. Nipples for men. Slugs! He created slugs? They can't hear. They can't speak. They can't operate machinery. I mean, are we not in the hands of a lunatic? If I had created a world I wouldn't mess about with butterflies and daffodils. I would've started with lasers. Eight o'clock. Day one!"). Although it is never made exactly clear how or why this is the case, Evil presumably needs the map to accomplish all of this. Using their own greed against them, he lures the seven mini-explorers to the Fortress of Ultimate Darkness where he dwells. He steals the map and imprisons them, but they manage to escape.

All of this builds to a colossal climactic showdown between the forces of good and evil where each of the dwarfs (with the aid of reinforcements they gathered from numerous historical eras) attempt to destroy Evil once and for all only to be humiliatingly thwarted each and every time. In the end, it is God himself who shows up and defeats Evil, freezing him in stone. He then manifests himself in the form of a fastidious old Brit in a three-piece suit (a marvelous Ralph Richardson). Just as Evil had some wonderful lines elaborating on his own nature, God has some humdingers of his own ("I am the supreme Being. I'm not entirely dim."). As he enlists the help of the little thieves to help him clean up the disarray, ("If there's one thing I can't stand, it's mess.") he informs them that, in spite of their attempts to escape him, he was in full control of everything that was happening the whole time. In reality, they didn't steal his map. He gave it to them, because he needed a way of testing his own handiwork and, as he observes, "Evil turned out rather well." In the end, he invites them all back to creation again ("We mustn't waste anymore time. They'll think I lost control again and put it all down to evolution.") but leaves Kevin behind along with one overlooked piece of Evil which starts to smoke. As the smoke starts to engulf Kevin, he cries repeatedly for help only to awaken in his own bed still surrounded by smoke. Two firemen burst through the door and drag him from his burning home. His parents are already outside debating whether to run in and retrieve their beloved appliances. Kevin concludes it must all have been a dream until he discovers photographs he took during his adventure in his bag and realizes that one of the firemen looks exactly like Agamemnon. Eventually the cause of the fire is discovered. What looks like a burnt piece of charcoal is revealed cooking in their toaster oven. Although his parents are confused, Kevin recognizes it as a chunk of Evil and warns his parents not to touch it. Ignoring him, they both reach in to touch it and immediately explode leaving Kevin alone to fend for himself.

Terry Gilliam ostensibly wrote the script to Time Bandits over a weekend and it is a work of incredible originality. Filled with memorable sequences (the giant with the ship on his head, the magic act performed for King Agamemnon, the large disembodied head of God chasing the dwarfs down the long corridor) and combining dry, satirical British humor (or "humour" rather) with exciting action sequences and some fairly nightmarish images, Time Bandits is a truly unique film. Gilliam clearly made the film for children (even shooting it, as Spielberg would do a year later in E.T., from low angles to capture the diminutive perspective of the film's main characters) and as a child I absolutely loved it. I may not have understood or appreciated a lot of the social commentary or philosophical/theological dialogue in it, but I enjoyed the madcap ride through various lavish set pieces and familiar faces including Shelley Duvall, Katherine Helmond and Sean Connery (whose appearance in the screenplay was written simply as a joke until someone sent him the script and he, astoundingly, wanted to do it). It actually reminded me a lot of the kind of dreams I used to have as a youngster, with the outrageously random associations, the "stream-of-consciousness" storytelling and arbitrary transitions that seem to make total sense at the time. Time Bandits was Gilliam's first foray into putting dream-like imagery onscreen and he proved so proficient at it that he has duplicated that practice throughout his career. He is, in my mind, one of the few filmmakers who does that convincingly.

Another one of Gilliam's intentions in making the film was to, for a change, prominently feature dwarf actors. In this regard, Time Bandits was ahead of its time. Years before Warwick Davis did Willow or Peter Dinklage did The Station Agent, Gilliam recognized that it was rare in big-budget studio movies that dwarfs were made the leads. Instead they were usually relegated to minor roles in sci-fi/fantasy films (usually as fairies, goblins, elves or other mythical creatures). Although Time Bandits is a fantasy film, the dwarfs are not buried under mounds of make-up nor are included just for the sake of "bizarreness." They are fully fleshed-out, flawed, interesting characters. Each one has a distinct personality and distinguishing appearance. Particular standouts are David Rappaport as the unofficial leader Randall (who sadly committed suicide years later), Jack Purvis as the angry but athletic Wally and Kenny Baker as the lovable Fidget. To this day, roles in movies and TV are relatively scarce for dwarfs, but Gilliam still proves to be one of the most consistent directors in casting dwarf actors in his movies.

Time Bandits was very successful upon its release, earning $40 million at the box office and establishing Gilliam as a uniquely creative and visionary artist with enormous potential ahead of him. Time Bandits has also been referred to as the first entry in what is considered Gilliam's "fantasy" trilogy, a series of stories that highlights the pros and cons of the different periods of a person's life/maturity: the first (Time Bandits) being about childhood, the second (Brazil) focusing on adulthood and the third (The Adventures of Baron Munchausen) dealing with old age. In the 30 years that have elapsed since the release of Time Bandits, Gilliam has become a very significant (if very divisive) filmmaker whose work has been at times inspired (12 Monkeys, The Fisher King) and at other times embarrassing (The Brothers Grimm, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas). While it may not be his best film (that honor I would probably award to Brazil), it is in some ways his "purest" movie. It is arguably his least pretentious, his most fun and entertaining and, by far, his most innocent and least cynical. Made by a director who barely grew up himself, it is (as the cliché goes) a film for the child in everyone…especially if that child happens to be a somewhat naughty or troubled kid.

Scratching Out a Tune Without Breaking One's Neck

2011-11-03T02:38:00.000-07:00

The following is an article I wrote for the blog Edward Copeland on Film (for which I am a regular contributor) commemorating the 40th anniversary of the release of Fiddler on the Roof.

Anyone who knows me fairly well is aware of the fact that I not only have a tremendous love of cinema but of theatre. My infatuation with the stage came in high school when I was cast in four (count ‘em, four) roles in a production of Nicholas Nickleby. That’s when I was, as the saying goes, “bitten by the bug,” and ever since I’ve taken as many opportunities as I can to participate in local plays as an actor or director. One of the highlights of my theatrical “career” was playing Motel the tailor in a production of Fiddler on the Roof during my mid-twenties. It was not the first time I’d been involved in a staging of this show, having helped out with a production done by my old high school a few years earlier. It was also not the last time I would ever see it performed on stage since my fellow cast members and I attended another production of it about a year later. Needless to say, it’s a show with which I am very familiar. It has been, for a long time now, one of my favorite musicals, and it all began with my exposure to the 1971 film. I watched it at a young age and fell in love with it immediately. It has become one of my favorite movie musicals and in celebration of its 40th anniversary today, I thought I’d share a few thoughts on it.

Fiddler on the Roof began as a series of stories written by the “Jewish Mark Twain,” Sholem Aleichem, and published in 1894. They told of a poor milkman named Tevye and his hardships dealing with his six daughters. The stories served as the basis for several plays in both English and Yiddish as well as a 1939 film simply entitled Tevye. However, in 1964 playwright Joseph Stein, along with composer Jerry Bock and lyricist Sheldon Harnick, created what would be the most popular incarnation of this story as well as the most successful and beloved Broadway musical of its day. It was a foregone conclusion then that it would eventually become a big-screen musical (in a time when Hollywood was still making those), and so in 1970 United Artists hired director Norman Jewison to adapt the musical. Having directed such gritty, mature films such as The Thomas Crown Affair, In the Heat of the Night and The Cincinnati Kid, he seemed an odd choice to bring such family friendly fare to the screen. (Indeed, the story goes he was chosen because the producers mistakenly thought he was Jewish.) As luck would have it, however, it was an inspired choice. People tend to forget that while the first half of Fiddler is bright and joyous, the second half is darker and more melancholy, and while the tone of the second half seems more in keeping with Jewison’s sensibilities, he actually handles both halves with incredible deftness.

Jewison’s first stroke of genius was casting the Israeli actor Chaim Topol in the lead role of Tevye. The choice was somewhat controversial because, although Topol had played the part in London, the great Zero Mostel originated the role on Broadway (even winning a Tony for it) and was expected to reprise it for the film just as he had done with the reprisal of his other Tony Award-winning performance of Pseudolus the slave in 1966’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Jewison, however, felt that Mostel’s style, though perfectly suited for the stage, would’ve been too broad and unrealistic for film. He was absolutely right. Mostel was, of course, pretty disappointed with the decision; in fact, two years later, when Jewison directed the film version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar and wanted Zero Mostel’s son Joshua to play King Herod, Mostel’s reaction was, “Tell him to get Topol’s son!” Topol is a revelation in the part of Tevye, displaying a warmth and wisdom well beyond his years (only being 35 at the time). Indeed, he was rewarded with a Best Actor nomination for his performance. Much of the rest of the cast also comes from the stage and are uniformly good (including the Oscar-nominated Leonard Frey, Norma Crane, Molly Picon, Rosalind Harris and a “pre-Starsky” Paul Michael Glaser, billed simply as “Michael Glaser”).

Jewison’s shrewdness extends beyond casting, however. Wanting to give the film an earthy “period” look (something that is commonplace now but back then was more innovative), Jewison and cinematographer Oswald Morris made the unconventional choice of shooting the entire picture with a stocking over the lens; it can even be seen in a sequence where Tevye is remembering his second oldest daughter as a little girl. Another brilliant decision on the part of Jewison was to get a relatively unknown composer named John Williams to adapt the music for the film. Most of the songs from the show are incredibly memorable (“Tradition,” “Matchmaker, Matchmaker,” “If I Were a Rich Man,” “Sunrise, Sunset”) but when Williams brings his intimate knowledge of the orchestra and bombastic personality to the melodies, helped in no small part by the virtuoso fiddling of the late Isaac Stern, the result is thrilling. Williams won his first Oscar (Best Adapted Score) for the work he did on the film, and it was a harbinger of things to come for the composer.

The story to Fiddler is by now quite well known. In a little village in tsarist Russia called Anatevka, a close-knit community of Jews lives in safety and solitude, trying desperately to preserve their way of life in the face of persecution and socio-political change. This struggle is typified in Tevye, who finds himself constantly warring internally over what to do regarding his five daughters and whom they wish to marry. He expresses these struggles in numerous monologues, songs and prayers to God, usually in the form of an “on the one hand, on the other hand” debate. He often finds himself in precarious situations that he likens to the image of a fiddler on a roof, a musician who is trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking his neck in the process. By the end of the film, Tevye’s three oldest daughters are married (one to a poor tailor, one to a Marxist revolutionary and one to a Catholic) and everyone in the village is driven out by the Cossacks. In the film’s final shot, Tevye invites the symbolic fiddler to follow him and his family to America, indicating that wherever the Jewish people go they bring their traditions, their heritage and their rich cultural and religious identity with them.

When I saw Fiddler on the Roof, I didn’t know much about Judaism and the film served as more or less my introduction to it, but I still connected with the humanity of the characters and their obstacles. One of the things that makes Fiddler work so well is, paradoxically, its universality. Although it is a distinctly Jewish story, all societies can relate to the ongoing battle to hold on to more “traditional” values in the face of an ever-changing world, and this has no doubt contributed to the film’s enduring popularity. (Norman Jewison has said that he is surprised how well the film has been received in various, culturally diverse countries.) The film tends to be absent from “100 Greatest Films” lists that critics, cinephiles and bloggers compile, but then so are a number of other films that are almost universally beloved. (I’ve never seen Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory on these lists either but I’ve yet to meet someone who doesn’t love that film.) To this day it remains a staple of community theater and high school drama productions all across the land. Topol has become indelibly associated with the character of Tevye and continued to play the role on stage for decades after the film’s release. In fact, a good friend of mine, Bob (the fellow who beautifully portrayed Tevye in the production where I was Motel), got to go see Topol in his farewell tour two years ago. After the show he told the aging actor that Tevye was one if his favorite roles and that he was soon going to be auditioning to play it yet again in another local production. Topol simply said to him, “Be good.”

Paradise Lost

2011-10-31T11:55:00.000-07:00

The following is an article I wrote for the blog Edward Copeland on Film (for which I am a regular contributor) commemorating the 25th anniversary of the release of The Mission.

"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."

An elderly Catholic cardinal stares intensely at us, his hard facial features betraying an expression of complete ambiguity. Is he angry? Sad? Afraid? We don't know. After several seconds he begins to speak. He is dictating a letter to the pope, relaying details of a past event which the film proceeds to show in flashback. His narration explains how Jesuit priests, who set up missions in South America for the education and protection of the local natives, journeyed into the depths of the jungle "to bring the word of God to those Indians still living in their natural state and received in return, martyrdom." We then see one such cleric, stripped to the waist and wearing a makeshift crown of thorns on his brow, being tied to a wooden cross and carried by a group of these Indians (whom we later learn are called the Guarani) down to a river where he is thrown in. He floats away silently, still alive but seemingly resigned to his fate. We watch as he travels further downstream, a grotesque living crucifix adrift in a series of rough rapids, before sailing over the edge of an immense waterfall and plummeting to his death. Thus opens the breathtakingly beautiful and tremendously powerful historical drama The Mission (which celebrates its 25th anniversary today), one of the finest films I personally have ever seen.

Based on actual events that occurred in the territory that borders Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina in the mid-18th century (and, knowing Hollywood's track record for distorting history, no doubt embellishing it), The Mission primarily tells the story of two very different, and yet remarkably similar, men. The first is Father Gabriel (Jeremy Irons), a kind, noble and patient Jesuit priest who, after the death of his friend, decides to bravely enter the domain of the Guarani tribe. In one of many memorable and visually spectacular sequences, Father Gabriel climbs up the waterfall from the film's prologue, slipping and almost plunging to his own death in the process. His conquering of the falls is the first of many obstacles he must overcome in his quest to finish what his unlucky colleague began.

In a subsequent scene, Gabriel sits calmly on a rock and plays a sweet but elegiac little tune on his oboe as Guarani begin to slowly surround him with their weapons drawn. Though he notices them approach, he continues to play on, his face clearly betraying fear and yet his will proving strong and resolute. Suddenly one native shouts at him angrily, grabs the oboe, breaks it in two across his own knee and storms off. Another one picks up the pieces, examines the instrument as if trying to understand how such a lovely sound could come from it and meekly offers it back to Gabriel who tries to fix it before shaking his head. The native then takes Gabriel's hand and with the consent of everyone else present leads him back to their home. It is a phenomenal dialogue-free sequence about the universal allure of music and the kind of respect that can exist across vast ethnic, cultural and linguistic barriers. In courageously refusing not to be intimidated by these dangerous "savages" as well as not responding with anger or hostility to their destruction of his beloved property, Gabriel begins the first step in earning the trust and admiration of these understandably scared and suspicious people.

Gabriel begins to establish a mission named San Carlos in the heart of the jungle, a sanctuary where the Guarani can hear the Gospel and also be safe from the brutality of the slave traders who capture (and sometimes kill) them. It is here that the film introduces its other primary character: a mercenary named Captain Rodrigo Mendoza (Robert De Niro) who is so notoriously ruthless that when he encounters father Gabriel in one of his many hunting excursions, Gabriel's assertion that they are "building a mission here to make Christians of these people" is met with the callous response, "If you have the time." However, when Mendoza discovers his younger brother Felipe (Aidan Quinn) in bed with his own fiancee, he angrily kills Felipe in a duel and, unlike his spiritual ancestor Cain, immediately regrets his fratricide afterward. Although the law can't touch him, Mendoza is consumed with guilt and punishes himself by wasting away in a cell refusing to eat or speak to anyone. Into his misery comes none other than Father Gabriel who, in a manner very similar to his initial encounter with the Guarani, bravely confronts Mendoza for the coward that he is (not only refusing to be intimidated by his threats but actually daring him to act on them) and offers him a chance at redemption. "For me there is no redemption," Mendoza laments. "There is no penance hard enough for me." Gabriel asks: "But do you dare try it?" to which Mendoza replies: "Do you dare to see it fail?"

What follows is another magnificent extended sequence wherein Mendoza accompanies Gabriel and a few other members of his order back into the jungle all the while dragging behind him a huge bundle of metallic weaponry (swords, shields, armor, etc) at the end of a rope. It even involves climbing the same waterfall (which becomes a sort of character in itself) Gabriel did. It all culminates in another dialogue-free scene of almost immeasurable emotion and profundity; indeed it's one of the most moving depictions of forgiveness I've ever seen on film (although there is a comparable one in Terrence Malick's latest opus The Tree of Life). Mendoza soon becomes an active part of the seemingly idyllic existence at San Carlos. Grateful for his "second chance" at life, he asks Father Gabriel what he can do in return. Gabriel hands him a Bible and we see Mendoza reading passages from the apostle Paul's first letter to the Corinthians ("Though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing. Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up…But now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love."). Indeed, much like Paul, who persecuted Christians only to become one of their greatest proponents, Mendoza transforms from a murderer and trader of the Guarani into their friend and advocate.

Having witnessed enough death in his life Mendoza swears off all violence (as is seen in a sequence where the Guarani invite him to help slay a boar they've hunted and he refuses) and even joins Gabriel's order vowing to protect and serve his fellow man. This, however, proves very difficult as the signing of the Treaty of Madrid reallocates the previously protected lands inhabited by the Jesuit missions to Portugal, which unlike Spain permits slavery. This leads to the section of the film where Cardinal Altamirano (Ray McAnally), the stoic priest who narrates the film, is sent by the pope to appraise the Jesuit missions and decide whether they should continue to fall under the protection of the Roman Catholic Church. In some emotionally charged scenes (where the disparity between good and evil is rarely so starkly drawn), the Jesuits defend the humanity of the Guarani and the virtues of the missions while the plantation owners assert the inferiority and animal-like natures of the Guarani and apply political pressure to Altamirano for a favorable decision. They are such despicable, sorry excuses for human beings that it actually borders on the comical.

Unfortunately, even after visiting the San Carlos mission and seeing the "paradise on earth" that the Jesuits and the Guarani have built together, Altamirano comes to the inevitable conclusion that in order to save the whole body (the body in this case presumably being the "body of Christ," or the church) one must sometimes hack off a limb (the limb being the missions), not unlike another pragmatic religious leader named Caiaphas who determined centuries earlier that it is "better that one man should die for the people than that the whole nation should perish." He tells the Guarani that they must leave the mission, but they do not want to leave. It is their home. When they question the wisdom and authority of this priest, he asserts that they must learn to submit to the will of God. Confused, the Guarani say that it was the will of God that they came out of the jungle and built the mission and they don't understand why God has changed his mind. The Guarani decide to stay and fight. Altamirano tells the Jesuits that they must not fight with the Guarani but that they must instead return to Rome with him. Angry at this betrayal by the church, Mendoza literally takes up his sword again and, along with several other Jesuits (including a young Liam Neeson), joins with the Guranai in defending their home against the colonialists.

The only one who doesn't take up arms is Father Gabriel. Heartbroken at this turn of events, but still unwilling to abandon the Guarani to their doom, Gabriel chooses to stay with them, but he will not kill. On the eve of the impending battle, Mendoza comes to Gabriel to be blessed for his efforts, but Gabriel refuses to do so. "If you're right, you'll have God's blessing," he says. "If you're not, my blessing won't mean anything." The two men embrace and the climactic final showdown soon follows. Alas, the outcome is hardly unpredictable. Nearly all of the Guranai who resist are slaughtered. Mendoza and the other priests are killed in battle. Father Gabriel, who stages a nonviolent demonstration with many of the Guarani women and children, also is killed and his mission is burned to the ground.

Shortly thereafter, Altamirano is seen eating with the plantation owners and he is utterly sickened not only by the news of this massive loss of human life but by their ambivalence to it. "And you have the effrontery to tell me that this slaughter was necessary?" he asks. Calmly and coldly, they tell him that they believe it was. "We must work in the world, your eminence," one of them says. "The world is thus." To this Altamirano replies, "No, Señor Hontar. Thus have we made the world," before gazing out the window and somberly admitting his own culpability in the affair. "Thus have I made it." The film concludes with Altamirano finishing his letter to the pope and, in one of my favorite post-credit movie codas (right up there with Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Young Sherlock Holmes), stares intensely back into the camera as he did in the film's opening image.

The Mission was written by Tony Award-winning playwright (A Man for All Seasons) and two-time Oscar-winning screenwriter Robert Bolt (Doctor Zhivago and A Man for All Seasons), whose credits also include other historical epics with decidedly intimate focal points such as Lawrence of Arabia and The Bounty. The Mission was directed by the English filmmaker Roland Joffé, whose only prior feature film, The Killing Fields, won him much critical acclaim and seemed to signal the promise of a great director. Unfortunately, his career since The Mission has been notably unimpressive, with his failures (such as Super Mario Bros., The Scarlet Letter and Captivity) looming much larger than his successes. Nonetheless, in spite of its flaws, The Mission is an extraordinarily compelling piece of work with many superlative elements to recommend it. The performances are uniformly solid but Jeremy Irons and Robert De Niro are especially good. The spiritual journeys of these two men are the real heart of the film and both actors imbue their parts with subtlety and soul. De Niro's reticent warrior is perhaps a bit more complex, but Irons' faithful Father Gabriel is no less interesting or sympathetic.

One of the things I love about The Mission is how it doesn't cast its lot with either character at the film's finale. Both men are clearly trying to do the right thing in an otherwise awful situation and even though they disagree as to what that is, the film doesn't judge the actions of either. The film also boasts some gorgeous locales beautifully rendered by cinematographer Chris Menges (who won an Academy Award for his efforts) and the highly evocative film score by legendary Italian composer Ennio Morricone not only stands out as one of his best works but has become one of the most popular soundtracks around…even for those who don't typically notice/collect film music. The piece "On Earth as it is Heaven" (the tune played by Gabriel on his oboe early in the film) is a bittersweet melody that haunts much of the film's imagery and the celebratory choral "Guarani" theme (made up of exotic instruments and native-style chanting) lingers in the memory long after the film is over.

Although it received a handful of awards (including the prestigious Palme d'Or at Cannes) and numerous other nominations, The Mission was lukewarmly received when it was released in 1986. Nobody panned it but few critics praised it as a masterpiece either. Most labeled it merely mediocre and remained rather indifferent to it. Roger Ebert wrote that it felt "exactly like one of those movies where you'd rather see the documentary about how the movie was made" (incidentally, the DVD and Blu-ray release of The Mission includes the hour-long doc Omnibus, which chronicles the making of the film in case he, or anyone else, ever wants to actually do that; I have and although it is fascinating, I still prefer the film itself). Considered by many to be muddled, ponderous, pious and with characters who seemed more like "types" than fleshed-out human beings, it grossed a meager $17 million at the box office and faded into relative obscurity thereafter. Over the years, however, as more and more people have discovered this little-known treasure of a film, it has gained a somewhat more prominent reputation …particularly among religious folk who are drawn to its themes of redemption, forgiveness, faith, courage, love, compassion, goodness, evangelism, etc. In fact, the weekly Anglican publication Church Times picked it as No. 1 on a list of the "Top 50 Religious Films" and in 2004 Arts & Faith ranked it No. 54 on their "Top 100 Spiritually Significant Films."

Speaking only for myself, I find it to be an incredibly deep and thoughtful piece of work; indeed one of my favorite films. In the interests of full disclosure though, I should probably make it known that I am myself a Christian (though I don't belong to any particular denomination) and as such tend to respond favorably to stories that involve people who share my faith and the struggles that they deal with as they attempt to live it out. Many people already now this about me, but it's still a little nerve-wracking to admit that about myself because I realize it is not a popular thing to be right now. There are a lot of Christians out there who are making a lot of noise (as well as a lot of enemies) and as such people tend to lump us all in the same category.

As I believe Dr. Peter E. Dans observes in his book Christians in Movies: A Century of Saints and Sinners, it is becoming more and more difficult to find positive portrayals of Christians in movies and TV and far more commonplace to see them depicted as sanctimonious, hypocritical, judgmental, right-wing ignoramuses (see movies such as Paul, Footloose and Easy A as well as TV shows such as 30 Rock, The Big Bang Theory and The Office). Consequently, a film such as The Mission, where the church may not come off particularly well but individual believers are depicted quite sympathetically, resonates with me simply because it goes against the recent trend.

I'd like to think, however, that I can still be objective enough to recognize a good movie (which I think The Mission is) when I see one, whether it tends to paint Christians in a good light or not. I am not particularly interested, for example, in so-called "Christian" movies, partially because they are essentially works of propaganda and I tend to respond to all propaganda the same (whether it propagates something I happen to agree with or not), but also because they tend to be as many critics (including this one and this one) have pointed out, pretty bad. Nonetheless, there are some films that I think could be classified as "Christian" (though I personally don't even really consider that a viable category) that don't fit the usual "faith-based" mold we have come to expect and which I think are far more powerful, existential and artistic (films such as Shadowlands, Chariots of Fire, The Exorcist, Dogma, Chocolat, etc). I think The Mission belongs with those films. It might not be a "Christian movie" per se (whatever that is) but it is a movie about Christianity and its admittedly checkered past (I am not naive enough to think that the real-life missions were as idyllic as they are depicted here) and it appropriates into its worldview many of the truths about life and human nature that draw me to the Christian ideology.

Trust him. He knows what he's doing.

2011-09-23T05:22:00.000-07:00

The following is an article I wrote for the blog Edward Copeland on Film (for which I am a regular contributor) commemorating the 25th anniversary of the premiere of Sledge Hammer!.

"If all you have is a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail."

Cop shows are a dime a dozen. For as long as the medium of television has existed there have been cop shows. Consequently, in such an overcrowded genre, which includes such distinguished icons as Dragnet, Adam-12 and Hill Street Blues, it is very difficult for a new one to make a distinct impression on viewers let alone leave any kind of legacy. Thus, in a bold attempt to be different, some producers have had the brilliant idea of doing a comic cop show, but prior to Reno 911, those programs proved to be television poison. Car 54, Where Are You?, Cop Rock and Police Squad! all had notoriously brief runs (although the latter would spawn a very successful comedy movie franchise). Alas, the same fate also befell the satirical 1980s sitcom Sledge Hammer! Despite critical acclaim, Hammer! was consistently second-to-last in the Nielsen ratings and after running only two seasons was unceremoniously canceled. Like its “comic-cop” brethren, Hammer! has developed a cult following over the years but unlike its “comic-cop” brethren, Hammer! has aged remarkably well. In fact, watching it 25 years later it is painfully clear that Sledge Hammer! was, as the saying goes, way ahead of its time.

Needless to say, without Dirty Harry there would be no Sledge Hammer!. In 1971, 16-year-old Alan Spencer saw the iconic Clint Eastwood film and was very affected by it. While the movie was inciting heated debate over whether its portrayal of a gung-ho policeman more interested in protecting innocent people than following the law was fascistic, Spencer astutely grasped the absurd humor of the whole thing. He wrote a script that featured a central character with even less scruples and an even more destructive personality — sort of “Dirty Harry on acid” — and thus, Sledge Hammer was born. However, it would be many years before it reached the television screen. Originally intended for HBO, it was ABC that eventually took a chance on Hammer!. I wish I could report that risk paid off but, as actor David Rasche puts it, “it was not to be.”

I discovered Sledge Hammer! completely by accident. When it premiered on ABC in 1986 it initially followed a half-hour Disney show called Sidekicks (with Ernie Reyes, Jr., Gil Gerard and Keye Luke) that I wanted to watch because it was based on a Disney Sunday Movie I loved called The Last Electric Knight. At the time I thought it was great, but now I realize it was just another second-rate Karate Kid rip-off. However, I do owe the show a tremendous debt because if it weren’t for Sidekicks I wouldn’t have seen Sledge Hammer!. I remember watching the Sidekicks episode on the TV in my room and when it was over I decided to leave the set on rather than turn it off and go to bed. When the next show’s opening credits began I heard this very energetic, macho-sounding theme music (which I would later discover was written by an up-and-coming film music composer named Danny Elfman who would go on to become one of my all-time favorite musical talents) playing over close-up images of a .44 Magnum with an insignia of a sledge hammer imprinted on the handle. After several almost erotic-looking shots of the gun resting on a satin pillow a hand reaches into frame and holds it up next to his face staring at it longingly. He twirls it several times, points it slightly to the left of the camera and then says “Trust me. I know what I’m doing,” before firing it and making what was presumably supposed to be a hole in the television screen. Interestingly, the original idea was to have Hammer shoot directly into the camera Great Train Robbery-style, but the network was nervous it would frighten viewers and possibly even result in heart attacks. Hence, the slightly off-kilter direction of the gun’s barrel was agreed upon as a compromise. Incidentally, I‘d like to make a snarky remark here about television executives overestimating the stupidity of viewers, but I won’t because, according to IMDB, on the night of its debut a Midwest ABC affiliate was indeed “startled by the opening sequence, panicked and threw on the station logo thinking something had gone wrong with their tape machine.” It’s the kind of turn of the events that would fit right in with the absurd spirit of the show itself.

Sledge Hammer! was, as creator Alan Spencer aptly claimed, a “sitcom for people who hate sitcoms.” The main premise was apparently to take every cop show/movie cliché and exaggerate it to the point of absurdity. The humor ranged from pointed socio-political and commentary all the way to goofy, over-the-top slapstick. It essentially did for cop dramas what Get Smart (an admitted influence on Spencer) did for spy stories. It may have been dumb but it was dumb in a very intelligent way. It also was, and this is no small feat, side-splittingly funny. I remember liking it an awful lot when I was 10 but I was genuinely surprised, as I reviewed most of the episodes recently, how often I laughed out loud. Much of the hilarity came from the series’ central character, the sadistic, misogynistic, nihilistic San Francisco homicide detective. Born to parents Jack and Armen (think about it) Inspector Sledge Hammer was the kind of cop for whom excessive force was standard operating procedure, the kind of cop who would brag about violating a criminal’s civil rights, the kind of cop for whom the observation “he shoots first and ask questions later” was not a criticism but a compliment.

REPORTER: We're here at the scene of a liquor store robbery that was thwarted by the man beside me, Inspector Sledge Hammer. Inspector Hammer, tell us what happened.
HAMMER: Well, miss, I was in this store when two thugs entered and threatened the owner with shotguns. At that time, I drew my Magnum and killed them both. Then I bought some eggs, and some milk, and some of those little cocktail weenies.
REPORTER: Inspector Hammer, was what you did in that store absolutely necessary?
HAMMER: Oh, yes, I had no groceries at all.

Hammer’s main ally in his fight with crime (nay, his all-out full-scale global thermonuclear war on crime) was his beloved .44 Magnum. Hammer so adored that gun that he always had it with him. He showered with it, slept with it (and not under his pillow like James Bond, but resting comfortably on the pillow next to him…like a lover) and even talked to it. Yes, talked to it. Hammer was clearly unbalanced and yet still sane enough to realize that talking to one‘s firearm is considered strange. It’s a very funny running gag throughout the run of the series that every time he is caught conversing with his weapon, he would try to shrug it off or make some feeble excuse ("Who are you talking to?" "Uh, nobody."). In spite of his sheer disregard for any kind of human decency, compassion or etiquette, Hammer is a very engaging character. To that end, the charm and charisma of actor David Rasche (The Sentinel, Burn After Reading) goes a long way. Rasche fully commits to Hammer’s more disturbing personality traits without even attempting to soften any of his hard edges, but still manages to make him bizarrely likable. Rasche is truly a revelation in the role and it is no surprise to learn that Spencer wrote the part for him.

Supporting Rasche’s Hammer is the beautiful but tough Dori Doreau, played by the sexy and talented Anne-Marie Martin. In typical cop show/movie fashion, the crazy cop’s partner is very by-the-book. Though she is often distressed at Hammer’s antics, she nonetheless seems to like him. Martin essentially plays the straight man to Rasche’s anarchic antics (though she can be, and sometimes is, hysterically funny herself…especially in “Desperately Seeking Dori” were she gets hit on the head and believes she is Hammer herself). She’s the “99 to his Max.” Rounding out the solid cast is Harrison Page’s long-suffering Captain Trunk. Just as Chief Inspector Dreyfus was constantly irritated with Clouseau, so is Trunk forever upset with Hammer, always reprimanding him, but never able to let him go (because against all sense and reason Sledge somehow manages to get the job done), Trunk usually expresses himself in loud verbal tirades. Years before Frank McRae was shouting “SLATERRRRR!!!” at the top of his lungs at Schwarzenegger’s rogue cop character in Last Action Hero, Page’s police captain was shouting “HAMMERRRRR!!!!!” on prime time TV. Interestingly, Spencer never intended the character of Trunk to be African-American because, although he didn’t mind Hammer’s sexism, sadism and jingoism, he didn’t want Hammer to appear racist. It was Harrison’s sheer volume that won him the role. In his audition he decided to just let loose and go for it and his yelling brought people into the office from other floors in the building. Spencer hired him on the spot.

Another element that contributed to the show’s caliber (sorry) was the pedigree of directors they got. Indeed some of the best episodes were helmed by some of the best directors working in television at that time, such as Jackie Cooper and Bill Bixby. The pilot (“Under the Gun”) was directed with style and confidence by Martha Coolidge (Real Genius) and helped set the standard for everything that followed. I vividly remember watching that pilot. The mayor of San Francisco — John Vernon, who also played the mayor of that same city in Dirty Harry — hires Hammer to bring his kidnapped daughter home. I hadn’t yet seen Dirty Harry at the time (though I’ve seen it since) but it was not necessary to enjoy the over-the-top action and obviously over-the-top humor. One of the most memorable scenes involve Sledge on his way to work one morning in his car (an ugly green Dodge St. Regis with bullet holes in the windshield and a dent in its side) when he encounters a road block. Told by another officer that there’s a sniper on the roof of a nearby building, Hammer asks if the building is empty, goes to his trunk, pulls out a bazooka, levels the entire edifice and calmly declares “I think I got him.”

Dirty Harry was, of course, not the only movie Hammer! spoofed. Robocop (“Hammeroid”), Crocodile Dundee (“Death of a Few Salesmen”), and Witness (“Witless”) were also among those sent up in other memorable episodes. However, the makers of Hammer! were not content to simply satirize then-recent films. They also set their sights on such classics as North by Northwest (“Comrade Hammer”), Vertigo (“Vertical”) and Casablanca ("Play It Again, Sledge”). Hammer! didn’t just take down movies, of course. It also attacked other TV shows. ALF, Max Headroom and particularly Mr. Belvedere took a beating. One of my favorite moments comes when Hammer is in a bar watching a newscast on the TV when he gets up to leave, hears that they are returning to their broadcast of Miami Vice (one of the shows Hammer! was competing with) and blows away the set with his gun. In addition to movies, Hammer! also poked fun at significant cultural phenomena of the period, some of which would eventually become dated references (such the colorization of black and white films) and others which actually anticipated their widespread profusion (such as JFK conspiracy nuts). One of the greatest episodes (“All Shook Up”), written as a love letter to Spencer’s recently deceased friend Andy Kaufman, had Hammer going undercover as an Elvis impersonator (even going so far as to attend “Elvis impersonator school”) to capture a serial killer who’s targeting Elvis impersonators. Although the budget didn’t allow them include any actual Elvis songs, David Rasche wrote some great original Elvis-style music that was used instead. Occasionally, Hammer! would even tackle a serious subject (such as ageism in Hollywood or sexual harassment), albeit in a humorous fashion.

As with all television shows not every episode is a winner, but when Sledge Hammer! was good, it was great. It was a show never afraid to take chances. For example, as the end of the first season approached and it became clearer and clearer that the show would not get picked up, Spencer wrote a season finale that would allow the show to (literally) go out with a bang. In “The Spa Who Loved Me,” a terrorist group steals a nuclear warhead and threatens to set it off if their demands (which include new episodes of Moonlighting) are not met. Hammer, Dori and Trunk find the warhead in a spa and Hammer, after uttering his usual chilling assurance that he “knows what he’s doing,” attempts to disarm the thing only to have it explode destroying all of San Francisco. Partially intended as a desperate attempt to boost their ratings (a confession they got Robin Leach to make at the outset of the episode) and also partially intended as petulant thumbing their nose at the establishment, the outrageous gamble actually paid off. The finale was so highly watched that the network renewed for a second season, provided Spencer would find a way to get out of the apocalyptic ending. In typical Sledge Hammer!-style, Spencer's solution was yet another satirical jab at television…specifically lame resolutions to unresolvable scenarios (such as “it was all a dream”). In the premiere episode of season two, a title card informed viewers that the rest of the season actually occurs five years before the nuclear explosion. The usual credits then roll, only this time with the subtitle “The Early Years." It makes no sense (especially since Doreau was made Hammer's partner in the pilot and here she's seen working with him), but it's clever and hilarious.

The primary sin of Sledge Hammer! was being too good and too provocative for its time. It’s easy to see why audiences didn’t embrace it. It's pretty gutsy stuff. Even if ABC had treated it right (i.e. not pitting it against Dallas and Miami Vice in the first season and moving it around to various time slots in the second season, ultimately setting it against that ratings powerhouse known as The Cosby Show), it still might not have ever caught on. The very subversive sensibility of the show fits in more with the hyper-cynical culture we find ourselves in now than the conservative, homogenized environment of Reagan-era America. The fact that the show, against Spencer’s wishes, included a “canned” laugh track for much of the first season (I vividly remember that) illustrates this very point. At the same time, however, the tone and tenor of the whole thing (even the violence) is all so silly and good-natured that it's hard to believe anyone could take it so seriously as to be offended by it (which many people were). After being canceled in 1988, Hammer! did very well in syndication and both seasons are now available on DVD (sans the insipid laugh track thankfully). My advice, if you haven’t yet experienced this woefully underrated show, is to check it out. You might be surprised. You also might find yourself wondering how on earth the show didn’t catch on…or as Sledge himself would say whenever someone tried to use logic or reason on him: “Don’t confuse me.”

"Natural" Beauty

2011-09-16T16:25:00.000-07:00

Caught a little bit of Barry Levinson's The Natural on TV the other day and was reminded of the fact that it features some of the most gorgeous cinematography I've ever seen (courtesy of Caleb Deschanel who also shot The Passion of the Christ and The Black Stallion). So, as as I did with The Age of Innocence, here's a taste of some of the film's stunning visuals.

The Mystery of the Missing Movie (or "Body Heat" at 30)

2011-08-27T23:47:00.000-07:00

The following is an article I wrote for the blog Edward Copeland on Film (for which I am a regular contributor) commemorating the 30th anniversary of the release of Body Heat.

There’s a kind of freedom that comes in knowing you're about to die. A lack of fear. Once you’ve finally accepted that your number is up, a strange sort of detachment comes over you. I’ve always been a pretty apathetic fellow, but I’d never experienced anything like what I felt standing in that alleyway, staring down the barrel of a .38, two fresh corpses sprawled on the grimy ground beside me, knowing full well that my next breath would be my last. I found that I didn’t give a damn about anyone or anything anymore. Not only that, but I’d lost my ability to B.S. There's no deceit in death. A man who lies to save his own skin does so because he still thinks there’s a chance he’ll live. A man who resigns himself to his fate cannot lie. So, in those last few moments of my life, as I reflected back on the twisted course of events that led me there, I knew it was the absolute truth.

It all started two days ago. It was a hot August evening in the city. I sat in my chair watching the ceiling fan spin, which did nothing to cool things off. It just blew the hot air around. The Venetian blinds in my window cast long shadows across my desk where a nearly empty bottle of bourbon sat comfortably next to an empty shot-glass. I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was almost closing time. Suddenly the door to my office opened and a tall, thin brunette dressed to the nines strolled in and closed the door behind her. “Are you Joe Cannon?” she asked.

“If I’m not, then one of us in the wrong office,” I said indicating the name on the door window that clearly read "JOSEPH CANNON: PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR." She sat down in the chair in front of my desk and crossed her legs giving me a swell view of them. "So, what can I do for you, Miss…?"

“My name isn't important. What matters is that I need your help. I would like to hire you to find…" she hesitated, took a deep breath and said, “…a movie.”

“Come again?”

“I need you to help me find a movie.” Now, in all the years I’d been a snoop, I never had a request like this. I’ve educated various women in the extracurricular activities of their husbands. I’ve helped locate missing persons. I’d even tracked down and fingered the occasional blackmailer, thief or murderer, but finding a movie? That was a new one.

“Not my line of work, doll,” I uttered. “Why don’t you try Blockbuster? There’s one down the street.”

“It closed down,” she said. I really need to get out more, I thought. “Besides, I know precisely what movie it is I’m looking for. All I need is a name. I caught it late one night on cable many years ago. I thought it was an excellent example of that genre known as film noir. It involved a man who had fallen in love with a dangerous blonde. Together they plotted to kill her husband but after the deed is done, he starts to suspect that she’s just using him for her own selfish purposes and —”

“I know that film,” I interjected. “It’s Double Indemnity.”

She shook her head. “No, that’s not it. I’m familiar with that film too and although it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that it was used as a source of inspiration given the many similarities, the film I’m looking for has some distinct differences. First of all, Double Indemnity was made in the '40s and is in black and white. My film was made in the '80s and is in color. The protagonist of Double Indemnity is an insurance salesman while the protagonist of my film is a lawyer. That one is set in Los Angeles while my film takes place in Florida in the middle of an intense heat wave. In fact, because of that I believe the title has something to do with ‘heat’ or ‘hot’… also because it’s a very sexy film. There are several love scenes that are quite erotic, though it never crosses the line into becoming pornographic. There is some nudity, but far more is implied than displayed. Whoever made it knows that the most powerful tool in making something appear sexy is the audience’s imagination.” She suddenly stopped talking, a little embarrassed that she’d just gone on for two minutes about this mysterious film. “Please, I have to find it. It means a great deal to me. I was told that if anyone could help me, you could.”

I was about to tell her that I had better things to do than help some needy broad (who wouldn't even give me her name) track down some random flick she’d had a late-night fling with years earlier, but there was something about her eyes that grabbed me: a look of desperation in them that I couldn’t shake. That’s when I made a mistake that you never make in my line of work. For the first time in a long time, I felt sorry for a client. I told her I’d help her out. Her face lit up. As I discussed my pay, she jotted down some more information on a scrap of paper (along with a number where I could reach her) which she handed to me. She rose and sauntered to the door. “Thank you, Mr. Cannon,” she said looking over her shoulder with a smile.

"Call me Joe," I said. "What do I call you?"

"I'm known to my friends as 'The Siren.'"

So, a Greek mythological creature hired me to find a movie. I guess I'd had weirder cases. I decided to start with my old Army buddy Matt Zoller Seitz. Matt was such a film freak that he had forgotten more about movies than I would ever know. The next day I called his workplace. He wasn’t there, but his office told me where I could find him. I caught up with Matt at a local park playing with his kids. He was pushing one of them in a swing when he saw me coming toward him and smiled. “Joe,” he said holding out his hand as I approached him. “It’s been a while. What’s new? You still in the gumshoe business?"

I shook his hand. “Still. In fact, I’m on a case right now. I’m looking for a movie.”

“Well, I’m your man. What do you got?”

“It’s film noir. Story involves some sap who gets mixed up with the wrong dame. Together they kill her husband and then things start to go bad for him.”

“Sounds like Double Indemnity. Released in 1944. Directed by Billy Wilder.”

“Nah, this one’s more recent,” I said pulling out my notepad and looking at the details The Siren gave me. I told Matt that this film was made in the '80s. I mentioned it featured William Hurt as the sap, Kathleen Turner (in her first movie role) as the voluptuous vixen he falls for, the late great Richard Crenna played her husband, J.A. Preston was the investigating cop, Ted Danson (in what apparently was one of his best performances) portrayed a sleazy rival lawyer who is always dancing wherever he goes and a very young Mickey Rourke was an explosives expert. I went on about what the lady had told me regarding the film’s visual style: how the camera could glide with confidence and grace but also know precisely when to let it rest in a static shot. As I read more and more details off, I noticed Matt’s smile slowly fade away. It was replaced by a look of concern. He was clearly getting uncomfortable. “I…uh, I don’t know that one. Sorry. It just doesn’t ring a bell.”

“You not knowin’ a flick? That doesn’t sound like you, Matt.”

“Well, I guess you can’t know ‘em all, huh?” he said wiping the sweat off his forehead with a handkerchief. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I gotta take the kids home.”

“What’s wrong, Matt?”

“Nothing. Just…let this one go, Joe. Let it go.”

Matt’s warning echoed in my head as I drove all over town talking to other friends of mine who happened to know a lot about movies. Everywhere I went I got the same answer. They didn’t know. Of course, I knew they were lying. They did know and they weren’t talking. They were scared. Someone had put the fear of God into them, but who? And why? As the evening rolled in, I was no closer to finding this flick than I was to finding Nick Jonas’ talent. I decided to try the local library. Not only did they have a very extensive collection of movies to check out, but I happened to know a girl who worked there. Her name was Sheila O’Malley. She was a blonde, bookish type with whom I’d had a thing going a while ago, but she wanted more so I got out while the getting was good. Since then she’d had a string of casual boyfriends, but I still think she was waiting for me to come to my senses again and I was able to use that sometimes to my advantage. I caught up with her as she was getting ready to lock up. “Well, look at what the cat dragged in.” she said smiling wryly. “What brings you here, Joe?” I told her everything I knew about the movie and she agreed to help me out, for old time’s sake. She typed the information into her computer database. “Ah, yes. Here we go. The film you’re looking for is called Body Heat. It was released on August 28, 1981 and was written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan. He’s the guy who wrote the screenplays to Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Empire Strikes Back. He later went on to direct The Big Chill, Silverado and Mumford, but Body Heat was his first film.”

“Yeah, fascinating," I said suppressing a yawn. "Do you have it?”

“As a matter of fact, we do.” She led me to the area where they kept their movies. As she looked through the numerous rows of plastic cases for it, I decided to ask her if she had ever seen the film herself and if so what she thought of it. “Oh, sure. I saw it a long time ago. I quite liked it. I remember thinking that the music in particular was very good. John Barry, the fella responsible for such great scores as Midnight Cowboy, Somewhere in Time and many of the James Bond films, wrote a very lush, sensual jazz score. It captured the steamy essence of the story quite effectively I thought. In fact, it’s one of his best scores.” She stopped and looked off nostalgically. "I can still hear that sultry sax solo playing over those opening credits." I cleared my throat, she snapped out of it, pulled out a case with an image of a mustached guy and a hot blonde dressed in white on the cover. “Here we go.” She opened it and her brow suddenly furled. “Well, that’s strange. It’s not in here.”

“What?” I asked.

“It should be here, but it’s not. There’s no movie in the case. Someone stole it.”

This just gets more and more bizarre, I thought. “Something’s going on here, Sheila. I don’t know what it is, but it doesn’t feel right. Can you tell me who the last person was to check it out?”

“Sure.” She led me back to her computer where she looked up the film’s rental history. “Someone named Ross Ruediger.” I thanked her and headed for the door. “What are you getting’ yourself into here, Joe?” she called out to me. I pretended not to hear.

So, I had a title and I had a name. I decided to pay a visit to this Ruediger fellow and see what he knew. I found his address in the phone book and the following morning showed up at his home. It was a nice suburban house with a perfectly mowed lawn and a white picket fence. As I approached the front door, I noticed that it was slightly open. I drew my piece and cautiously entered. The living room had been ransacked. Someone was looking for something. Chairs were overturned, couch pillows were cut to bits and dozens of opened movie cases were spread out all over the floor. It was quite the collection: L.A. Confidential, Brick, Devil in a Blue Dress, The Long Goodbye and many more. What was most striking about this residence, however, was the dead body lying face-up in the middle of the floor. He looked like he had been shot in the chest. I leaned over, pulled out his wallet and checked his I.D. It was Ross. There was very little else in the wallet aside from a couple bucks, a library card and a scrap of paper with some random letters and numbers that looked like they'd been scrawled hurriedly on it: "D.B. 5552314 82881." I pocketed the cash and the paper, rose to my feet and made my way to the kitchen. Unlike the living room it was immaculate. The floor had been swept, the counters were clean and there were healthy potted plants everywhere throughout it. Suddenly something hit me over the head. I fell forward and everything went black.

When I woke up, my ears were ringing like the national anthem and my head felt like it had gone 12 rounds with Tyson. How long had I been out? I opened my eyes and found myself staring up into the faces of two of my least favorite people in the world: Lt. Dennis Cozzalio and Sgt. Jim Emerson of the police department.

“Hey, sleeping beauty. Welcome back to the land of the living,” Cozzalio said. Together, the two of them picked me up and threw me into a chair next to a small table in the middle of the kitchen. They told me that when they received a call from some neighbor who heard a gunshot in this house, they never expected to find me here. They then proceeded to ask me a series of questions in rapid succession, each one taking a turn. It was like watching a tennis match — and I was the ball. I told them everything I knew but decided it was wise to leave out a few little things, such as the truth. Cozzalio wasn’t buying my yarn.

“That’s some story,” he said rolling his eyes. “If I ever enter a fiction-writing contest I’ll have to remember it.”

“Now, why would I lie?”

“To protect your client maybe. Tall, thin brunette. Goes by the nickname 'The Siren?'” I froze. How did he know about her? Cozzalio pulled out my notepad. "It was found on the floor next to you. What's this Siren want with you? And what does it have to do with all these details about some neo-noir movie?"

"You know I can't tell you about what goes on between me and a client, Lieutenant."

"Well, you're not going to be doing her any good by keeping quiet. We just got a call that her body was found in her apartment across town. Looks like she was plugged with a .38.”

“Same weapon it seems was used on Mr. Ruediger here,” Emerson added.

"So, you see, Cannon," Cozzalio continued. "This is a double homicide. Somehow you’re connected to both of them and you damn sure know more than you’re tellin’ me. So, give…or am I gonna have to haul you in on suspicion of murder.”

He was bluffing. “Oh, come on, Lieutenant. You think I came in here, popped this guy and then decided to take a nap until you boys showed up?”

“Then give us something, Cannon.” Emerson barked. “What can you tell us about this Ross Ruediger?”

“He liked neo-noir?” I joked. Cozzalio wasn't amused. Emerson looked confused.

“What’s neo-noir?” he asked.

Cozzalio turned to him. “Neo-noir is a term used to describe a recent sub-genre of movies that attempt to replicate many of the same elements seen in classic examples of film noir from the '30s, '40s and the '50s. Some have said that noir was a genre distinctive to a particular historical era of cinema. Others have said that the genre is more defined by its content (style, themes, etc). Neo-noir tries to imitate the form, if not perhaps the function, of traditional noir and sometimes it’s highly successful, as it was in Chinatown. Other times, such as The Black Dahlia…well, not so much.”

“Can I go now?” I asked. Cozzalio glared at me. He knew he had nothing he could hold me on.

“Don’t leave town,” he snarled.

So, The Siren was dead. Probably shot by the same gun that killed Ruediger. What was going on? What was so important about this movie? I walked the streets trying to figure it all out, but my head hurt. I stopped at a drugstore a block from my office and bought an ice pack. My head was still throbbing as I trudged up to the stairs to my office. Before I could get my key in the lock, the door flew open and a hand pulled me in and threw me to the floor. “Good evening, Mr. Cannon,” a polite but sinister voice said. I looked up and saw a small, extremely well-groomed man in a suit that cost more than a year’s worth of my rent sitting in my chair with his feet up on my desk. I wasn’t sure how, but there was something familiar about him. “I hope you don’t mind that we let ourselves in.”

“Not at all,” I muttered as I slowly stood up. “Make yourself at home.”

“Thank you. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is David Bordwell and this is my associate Odie.” I turned around and got a good look at the goon who pulled me in. He was easily twice my size with hands as big as cocoanuts. He grunted a greeting. The little guy in the fancy suit pulled a tiny clipper out of his pocket and started to trim his nails as he spoke to me. “Word is that you’re looking for a movie that goes by the name of Body Heat? Is that true?”

“What’s it to you?” The mountain slapped me upside the back of the head and my knees became acquainted with the floorboards once again.

“Let’s just say that I am also interested in obtaining that particular motion picture. I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but it is very hard to find these days. All existing copies seem to have vanished. If one is indeed located, it could be very valuable. I was wondering if I could retain your services in finding it for me?”

“Thanks, but I’m not interested.” Again, his henchman smacked me to the floor. That’s it, I thought. I’m tired of being knocked around on this case. As I slowly rose to my feet I shot him a dirty look. “Touch me again and you’ll regret it,” I threatened.

“Easy, Odie.” the suit remarked. “I don’t think you realize how important a person I am. I could reward you very handsomely for it.”

“I don’t know who you are and I don’t care.” I said. Odie took another swing at me, but this time I ducked and brought my knee up into his groin. He went down like the walls of Jericho. “I warned you.” I gloated as he rolled around on the floor whimpering. The suit rose from my chair and walked around the desk toward me.

“It’s so hard to find good help these days.” He reached into his jacket, pulled out a small pad and a pencil and started writing something on it. “If you are ever interested in becoming a rich man, ring this number here. It's my private line.” He ripped the slip of paper from the pad and held it out to me. Reluctantly I took it. With a bow, he was gone, taking his limping sidekick with him.

I sat down at the desk and removed my hat. Who was this guy and why did he seem so familiar to me? I glanced down at the paper and was about to crumple it up when I noticed something. The phone number he wrote was "555-2314." I pulled out the paper I got off Ruediger's body. "5552314." It was the same number. That's when I noticed the letters. "D.B." David Bordwell! Ruediger knew Bordwell! Not only that, he had his private number. The only thing that I had left to decipher on the sheet was the remaining number: "82881." That's when it hit me. I grabbed my phone and called the library hoping Sheila would still be there. She was. I asked her when she had said the release date was for Body Heat. "August 28, 1981," she immediately responded. 82881. It was a date! 8-28-81! Thirty years ago today! In a flash, it all suddenly made sense. I remembered where I'd seen Bordwell before and I knew where to find the flick.

"Sheila, I need you to do something for me," I said. "I need you to call the police department. Ask for a Lieutenant Cozzalio or Sergeant Emerson. Tell them to meet me in 30 minutes at this address."

"What's going on, Joe?" Sheila asked.

"Just do it, Sheila," I asserted. "I know who murdered Ruediger and The Siren. I also know where to find the missing movie." I gave her the address to tell the police and she agreed to call them right away. I hung up and immediately dialed Bordwell's private number to set up a meeting. First, however, I had to make a quick stop somewhere else.

A half-hour later I was standing in the middle of an alley between Cain Street and Chandler Boulevard. My hat's brim dipped low, my trench coat's collar rose high. It wasn't that I was cold. This was just the kind of neighborhood in which you didn't want to draw attention to yourself; the kind of place where the sound of gunshots were so common that neighbors weren't reporting them to the police. I looked around nervously as I waited. Suddenly, I heard a voice behind me.

"Well, that didn't take long, Mister Cannon," I turned around and standing before me was the little guy and the big guy. "Is that it there?" he said pointing to the disc I held in my hand. I nodded. "Where did you find it?"

"At Ruediger's house. When you tossed the place you forgot to look in the potted plants in his kitchen…one in particular. When a man takes great care to mow his lawn and see that his plants are watered and healthy, it should stand out to you when one plant is dying. It means he's got something else hidden in there." Bordwell looked impressed as he held out his hand. "Before I hand it over, I was wondering if you could tell me what would someone with unlimited access to the Warner Bros. movie archives want with a copy of Body Heat?" He smiled and asked me when I realized who he was. "I knew your face when we spoke in my office earlier, but I just couldn't place it. Then I remembered reading an article in Variety a few months ago about how you had taken over the DVD/Blu-Ray division at Warner Bros. studios. I just couldn't figure out why someone in your position would so badly want to get their hand on a copy of this or any other Warner Bros. title."

"Have you ever seen it, Mister Cannon?" he asked. I shook my head. "Well, it's a fine film. A damn fine film. It was well-received by critics back when it was released and the years have been very kind to it. It's one of the treasures of our library and were it to be re-released on DVD and Blu-ray in a special 30th anniversary collector's edition it could make us a fortune…but only if people didn't already own it. The economy has hit everyone hard, Mister Cannon. Consumers don't double-dip anymore. They're tired of having to repeatedly purchase their favorite films in new formats. Just as Ridley Scott's FINAL CUT of Blade Runner promised closure to so many cinephiles, so would this definitive release of Body Heat be the last chapter in the life of a significant piece of cinematic history."

"That's why it's so hard to find nowadays," I continued. "You've been snatching up every available copy out there so that demand would be high for your release of Body Heat with all its 'bells and whistles.' You also bribed or intimidated reputable cinephiles, such as my buddy Matt Zoller Seitz, so they'd keep their mouths shut. Tell me, why did you kill Ross Ruediger? Was he refusing to give up his copy of it? Did he love neo-noir movies so much that he couldn't bear to part with it? Or was he just threatening to spill the beans on the whole operation? And what about The Siren? She was just a woman in love. What did she ever do to deserve what she got?"

"You know, I'm bored with this conversation," he said casually pulling out a .22 and pointing it right at me. "Now, if you don't mind, Mister Cannon, kindly hand over the disc." I tossed it to him. "Thank you."

"Are you going to kill me too? Just as you killed Ross Ruediger and The Siren?"

Bordwell chuckled. "This may be hard for you to believe, Mister Cannon, but I've never heard of this…'Siren.' I didn't kill Mister Ruediger either. In fact, he and I had an understanding. He was very keen on selling me his copy of Body Heat. That's why I gave him my private number. He was supposed to get in touch with me by today, but he never called. However, it's no matter now. Goodbye, Mister Cannon." Bordwell bowed and turned to leave. Odie grunted his usual response and turned with him. Was he telling the truth? Did I have it all wrong? If he didn't kill them, then who did? At that moment two gunshots rang out and both Bordwell and his henchman fell to the ground. The shots came from behind me. I whipped around and standing there holding a smoking .38 was the last person I ever expected to see.

"Sheila?"

"That's right, Joe," she said smiling at me.

"What the…? I don't get — How? Why?"

"It's a long story, Joe, but it goes back several years…to the day that you dumped me. I was heartbroken, devastated. I invited my best friend over to comfort me. I believe you two have met. She called herself 'The Siren.' Anyway, we ended up watching a movie on late night television together. It was Body Heat. I didn't quite know what to think of it that first time. I enjoyed it but was not blown away. Over the years, as I went through relationship after relationship with other men, I couldn't get certain images and lines of dialogue from that film out of my mind. Kathleen Turner in that gorgeous white outfit standing alone on the pier staring off at the ocean, William Hurt admiring his new fedora in the reflection of the car window, the haunting sound of those beautiful wind chimes…All these moments stuck with me. That's when I decided, a few months ago, I needed to watch it again. By this time I had the job at the library and checked out our copy of it. It was then that the film's greatness became apparent to me. I fell in love with it. Its style, its elegance, its romanticism. It is an impeccably-made motion picture. I realized that I didn't need a man as long as I had Body Heat. But Bordwell and his greedy friends at Warner Bros. were making sure that nobody could get their hands on it. I knew it was only a matter of time before they tried to take the library's copy away too. I had to make sure that didn't happen. So, I chose a sap whom I could seduce into checking it out permanently."

"Ross Ruediger," I said.

"It was a cinch picking him. I saw him in the library all the time. He loved neo-noir and when I came on strong to him one day, he folded like a pup tent. Men are so easy to manipulate. In a few weeks, he would do anything for me…even hold on to my movie for me, hiding it so that nobody could find it."

"And you were able to make sure that it was constantly checked out, so that nobody could ever take your precious Body Heat away from you. Clever." Sheila wore a somewhat triumphant expression. "So, why'd you kill him?"

"Because he was weak. The day after you came by the library, I went over to his house bright and early hoping to get him to give me the movie before you showed up and strong-armed him into handing it over to you. The man loved good movies, but he had no backbone. Bordwell had already gotten to him, as Ross tearfully confessed to me that morning, and talked him into selling it back to the studio. He could no longer be trusted. He had to go."

"So you shot him and then ransacked the place looking for the movie. Is that when I showed up and you ambushed me?"

"You guessed it. I have to admit that I was a little surprised to see you turn up at the library looking for it, Joe. I couldn't figure out why you were suddenly interested in the film, so while you were out cold I went through your pockets, found your notepad and saw the name and phone number of your new client: my old friend, The Siren. I guess the same thing had happened to her. She also had fallen in love with that film that we were both introduced to that night. She must also have became obsessed with having it. Well, I couldn't let her. This movie was mine and mine alone. Nobody was going to take it away from me. Ever." She raised the gun. "I guess I owe you some thanks, Joe. Not only did you locate the movie for me, but if you hadn't broken up with me all those years ago, I never would've even found out about it. Now, get the disc."

"You'll never get away with this, Sheila. The police will be here any —" I stopped when I realized that I had asked her to call the police. She smiled at me. I sighed, walked over to the Bordwell's small body which lay on the ground behind me, took the disc out of his hand and turned back to face Sheila. "Throw it to me."

"Don't do this, Sheila," I pleaded with her. "No movie is worth this."

"You don't know that. You haven't seen it."

"And I guess I never will." I crunched the disc in my hand before dropping it to the ground and stepping on it. Sheila let out a noise like nothing I'd ever heard. It was more than a scream. It was the sound of a person's soul being crushed. She looked at me with tears streaming down her face and a look of intense fury in her eyes.

"You bastard!" she said cocking the gun.

This is it, I thought. This is how you die. I closed my eyes and waited for the gunshot that I knew was going to end my life. There was a loud boom. I actually heard the sound of my own death. So, where did she hit me? I couldn't tell. I felt nothing. Did she miss? I opened my eyes just in time to see Sheila fall forward. At that moment, Sgt. Emerson emerged from around the corner holding his gun. He asked me if I was OK. I told him I was fine. Just in shock. "Cozzalio's been having me follow you around ever since you left Ruediger's place this morning. Good thing too."

"Where were you when she killed the other two?" I asked.

"I was…um, indisposed at the moment," he said looking a little embarrassed. "I ran over as soon as I heard the gunshots and that's when I saw her pointing that .38 at you. Don't worry. I heard her whole confession. You're off the hook, Cannon." Within 10 minutes, there were a dozen cops at the scene, the alley was quartered off and Lt. Cozzalio was taking my statement. This time, I decided to tell him everything, leaving nothing out.

"Well, it's only a shame you had to destroy the movie too, Joe. We could've used that."

"I didn't destroy it." I said pulling another disc out of my pocket. "While I was picking up Body Heat at Ruediger's place I grabbed another disc just in case. I don't even know which one it was. Sin City I think." I handed it to him.

"All this trouble over a movie," he said holding it up and looking at it. "I hope it was all worth it." I asked him what would happen to it. "Oh, it's evidence now," he answered. "It'll get put away with all the other junk for a long, long time. Why? Were you interested in watching it?"

"No, thanks," I replied lighting a cigarette. "Too many people have died for that thing." Cozzalio was still examining it as I turned to exit the alley. I stopped, however, and glanced back over my shoulder one last time before walking off into the night. "But I hear it's damn good."

A special word of thanks to all of my film-blogging friends who allowed me to use their names in this crazy, but amusing, little endeavor of mine:
Matt Zoller Seitz
The Self-Styled Siren
David Bordwell
Jim Emerson
Ross Ruediger
Odie Henderson
Sheila O'Malley
Dennis Cozzalio

Black-and-white image courtesy of Jim Ferreira Photography.

Beware the Moon and Stick To the Road

2011-08-21T19:37:00.000-07:00

The following is an article I wrote for the blog Edward Copeland on Film (for which I am a regular contributor) commemorating the 30th anniversary of the release of An American Werewolf in London.

1981 was a seminal year for werewolf movies. First, Joe Dante's The Howling hit theaters in April followed by Michael Wadleigh's Wolfen in July and, finally, John Landis' An American Werewolf in London in August. It is the latter title with which this article will be concerned, primarily because today marks the 30th anniversary of its release but also because, in the opinion of this critic, Landis' picture not only is the best of the three werewolf films released that year but, arguably, the best werewolf film ever made. I still remember the first time I was exposed to it. I was no older than 10 and for some strange reason my parents thought it would be appropriate for me to watch. They changed their minds shortly into the film and promptly sent me to bed, but by then it was too late: the damage had been done. Though I wouldn't see the film in its entirety until years later, that opening sequence where two young Americans hikers get attacked by a vicious beast while walking through the English countryside at night had been permanently etched in my memory. To this day, it is one of the most terrifying sequences I've seen on screen and I've had many a nightmare because of it.

What makes An American Werewolf in London work so beautifully (besides how effectively scary it can be), is its tongue-in-cheek sensibility. It is commonplace to see humor blended with horror in movies nowadays but back in '81 it was far more outré. The comedy manifests itself in many different forms…such as in Landis' choice of music. He brilliantly peppers the soundtrack with classic songs that feature the word "moon" in the title ("Bad Moon Rising," "Moondance" and "Blue Moon"), thus underscoring the absurdity of many of the things being depicted onscreen. For example, during the now iconic transformation scene while the character David (David Naughton) thrashes about on the floor as his body slowly and painfully changes into a werewolf, we hear one of the three versions of "Blue Moon" used in the film playing in the background. The juxtaposition of the sweet and the sickening makes for a simultaneously scary and funny (not to mention incredibly memorable) sequence. Even the characters themselves comment on how ridiculous many of the things they're experiencing are. When David's friend Jack (Griffin Dunne) returns from the dead to inform David that since he will soon become a werewolf he must commit suicide, David says he will not be threatened by a "walking meatloaf"…an epithet which he later apologizes for during his metamorphosis (incidentally, throughout the course of the film every time Jack appears to David he does so in increasingly decaying forms; it is both gruesome and hysterical).

In fact, many of the lines in the film clearly are designed to poke fun at the bizarre goings-on in the story. "A naked man stole my balloons"; "Have you ever tried talking to a corpse? It's boring."; and "Sean, I think there are some hooligans in the park again" are just some of the many gems to be found in the film's dialogue. My personal favorite comes when David realizes he truly is a werewolf and thus attempts to get himself arrested, spouting off the kind of horribly irreverent nonsense that every typical American thinks would offend his uptight British neighbors ("Queen Elizabeth is a man! Prince Charles is a faggot! Winston Churchill was full of shit! Shakespeare's French!"). It is impossible for me to watch the film and hear David's anti-English rant without laughing out loud. Landis also does something that was relatively new for its time. Much as Wes Craven did years later in the first Scream, Landis populates his horror film with characters who have actually seen other horror films. When David talks to his girlfriend (Jenny Agutter) about Claude Rains and Lon Chaney Jr. in 1941's The Wolf Man, it may not be the first example of meta-cinema in a scary movie, but is a rare (for its time) case of movie characters acknowledging that their lives seem to resemble the trappings of a horror movie.

However, the laughs (of which there are plenty) that the film provokes do not in any way lessen the impact of the horror scenes. If anything, they just throw them into sharper contrast. The atmospheric opening section of the film, a suspenseful foot chase through the underground tunnels of Tottenham Court Road tube station (where the camera adopts the POV of the wolf, though it is never actually seen except briefly from a distance in the scene's penultimate shot) and especially some horrific nightmares experienced by David after he is bitten are all frighteningly visceral sequences. And, of course, there is the aforementioned extended transformation scene where another stellar element of the film is highlighted: namely, the superb special effects. Landis' idea was that David's change into the werewolf would be more traumatic than simply growing hair (through a cheesy optical dissolve) and then howling at the moon. It would be a more "realistic" transmogrification involving skin stretching, bones popping and cracking, cries of sheer agony and it goes on for quite a while. Landis does not let his character off the hook with a quick conversion. He also does not conceal his effects in shadows. He has it take place right out there in the open, harsh light. Nowadays the scene would be done with CGI. In the '80s, they had to use physical effects that took a great deal of time and labor to produce (often for only a second of a half of screen time). Still, the scene and the movie is the better for it. Naturally Landis owes a lot to the genius of the great Rick Baker (who also consulted on the makeup effects for The Howling). Baker's work for the film was so magnificent that it inspired the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to create a new category for makeup (for which Baker received the first Oscar for this movie).

An American Werewolf in London opened to big box office success and generally positive reviews. It became known as a "game-changer" in the genre of horror and in particular in the makeup/special effects arena of said genre. It spawned a successful radio adaptation, a highly inferior 1997 sequel and is apparently set to be remade, proving yet again that Hollywood has completely run dry of ideas since they are remaking something that wasn't the most original concept when it was made.

A Good Scream

2011-07-24T16:20:00.000-07:00

The following is an article I wrote for the blog Edward Copeland on Film (for which I am a regular contributor) commemorating the 30th anniversary of the release of Blow Out.

Brian De Palma is one my favorite directors. Very few other filmmakers (with the possible exception of Dario Argento) are able to fashion products of such sinister, surreal beauty filled with such colorful, hallucinatory imagery and captured by such gracefully balletic camerawork. De Palma's films create a reality that is uniquely theirs. The environments, characters and events depicted in them might resemble our own, but there is always something missing; some subtle, intangible quality that prevents them from sharing our own existence and instead ensnares them in the realm of dreams (which often prove to be nightmares). The places — be they famously celebrated or exceedingly ordinary — seem strangely distant, the characters are more like projections of people rather than flesh-and-blood human beings and the events that transpire always seem like impeccably choreographed and flawlessly executed dance routines rather than the messy, chaotic incidents to which we are so accustomed. De Palma's stories do not take place in the real world. They take place in a world of breath and shadow, where everything appears just slightly out of reach. Many have criticized his work for these characteristics, but I revel in it. De Palma's films are pure cinema and one of his most archetypal creations (not only because it IS cinema but because it is ABOUT cinema) is the exquisite paranoid suspense-thriller Blow Out, which celebrates its 30th anniversary today.

It is far too dismissive of Blow Out to call it an homage to Antonioni's similarly-themed (and similarly-titled) Blow-Up or a tribute to that master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock (of whom De Palma is often accused not only of imitating but of blatantly ripping off). It's also too easy to attribute the film's inspiration to other paranoid-conspiracy films from that era (such as Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation or Alan J. Pakula's Parallax View) as well as various references to the JFK assassination, Watergate scandal and Chappaquiddick. Yes, those influences are clearly there but Blow Out uses these sources as a springboard from which it can launch into its own distinct, visionary manifestation of the director's own fears, passions and prejudices. A perfect example of this is the film's first five minutes. Blow Out opens with an extended hand-held shot of a psychotic killer stalking the scantily clad members of a typical horror movie sorority. As ominous heavy breathing (and quintessentially cheesy, dated "scary" music) pounds away on the soundtrack, the murderer pulls back a shower curtain to reveal a beautiful young girl who looks into the camera and screams…very badly. A sudden cut reveals John Travolta sitting in a screening room laughing as he lights a cigarette and remarks "God, that scream is terrible." Thus we discover, in a very entertaining manner, that the movie we've been watching is actually a movie within a movie. What was perceived as reality is, in fact, a lie. It is the first in a series of deceptions that the film will throw at us. Furthermore, by shooting the entire opening sequence in POV, De Palma cleverly implicates the audience in an act of voyeurism, another major subject of the film (and many of his films). Finally, Jack's first line of dialogue, in which he derisively comments on the scream in the picture he's watching, carries special significance as it will parallel his last line of dialogue in the film. The credits haven't started and already the movie has introduced several of its major themes.

It is also our initial introduction to the film's main character, the sympathetic but complex Jack Terry (played by John Travolta in one if his best performances). Jack is depicted as a very competent soundman who, because of a guilty conscience, has wasted his skills on a series of low-budget exploitation films since a mistake of his cost an undercover police officer his life several years earlier. Jack may be courageous and heroic in his attempts do good and see justice happen, but his cynical distrust of the state and his borderline obsessive desire to see truth come out causes him to make some serious errors in judgment. It was a brilliant decision on De Palma's part to make Jack a filmmaking technician because not only does it serve a storytelling purpose (namely, providing him with a plausible reason to witness and record the car accident of which he has the expertise to recognize as an assassination), but it provides De Palma an opportunity to engage in some artful meta-cinema. More than perhaps any other of De Palma's protagonists, Jack seems to embody the cinematic alter-ego of the director himself.

Joining Travolta is an impressive array of actors, many of whom would become De Palma regulars. The lovely Nancy Allen plays Sally, the call girl who was in the car with the governor when it went off the road. Despite the fact that she was married to De Palma at the time and had already acted in two of his previous films, her casting was actually a recommendation by John Travolta (who had worked with her and liked her in De Palma's Carrie). Though her character is hopelessly — almost unbelievably — naive, Allen plays her with such an endearing sweetness that her eventual fate is heartbreakingly tragic. As the film's primary villain — a ruthless, sociopathic killer named Burke — John Lithgow (Obsession, Raising Cain) is frighteningly menacing and leaves a strong, lasting impression on the viewer. In fact, Lithgow tells a funny story of how a woman from the apartment building he was living in at the time the movie came out saw him getting out of an elevator one night and immediately turned white as a sheet. Finally, Dennis Franz — who also appeared in The Fury and Dressed to Kill — has a small but amusing role as a sleazy, cowardly photographer who works with the Sally character to blackmail unfaithful husbands.

De Palma films are usually technically flawless and Blow Out is no exception, but in this particular effort the style does not, as it has a tendency to do sometimes, overshadow the content. It only elevates it. The cinematography by the great Vilmos Zsigmond is stunning. The visual flourishes that are used (360's, split-diopters, overheard shots, low-angles shots, split-screens, slow-mo, etc.) positively captivated me when I first saw it. Though I would later learn that these were common tricks employed by De Palma, to this day they never fail to excite me when I see them in a movie. Also, the score by frequent De Palma-collobrator Pino Donaggio is quite evocative. The theme Donaggio wrote for Jack and Sally's relationship is a memorably haunting, sweet and sad piece of music. In fact, Quentin Tarantino (an admitted fan of the film and De Palma in general) used it briefly in a scene in Death Proof.

When it was released in 1981 Blow Out received generally positive reviews. Some critics (including Roger Ebert and the always-supportive-of-De Palma Pauline Kael) even wrote some enthusiastic ones. However, the film failed to perform at the box office. Fortunately, over the years Blow Out has gained far more respect and appreciation. It was even recently added to the immortal Criterion Collection. Personally speaking, I love Blow Out and always have. I consider it to be Brian De Palma's most perfect film. I had never seen a De Palma movie at the time I first watched it as a teenager, so I not only found its story engaging, suspenseful and moving but I was absolutely entranced by its style. What I also didn't appreciate at the time was how the visual language of a film could not only be used to tell a story imaginatively, but actually communicate specific ideas/concepts to the audience. I remember getting a book from the library shortly thereafter on the films of Brian De Palma and reading in the chapter on Blow Out about one specific shot where the characters Jack and Sally are standing in the foreground conversing while two train station marques are positioned in the background directly over their heads. On each marquee a destination is written: "Crusader" is behind Jack and "Wall Street" is behind Sally. The book was proposing that these destinations each represented the characters' personalities and function within the story. That idea just blew my mind. It revealed a whole new realm of possibilities to me in the art of film analysis and criticism. I became far more aware of what I was actually seeing on screen whenever I watched a movie from that point on. Blow Out was a seminal work in my development as a cinephile. Along with a handful of other films (including Star Wars and Schindler's List), Blow Out opened my eyes to the incredible potential of cinema.

It also has a really good scream.

You Can Even Eat the Dishes

2011-06-30T11:59:00.000-07:00

The following is an article I wrote for the blog Edward Copeland on Film (for which I am a regular contributor) commemorating the 40th anniversary of the release of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

There's a moment in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when the character of Willy Wonka emerges for the first time from his factory to the enthusiastic applause of a crowd gathered to see him. The noise gradually dies down and becomes silent as they realize he is limping along on a cane. Children are unable to hide their disappointment. Grown-ups look confused and concerned. Suddenly, only a few steps from his front gate, Wonka's cane gets stuck in some cobblestones. He freezes, starts to fall forward, does a somersault and victoriously leaps to his feet with a smile. Children's faces light up. The crowd erupts into even more enthusiastic applause. It was all a joke. A delightful bit of showmanship from a master trickster. This introduction, as the story goes, was Gene Wilder's idea. When approached for the role, Wilder stipulated he would only do it if he could make his entrance in just such a manner. When asked why by the director, Wilder replied, "Because from that moment on, whenever I do anything nobody will know whether I'm lying or telling the truth." That kind of profound understanding Wilder brought to the character is just one among many examples of why Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory works just as beautifully now as it did when it premiered 40 years ago today.

The tale of Willy Wonka began as a book entitled Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, penned by Roald Dahl and published in 1964. It told the highly fanciful tale of a poor boy taken on a tour through a magical wonderland by an eccentric confectioner. The book was a hit and in 1970 producer Dave Wolper was looking for a movie idea to serve as a promotional tie-in for a new line of candy bars the Quaker Oats Company was hoping to manufacture. Dahl’s fantastical fable of sugary goodness seemed a perfect fit. It was the first of his stories to be adapted for film and Dahl himself was hired to write the screenplay. Massive changes, however, were made to his script by David Seltzer and this caused Dahl to be severely dissatisfied with the final product and consequently disown it (a phenomenon that was to occur time and again with cinematic adaptations of his works). In a delicious bit of irony, however, the candy bar that Quaker Oats produced turned out to be faulty and so had to be withdrawn from shelves.

To helm the project, Mel Stuart (a director known mostly for TV movies and documentaries) was chosen. It seems an odd choice for a theatrical fantasy film for families (particularly given that his visual style is rather bland), but he acquits himself adequately through his numerous astute filmmaking decisions, his first being to make Willy Wonka a musical. The songs written by the award-winning team of Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley are all (with the exception of the mother's "Cheer Up, Charlie" which was always a fast-forward song for me as a kid) melodic and memorable. Who among us doesn't know "Pure Imagination," the "Oompa-Loompah" song or "The Candy Man" (made immortal by Sammy Davis Jr.) by heart? To this day, I think Grandpa Joe's energetic rendition of "I've Got a Golden Ticket" as he dances around the room in his pajamas has to be one of the purest expressions of sheer joy I've ever seen in cinema. Stuart also decided to shoot the film in Germany to save on costs. Wisely, however, the country is never identified by name in the film and it adds to the fantastic other-worldly quality of the story.

In casting the film, Stuart had to find not just one or two but five young actors to play the lucky children who find the Golden Tickets. All five are quite good but a couple standouts are Peter Ostrum (in his one and only film appearance) who manages to be believably innocent and selfless without coming off as disgustingly saccharine in his performance as Charlie. The other is Julie Dan Cole as Veruca Salt, the brattiest kid of the bunch…and that's saying something. Cole totally commits to the supreme selfishness of her character and even gets her own song to sing ("I want It Now"). She's the kind of devil-spawn that every parent is afraid their own offspring will turn out to be. The inimitable Jack Albertson plays Grandpa Joe, Charlie's surrogate father figure, with equal amounts of love for Charlie and disdain for the injustices of the world. Finally, there's Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka. Although Dahl presumably wanted Spike Mulligan or Ron Moody to play the part, Stuart once again demonstrated a keen grasp of the material by approaching Wilder, a brilliant comic actor who thoroughly understood the complexities and ambiguities of the character. His Willy Wonka is unpredictable (as demonstrated by his introduction) but lovable, strange but predominately non-threatening, bizarre but surprisingly witty (quoting such varied writers as Shakespeare, Wilde and Keats). Wilder brings a childlike enthusiasm and exuberance to the role and it is arguably his most iconic performance (and he's certainly given us several to choose from).

For the most part, Willy Wonka charmed critics when it was released, but audiences were not quite as won over by it and tended to stay away (the film only grossed $4 million on a $3 million budget). Eventually, however, it developed a cult following on home video and television broadcasts. How well does it hold up today? Well, obviously there are elements which are extremely dated (the psychedelic boat ride down the tunnel is a like a bad 70's acid trip), but like Wizard Of Oz or Mary Poppins, there is an element of imagination at work in the film (something sadly lacking in most contemporary movies) that makes it utterly charming and helps give it a timeless quality. Today it is remembered with much fondness and affection by many families. Personally, I love the film and when I revisit it every couple years I am surprised at how moved I am by it at various points in story. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory may not be a great film, but it is the product of an era when wonder and fancy could still be found in big screen movies, when cinematic fairy tales could be told earnestly (without cynicism or self-consciousness) and when things like story, character and genuine emotion were more important than budget or special effects.

A comparison with the more "faithful" 2006 adaptation by Tim Burton demonstrates this very thing. The remake is not without its charms (including some stunning visuals and a charming performance from Freddie Highmore), but it serves as yet another reminder that newer is not necessarily better. Among the many miscalculations was Johnny Depp’s decision to play Wonka as an excessively bizarre weirdo stuck in a state of arrested development. With echoes of pop sensation and eccentric man-child (not to mention accused child molester) Michael Jackson, Depp's Wonka was creepy and off-putting. Wilder's Wonka could indeed be dark, mysterious, enigmatic and even outright scary sometimes, but he was never creepy. His character, like the film he inhabited, ultimately had a warmth and a generosity at heart whereas Depp's Wonka, also much like the film itself, had a coldness at the center, a sense of detachment that makes its hard to be engaged by what we are watching even while we are being amazed by what we are seeing. I suspect that the 1971 version of the story will still retain its appeal long after the motion picture landscape has been become overrun with ugly, calculated and expendable pieces of cinematic junk (a fate of which I'm skeptical Burton's version will share).

In essence, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory may not have been revolutionary, but it was definitely non-pollutionary.

The Latest SLIFR Movie Quiz

2011-06-07T23:15:00.000-07:00

Dennis Cozzalio over at Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule (or SLIFR for short) has posted his latest in a long line of wonderful movie quizzes. I love these things and haven't had the chance to do one in a long time, so this one was particularly enjoyable. Anyway, here are my answers.

1) Depending on your mood, your favorite or least-loved movie cliché

I was watching a movie on TV the other day where early on a character boarding a plane pulled out a photo of his wife and child and talked about how he couldn't wait to be reuinted with them. I found myself thinking he might as well be wearing a big flashing neon sign that says "I AM GOING TO DIE."

2) Regardless of whether or not you eventually caught up with it, which film classic have you lied about seeing in the past?

I generally try not to lie about films I have or haven't seen, but I seem to have some vague recollection of giving a customer in the video store one night the impression that I had seen George Lucas' American Graffiti when I hadn't... and still haven't.

3) Roland Young or Edward Everett Horton?

The master of the double and triple-take: Horton.

4) Second favorite Frank Tashlin movie

The only two Frank Tashlin films I've seen are the ones he did with Jerry Lewis: Cinderfella and The Disorderly Orderly. Of those two I like Orderly more, so (by default) Cinderfella.

5) Clockwork Orange-- yes or no?

No, in the sense that I have not seen it. Yes, in the sense that I am willing to give it a try.

6) Best/favorite use of gender dysphoria in a horror film

Okay, I seriously had to go look this up. Now that I have... I'm still not sure what it means. Does the androgynous chick playing Satan in The Passion of the Christ count?

7) Melanie Laurent or Blake Lively?

Maybe it's just me but I find so many of the young, beautiful actresses working in Hollywood today virtually interchangeable.

8) Best movie of 2011 (so far…)

Tough call, but of the films I've seen, at this point I'm going to have to go with The Adjustment Bureau.

9) Favorite screen performer with a noticeable facial deformity

Don't know if it counts as a "deformity," but Owen Wilson's nose is so crooked that I remember thinking "That guy will never make it in movies," when I first saw him. Boy, was I wrong.

10) Lars von Trier: shithead or misunderstood comic savant?

I don't know. The only Lars Von trier film I've seen is Europa (or Zentropa as it was called here in the U.S.) and I haven't heard/read enough about him to really make an informed opinion. Sure, I've heard about the stupid stuff he said at Cannes, but I'm not sure I take him and those comments completely seriously. Then again, he could still be a giant douche who was just kidding. So, my final answer is: I really don't know. Jury's still out for me.

11) Timothy Carey or Henry Silva?

Henry Silva because he was in the underrated Walt Disney/Dick Van Dyke comedy Never a Dull Moment which I used to watch all the time when I was younger.

12) Low-profile writer who deserves more attention from critics and /or audiences

Whenever the subject of best screenwriters working today is discussed, it always bothers me that Andrew Niccol (Gattaca, Truman Show) never gets mentioned.

13) Movie most recently viewed theatrically, and on DVD, Blu-ray or streaming

Theatrically: Thor
On DVD: Gulliver's Travels
Streaming: The Sorcerer's Apprentice

14) Favorite film noir villain

Edward G. Robinson's brilliant insurance investigator Keyes in Double Indemnity. Yes, I know he's not really a "villain" but he is the antagonist and one of the things I love about that film is how they simultaneously get you to root for and against his character.

15) Best thing about streaming movies?

I realize it's blasphemy for a former video store manager to say this, but..... not having to leave the comfort of your own home to find a movie.

16) Fay Spain or France Nuyen?

I don't know who these people are.

17) Favorite Kirk Douglas movie that isn’t called Spartacus

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. It was my introduction to Kirk Douglas. I saw a lot of that film when I was a kid and even remember watching Romancing the Stone with my family one night and observing that the guy who played Jack looked an awful lot like the guy from 20,000 League Under the Sea.

18) Favorite movie about cars

American Graffiti

19) Audrey Totter or Marie Windsor?

I don't know who these people are either.

20) Existing Stephen King movie adaptation that could use an remake/reboot/overhaul

I always felt like his story "The Trucks" deserved a better cinematic treatment than the one he himself gave it in Maximum Overdrive.

21) Low-profile director who deserves more attention from critics and/or audiences

Same answer as #12, because he also directs.

22) What actor that you previously enjoyed has become distracting or a self-parody?

Sadly, Robert DeNiro.

23) Best place in the world to see a movie

Wherever you happen to be at that moment.

24) Charles McGraw or Sterling Hayden?

Thankfully, I know who these people are. Sterling Hayden all the way, Mandrake!

25) Second favorite Yasujiro Ozu film

I'm sorry to say that I have not seen any of his films yet.

26) Most memorable horror movie father figure

Gregory Peck in The Omen.

27) Name a non-action-oriented movie that would be fun to see in Sensurround

My Dinner With Andre ("You feel like you're sitting right there in the restaurant with them!")

28) Chris Evans or Ryan Reynolds?

I like Ryan Reynolds more than Chris Evans (that dude just got on my nerves in the Fantastic Four movies), but I am actually looking forward to Captain America more than Green Lantern.

29) Favorite relatively unknown supporting player, from either or both the classic and the modern era

Anytime Larry Hankin shows up in something, he always makes me smile.

30) Real-life movie location you most recently visited or saw

A few summers ago I got a chance to visit the Timberline Lodge at Mt. Hood in Oregon... otherwise known as the shooting location for the exteriors shots of the Overlook Hotel in The Shining.

31) Second favorite Budd Boetticher movie

I don't know who that is.

32) Mara Corday or Julie Adams?

I don't know who they are either (Man, this is getting embarrassing!)

33) Favorite Universal-International western

"Doesn't the fact that it's universal make it international?"

34) What's the biggest "gimmick" that's drawn you out to see a movie?

The trailer for the Will Smith vehicle Seven Pounds intrigued me because it was one of those exceptionally rare trailers that didn't reveal what the movie was actually about. That got me in the theater.

35) Favorite actress of the silent era

I'm going to be completely unoriginal here and say Lillian Gish. I watched another one of her films not too long ago and that girl just had one of the most beautifully expressive faces I've ever seen. Period.

36) Best Eugene Pallette performance

That's funny because I was JUST watching The Adventures of Robin Hood the other day and remarking how much I loved Pallette's Friar Tuck.

37) Best/worst remake of the 21st century so far?

For the best I'm going to have to go with True Grit. For the worst, and I am saying this only because I was recently reminded of it, probably Around the World in 80 Days.

38) What could multiplex owners do right now to improve the theatrical viewing experience for moviegoers? What could moviegoers do?

Multiplex owners could lower their prices drastically an moviegoers could actually turn off their freakin' cell phones. However, I know neither of these are going to happen, so onward and upward.

When a Star Went Swingin' and Landed With a Thud

2011-05-24T00:36:00.001-07:00

The following is an article I wrote for the blog Edward Copeland on Film (for which I am a regular contributor) commemorating the 20th anniversary of the release of Hudson Hawk. I also have to credit my fried Ed for coming up with the great title to this piece.

Once in a blue moon, Hollywood releases a movie which, in spite of its huge expectations, fails on such a massive scale that its name becomes indelibly associated with the word “flop” forever after. Films such as Ishtar, Heaven’s Gate, 1941, Howard the Duck, North, Battlefield Earth and Gigli are all notoriously remembered for how embarrassingly they tanked at the box office, how universally they angered critics and how completely they alienated audiences that they have achieved a level of immortality no less enduring than their more acclaimed counterparts (such as Casablanca, Gone With the Wind, Citizen Kane, Star Wars and The Godfather). Well, on this day in the summer of 1991, while Ridley Scott was unveiling Thelma & Louise to critical and financial success, Tri-Star Pictures was releasing another film by the name of Hudson Hawk to theaters and it quickly joined the very exclusive club of infamous box office bombs. For those who have neither seen nor heard of this film, here is a brief description of what it is, how it came to be and why we are still talking about it 20 years later.

Hudson Hawk was the brainchild of Bruce Willis, who in 1991 was at the peak of his popularity. The recently cancelled television show Moonlighting had turned him into a star but the 1988 blockbuster Die Hard (and its equally profitable 1990 sequel) firmly established him as a major box office draw and gave him the kind of clout he needed to produce his own vanity project. As it turns out, for years Willis had been developing a story involving a cat burglar in which he would play the title role. With his action flick-producing buddy Joel Silver footing the bill, Heathers director Michael Lehmann on board to give the film a subversive sensibility, and a hand-picked cast (including Danny Aiello, James Coburn, Andie MacDowell and many more) what could possibly go wrong? Well, as it turned out, everything. The film was plagued with all sorts of problems (many of which are chronicled in Richard E. Grant’s book With Nails) including cost overruns, cast replacements, location difficulties and creative tensions. Although these things were well covered in the press and no doubt helped contribute to the perception that the film was in trouble long before its release, it seems no amount of bad backstage buzz could’ve prepared anyone for what Hawk was actually trying to sell audiences.

I vividly remember looking forward to the movie myself. It was the summer before my sophomore year in high school. I was (and, quite honestly, still am) a big Bruce Willis fan, I was (and, once again, still am) a lover of action/caper movies and the trailers made this one look fun and exciting. My father was planning to take me one afternoon to see it but through a series of mishaps it just didn’t happen. As a fluke, he ended up going with a friend of his soon thereafter and he, to put it bluntly, hated it. Absolutely hated it. He hated it so much that he, knowing how much I wanted to see it, actually felt bad for me and tried to inform me with the utmost delicacy how truly awful it was. I had never, up to that point, seen my dad have such a visceral hostile reaction to a film (though I’ve seen it since). Naturally, I was heartbroken and didn’t end up viewing it until much later when it came to video. I admit I was certainly disappointed by it, but did not think it was quite as bad as I’d heard. It’s actually taken two decades and dozens more viewings for me to formulate a coherent final opinion on it. First of all, while I can admit to having some affection for it and actually enjoying watching it once in a while (Hudson Hawk is one of the few films I consider a genuine “guilty pleasure”), I can simultaneously admit to what a colossal miscalculation it is. The film is indeed bad, but it's bad in such a uniquely strange and jaw-droppingly surreal way that it’s actually hard to put into words what makes it so (although if you're looking for a very extensive analysis of what's wrong with the film, try this scene-by-scene critique at the Agony Booth).

Bruce Willis plays Eddie Hawkins (aka the "Hudson Hawk"), a smarmy, self-satisfied thief — presumably the best in the world — who, after being released from a 10-year stint in prison, tries to go straight but ends up getting blackmailed (though he really doesn’t put up much of a fight) into stealing again. Who precisely is blackmailing him can be confusing as there are far too many villains in the film. These include a psychotic billionaire married couple (the incessantly annoying Richard E. Grant and Sandra Bernhard) and their lethal British butler, four rogue CIA agents named after candy bars (yes, you read that right) and their arrogant leader (gamely played by James Coburn), two Italian mobsters called (sigh) the Mario brothers, a corrupt parole officer, a pair of silent twins and a deadly little dog named Bunny. Furthermore, what Hawk is stealing and why he's stealing it also is somewhat confusing as the plot for Hudson Hawk is so convoluted it's virtually incomprehensible. Suffice it to say, it involves some art treasures of Leonardo DaVinci, a giant machine that can turn lead into gold and a top-secret Vatican organization.

The plot is ultimately unimportant because Hudson Hawk was clearly conceived as a series of comic-action set pieces. Some of them are admittedly unique and memorable (such as an ambulance and hospital gurney chase across the Brooklyn Bridge), but many of them, unfortunately, are outlandishly bizarre and embarrassingly grotesque. It has the feel of a movie where every single idea was considered clever and thrown into the pot while nobody bothered to ask "Hey, are we going too far here? I mean, does any of this make any sense?" For example, one particularly absurd, yet admittedly amusing, conceit is that Hawk and his partner Tommy (the always charismatic Danny Aiello) time their heists by singing songs to which they each know the exact running length. The end result is an honest-to-God musical number wherein two burglars are crooning Bing Crosby's "Swingin' On a Star" while cracking safes and dodging guards. Besides being an utterly ridiculous concept for a variety of reasons (it's an imperfect way to time something given that songs can be sung at different tempos or it can actually be rather noisy when silence might be the best approach to performing a robbery, etc), it's just another example of the wildly inconsistent tone that the film has. One second the characters are belting out showtunes, the next second they're in a thrilling action sequence. In one scene they're involved in a wacky bit of physical comedy, the next they're witnessing a rather ugly act of brutal violence.

Alas, much of the blame has to be directed at Willis himself as many of its flaws clearly originate in the conception stage and Hudson Hawk was his baby from beginning to end. Willis seemed to want the film to be a very specific thing and his ego just got the better of him. This is just speculation on my part, but I suspect Willis was probably spoiled by his experience on Moonlighting, a show that successfully played with the conventions of television (constantly breaking the fourth wall, throwing gags at the audience at lightning speed, etc.) while still telling stories that engaged viewers emotionally. Willis probably thought he could bring the same zany, anarchic spirit to the big screen with a satirical take on action movies that still retained the thrill that great stunt sequences can provide (Joel Silver, John McTiernan and Arnold Schwarzenegger would attempt a similar feat two summers later with Last Action Hero with about the same level of success) and the end result is a rather schizophrenic picture that just can't seem to decide what kind of movie it truly is ("Is it an action-thriller? Is it a comedy-spoof? Is it a musical?") or who it's intended audience would be. ("Who's this for? It's too silly and cartoonish for adults yet too violent and vulgar for kids.")

Willis' career managed to recover from the debacle of Hudson Hawk, but he continues to defend the film to this day (as do the members of its small cult following). It's always interesting to hear filmmakers attribute a film's poor reception to audiences not "getting" their film. On the Hudson Hawk DVD commentary, for example, director Michael Lehmann talks about how the film was not well-received because people, based on the film's advertising, were not expecting a comedy. While this is certainly true, it never seems to occur to Lehmann or Willis that perhaps they also just made a bad movie. Speaking for myself, I think I "get" what they were trying to do. I'm just not sure that what they were trying to do was such a good idea. Yes, I know they were poking fun at the cliches of action movies and deliberately twisting the conventions of the cinematic language (such as changing the time from day to night in the middle of a scene), but those conventions exist for a reason and if you knowingly violate them then you run the risk of confounding your audience who need such conventions to orient themselves to what they're seeing. If, for example, you have a character fall from an enormous height and simply walk away unharmed (or, as in the case of this film, survive an explosion in the back of a car because a sprinkler system was installed), then you remove any element of the threat of danger from your equation. Thus, with nothing at stake there's no suspense and with no suspense there's no emotional investment on the part of the audience. They had to know this was at least a possibility when they decided to break these rules. Either they didn't know or they just didn't care and it's that kind of blatant disregard for logic and sense that got their film trashed. A lot of Hollywood movies require us to suspend disbelief. A lot even ask us to accept nonsense as if it were sense, but very few expect us to accept nonsense simply because it is nonsense. They must have either been giving audiences too much credit or not nearly enough.

So, what's my verdict on Hudson Hawk? Well, despite the fact that the film does possess some stellar elements (such as the gorgeous production design by Jackson DeGovia, the striking cinematography by Dante Spinotti and the wonderful music score by the late great Michael Kamen) and a few truly funny moments that can't help but make me laugh (I get a kick out of the gag where the Italian night watchman pours spaghetti out of his thermos instead of coffee), I mostly enjoy Hudson Hawk precisely for its sheer brazenness in flaunting the well-known and well-established rules of visual storytelling. On those rare occasions when I do watch it, I always wear a big goofy grin on my face as I simultaneously shake my head in disbelief. Twenty years later, Hudson Hawk is perhaps the best "worst movie" I've ever seen and one of the most perfect examples Hollywood has ever produced of how NOT to make a film.

"You Have Nowhere To Go."

2011-03-11T11:07:00.000-08:00

The following is an article I wrote for the blog Edward Copeland on Film (for which I am a regular contributor) commemorating the 40th anniversary of the release of THX-1138.

Forty years ago today a flawed but fascinating sci-fi film called THX-1138 was released by Warner Bros. to nonexistent box office and negative reviews. Perhaps its poor reception was due to the fact that the studio did not really care for the picture and consequently did not give it a big publicity push. Perhaps it was because the film itself was so strange, so stylized and so cerebral that it confused and thus alienated audiences. Even now it still hasn't been widely seen and enjoys, at best, a limited cult status. So, why are we commemorating the 40th anniversary of a relatively obscure and nearly forgotten sci-fi flop? Simple.

Its director was the 27-year-old George Lucas.

It's easy to forget that there was a time before George Lucas became so obscenely loved for dreaming up the "galaxy of far, far away" — and then subsequently became equally loathed for "sullying" that galaxy with some vastly inferior prequels — but it's true. Years prior to Lucas' reaping of untold fame and fortune from his entertaining space opera, he was just another up-and-coming filmmaker trying to create work that would set him apart from the crowd. While at USC he produced an intriguing live-action short film called Electronic Labyrinth: THX-1138 4EB that seemed to accomplish that very thing. The film depicted a solitary individual, with a number tattooed on his forehead, racing through various dark tunnels and passageways as he attempts to flee his oppressive society, who in turn monitor his movements and try to foil his escape. Garnering awards at various film festivals, Lucas' brainchild caught the attention of studio executives and led to a feature film adaptation produced by his friend Francis Ford Coppola's production company American Zoetrope. With a slightly bigger budget and actors of the caliber of Robert Duvall and Donald Pleasance, how could Lucas go wrong?

Before discussing the film I must confess to never having seen the original theatrical cut of THX-1138. The only version I've seen is the 2004 DVD version which includes what has now become Lucas' trademark: retro-fitted digital imagery to help bring the film closer to his "original vision." Although I am adamantly against this indulgent practice (particularly when the filmmaker, in an attempt to rewrite film history, makes the original version no longer available), my ignorance of the film's original state helped make the "improvements" not nearly as bothersome to me. As with the alterations made to the Star Wars movies, the changes here are primarily cosmetic in nature. Granted, there were two or three moments that completely took me out of the film because they stuck out like sore thumbs (particularly the addition of a brief CGI car chase that precedes the film's original climax), but unless someone is intimately familiar with the 1971 version, it is unlikely they are going to cringe with the frequency that I did viewing the so-called "special editions" of the Star Wars movies. Incidentally, for a more in-depth comparison of the differences between the two you can read about it here or view a short video here.

The story of THX-1138 is a rather simple one. In the underground society of a dystopian future, individuality is suppressed (as manifested by the fact that everyone wears the same outfit and has their heads shaved bald), emotions are dulled through the use of narcotics, conformity is mandated and its citizens have been all but stripped of their humanity (as evidenced by the fact that peoples names consist of a seemingly random sampling of letters and numbers). Robert Duvall plays THX-1138, an ordinary factory worker whose "mate" LUH-3417 (Maggie McOmie) rebelliously decides to stop taking her drugs and even gets him to do the same (interestingly, the motivation behind her decision is never made clear and thus is a little unsatisfying; in the similarly-themed Equilibrium, Christian Bale accidentally drops his pills down the drain and only after he begins to feel the effects chooses to remain off them). When THX starts to have intense emotions — including sexual desire for his partner — for the first time, he is captured and imprisoned by the state but eventually manages to escape and, in a third act that most closely resembles Lucas' original short, makes his way to the surface.

There is no denying the power of many of the images seen in THX-1138. Certain moments feel incredibly surreal and yet are portrayed as being frighteningly mundane. Robot police officers (precursors to C-3PO and stormtroopers) beating humans with sticks for entertainment, people expressing their guilt to a detached electronic deity in weird "confessional-like" chambers, etc. Co-writer Walter Murch has said that his and Lucas' intent was not to create a movie ABOUT the future but rather FROM the future. Thus, many things are left unexplained and are treated just as if their existence is normal and accepted. This is what makes the film unique and yet probably turned off audiences in 1971. One can get lost trying to understand all of the technical jargon heard in the dialogue and is often left scratching one's head as to what a particular object in any given scene is. Personally speaking, I was left most confused as to whether the "hologram" SRT (played by Don Pedro Colley) that THX encounters in the white prison was an actual hologram who somehow found a way to come into existence or simply the human actor that was used to create the hologram. The movie never explains this and it betrays, I think, Lucas' tendency to gravitate more toward symbolism and allegory than verisimilitude in storytelling. Inevitably, I concluded that the best way to enjoy the film was to simply surrender to the world Lucas has created...and what a world it is.

Lucas manages to fashion an environment that is simultaneously immense and claustrophobic. In a way it is just as detailed and involving as any of those seen in the Star Wars movies, yet colder, bleaker and more bizarre. This is a place that seems just as real and believable as Tatooine, Hoth or Endor but it is not a place in which you would want to actually spend any time. In fact, it's a world so endlessly fascinating and complex that it is somewhat of a shame that the movie doesn't find some other way to resolve it than with a a simple car chase (one can feel Lucas' love of racing vehicles emerging from the film's climax). Maybe this was an attempt on the part of the studio to inject some excitement into what was, after all, supposed to be just another Hollywood product. Maybe it was Lucas' attempt to retain the visceral spirit of his original short film. I don't know. Nevertheless, in spite of its lofty ambitions, in the end THX-1138 still tries to come out an entertaining "popcorn" movie and it's a little disappointing. It would be as if Kubrick had decided to throw an epic Moonraker-esque space battle at the end of 2001. To that end, Lucas would make a much more consistent product six years later. Though not nearly as esoteric and intellectual as THX-1138, Star Wars at least wore its intentions on its sleeve and ended up being a less schizophrenic finished product.

It is interesting to view THX-1138 now with the knowledge of what Lucas would later become. Some have reveled in the apparent irony that at one time Lucas was the equivalent of the Robert Duvall character and yet has now become the incarnation of the powerful, evil establishment that oppressed him. Whatever you think or feel about Lucas, his first feature film, while not great (as far as cinematic representations of nightmarish Orwellian futures go, I prefer Terry Gilliam's Brazil), is still pretty good and definitely worth seeing...if for no other reason, than to witness the sheer potential exhibited by its writer-director. It was a potential that would only later be fully realized. Unlike the voice that informs Duvall that he cannot escape, that he has "nowhere to go," George Lucas clearly did have somewhere to go.

The Blood is Still the Life

2011-02-13T23:36:00.000-08:00

The following is an article I wrote for the blog Edward Copeland on Film (for which I am a regular contributor) commemorating the 80th anniversary of the release of Dracula.

They may be cold to the touch, but right now vampires are pretty hot. Shows such as Vampire Diaries and True Blood, movies such as Let the Right One In and its American remake Let Me In, books such as the Twilight series (and its accompanying movie adaptations) and even a whole subculture of teenage "vampire-wannabes" serve as constant reminders to us that vampires currently are a very popular cultural phenomenon. Yet, in their various literary, movie and TV incarnations, vampires mostly are portrayed as tortured, sensitive souls cursed to continue their earthly existence through the blood sacrifice of others. I'm not entirely sure when this shift toward conceiving of vampires as sympathetic took place but I think it owes a great deal to the novels Anne Rice wrote in the '70s and '80s. Before romantic, melancholy characters like Lestat and Louis came along, vampires were seen (like werewolves, mummies and Frankenstein) primarily as monsters. They were evil, bloodthirsty beings who actually enjoyed taking the lives of others in order to survive. Almost nowhere is this is more apparent than in Tod Browning's 1931 Dracula, which celebrates its 80th anniversary today. In looking back at this horror classic, one recognizes many of the very qualities that would come to be rejected by modern-day vampire enthusiasts while simultaneously seeing several of the very aspects that entrance them with that whole dark underworld in the first place.

Browning's was not the first cinematic treatment of Bram Stoker's novel. Despite being unable to secure the rights, the great F.W. Murnau adapted it into his 1922 silent Nosferatu and was subsequently sued by Stoker's widow. Murnau's Count Orlock (sinisterly played by German actor Max Schreck in a lot of make-up) was a repulsive creature whose evil was manifested in his hideous appearance which, incidentally, more closely resembles the character described in the original book. Browning's Dracula, on the other hand, is all too human. Played by the Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi (who originated the role in a successful Broadway play written by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston), he's handsome, charming, poised, well-dressed, well-groomed and rather sexy. It is this version of the character that most influenced the way the public perceived vampires and Lugosi's Central European elegance and flair played a big part in that.

Though it seems somewhat campy today, Lugosi's performance is iconic and captivated people's imagination at the time. He brought a theatricality to the role that helped to establish vampires as larger-than-life beings who walk, practically glide, untouched through the world of mortals. As Roger Ebert once wrote, "Vampires are always in pose mode... The buried message of many scenes is: Regard me well, for here I am, and I am thus." Speaking in a broken English accent (which, contrary to legend, did not indicate that Lugosi had to learn his lines phonetically; by the time the film was made he spoke English very well), Lugosi welcomes an unsuspecting Renfield — played with equal theatricality by Dwight Frye — into his castle like "a spider spinning his web for the unwary fly." His lines, mostly absent from the original book, are spoken in such a slow, deliberate manner that they have become just as famous for their delivery as for their words: "I never drink... wine," "Listen to them: children of the night. What music they make," and the simple yet hypnotic introduction, "I am... Dracula."

The Deane/Balderston play served as the basis both for the interpretation of the Dracula character and for the structure/aesthetic of the rest of the film. This is why, after a spectacular opening in Dracula's Transylvanian castle, the film takes place mostly in England and takes on the feel of a typical "drawing room" mystery. Browning's approach to the look of the film is appropriately dark and moody but not especially inspired. It has been speculated that the passing of Browning's original choice for the role of Dracula, his friend Lon Chaney, so upset him that he didn't invest as much effort and care into the production as he otherwise would have and in fact left it to cinematographer Karl Freund to do most of he shooting. Interestingly, the crew that filmed the Spanish-language version of Dracula (since it was common practice at that time for studios to make a completely different film utilizing the same sets and costumes rather than simply dub the existing film with foreign languages) created a far more visually interesting product with more camera movement, better staging of certain sequences and even some special effects that made the English version seem a little hokey. What it didn't have, however, was a Dracula with the charisma and screen presence of Bela Lugosi.

There is another element that to modern audiences is noticeably absent from the film. Outside of the opening titles (where Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" can be heard) and a scene in a concert hall, the film is completely devoid of any music. Dracula was one of Browning's first sound pictures and his discomfort with the new technology seems apparent in his use of sound. There are long stretches of silence in the which, though they invoke an atmosphere of suspense and dread, clearly reflect a filmmaker whose training stems from silent cinema. Esteemed minimalist composer Philip Glass attempted to rectify this in 1998 by writing a score for a string quartet that he intended to accompany the film and indeed most DVD versions now have the option of viewing it with a separate audio track that includes Glass' contribution. Although Glass is undeniably talented and the score is itself worth listening to, I personally find it too distracting and intrusive. It transforms Dracula from a piece with perhaps too many silent moments to a film with practically no silent moments. Thus, whenever I sit down to watch it (which usually is every Halloween) I have to do so without Glass' music to really enjoy the experience.

It might be hard now to imagine that anyone ever thought Dracula was scary, but the truth is that people were frightened by what they saw. Decades before newspapers would report that The Exorcist had patrons fainting in the theaters, Dracula had a similar effect on audiences and, to the delight of the studio, it was an enormous box office success. Looked at today a lot of it seems amusing at best and rather silly at worst, but several things save it from being simply a relic of a bygone era: Freund's striking cinematography, some magnificent sets, a few genuinely creepy moments and memorable performances by Dwight Frye, Edward Van Sloan (as Van Helsing) and, of course, Bela Lugosi (who would become so identified with the role that he would have a lifelong love/hate relationship with it). What also cannot be ignored is the role it played in initiating a whole pantheon of cinematic vampires that would later follow. Just as Bram Stoker's book coalesced and solidified much of the language and imagery that is now associated with the mythology of vampires, Tod Browning's Dracula would establish much of what makes vampires attractive to a moviegoing audience: their mystery, their immortality, their sex appeal. They may have started out as engaging villains and ended up as angst-ridden antiheroes, but regardless of how they got that way, without the work of Browning and Lugosi, we wouldn't have any of the vampire media that we do today... though we shouldn't blame it for that.

The Beauty of "Age"

2011-01-30T23:50:00.000-08:00

I recently watched one of Martin Scorsese's under-appreciated gems (the 1993 adaptation of Edith Wharton's novel The Age of Innocence) and was struck by how immensely, almost incomprehensibly, beautiful it is. Elegant cinematography by Michael Ballhaus, exquisite (and Oscar-winning) costumes by Gabriella Pescucci and impeccable art direction by Dante Firetti and Robert J. Franco all coalesce to make one of the most visually stunning films I've seen in a long time. Nearly every shot in the film is like a painting that I would love to have hanging on my wall.

Here's just a small taste.

I Come to Praise Caesar, Not to Bury Him.

2011-01-25T01:32:00.000-08:00

The following is an article I wrote for the blog Edward Copeland on Film (for which I am a regular contributor) commemorating the 80th anniversary of the release of Little Caesar.

Before he was the sharp-minded, fast-talkin' insurance investigator in Double Indemnity or the poker-playin' master who squared off with Steve McQueen's Cincinnati Kid, before he was the traitorous Dathan in the biblical epic The Ten Commandments or the world-weary friend of Chuck Heston who knew the truth about Soylent Green, Edward G. Robinson was the short-statured yet larger-than-life eponymous crime boss in the 1931 Warner Bros. classic Little Caesar, which debuted 80 years ago today. Released the same year as the studio's other gangster pic The Public Enemy, Caesar did for Robinson exactly what Enemy did for its lead actor James Cagney: it made him a star.

Based on a novel by W.R. Burnett, the author would later write the novels The Asphalt Jungle and High Sierra. He co-wrote the screenplay for High Sierra (which, coincidentally, was released 10 years to the day that Caesar premiered) with John Huston and also worked on continuity and contributed dialogue to Howard Hawks' Scarface. Little Caesar tells the story of the meteoric rise and ignoble fall of fictional Chicago crime boss "Rico" Bandello (though he's presumably inspired by either Al Capone or Sam Cardinella depending on who you're talking to). While it wasn't the first gangster film ever made (nor even the first "talking" gangster film), Caesar is often credited, along with Enemy, as being the "godfather" of all gangster flicks that followed. It certainly spawned a whole string of mobster parts for Robinson, who would play similar roles in Key Largo, Little Giant and Disney's Never a Dull Moment (my first exposure to the inimitable Edward).

Like all typecast actors, Robinson struggled to break free from his "tough guy" screen persona for many years to come and despite his undeniable talent and charisma, it's easy to see why audiences so associated him with that type of character. Edward G. Robinson is to mobsters what John Wayne is to cowboys. To see him play "Rico" in particular is to witness that rare occasion of an actor and a part fusing together with such perfection that it's almost impossible to separate them. Robinson is so graceful, so natural, so believable as the arrogant, power-hungry and bloodthirsty Rico that it's easy to believe that this was the role he was, as the cliche goes, "born to play." Every scene with him is a delight and there are so many memorable moments involving him that it's hard to highlight only one. Nonetheless, my personal favorite is the scene where he tries on a tuxedo for the first time and stands before a mirror. At first he starts off hating the "monkey suit" he's wearing ("All I need is a napkin over my arm," he sneers.), but gradually he starts to like the way it looks and strikes a dashing pose as he admires his newer, "classier" self. Without a doubt, Robinson is the best part of Little Caesar.

The rest of the film, unfortunately, doesn't hold up quite as well. Though by no means bad, one wonders if The Godfather or Goodfellas will look as dated, quaint and melodramatic on their 80th anniversary as Little Caesar looks now. No doubt the violence, ridiculously tame by today's standards, was shocking for its time (a time before the Hays Code swooped in to protect audiences from being sullied by such despicable sounds and images) and the idea of glamorizing the Mafia lifestyle — an element that is not only accepted by today's audiences but actually expected by them — also made the film rather controversial (though it didn't hurt its box office intake). In fact, when the film was re-released in 1954 on a double bill with The Public Enemy, a foreword was added in an attempt to give it some "relevance." Jonathan Munby (author of Public Enemies, Public Heroes) calls the foreword a "disclaimer couched in the rhetoric of the officiating culture."

My advice is to forget about its tacked-on socially redeeming "message" or its historical import as an early example of "crime drama" cinema. The real reason to see Little Caesar is the iconic performance of Edward G. Robinson. The ambition, the brutality and the occasional vulnerability he brings to the character of "Little Caesar" will ensure that that little man (and by connection the film he inhabits) will live on long after the Pizza franchise has become only a memory. So, to answer Robinson's final query: "Mother of mercy, is this the end of Rico?" Not hardly, Ed. Not hardly.

I'm Blogging Again

2011-01-11T14:09:00.000-08:00

It's been over two years since I "unofficially" retired my film blog Windmills of My Mind. It was the first independent blog I had ever possessed and I very much enjoyed using it to be an active participant in the film-blogging community. During that period of time I had the privilege of corresponding with a lot of great people, becoming more and more educated in a subject about which I had foolishly already considered myself an expert and even having the chance to make some of my own thoughts and ideas heard by others. Thus, my decision to abandon it indefinitely was a painful one, but for reasons that I will not go into here, maintaining it was also quite painful. There was no big announcement. No farewell. No final posting. I just quietly and unceremoniously let it fade away. And yet, while doing so I wondered if I would ever have the opportunity and/or courage to return to the blogosphere someday and if so, whether it would even still want me. Though I was prepared for these things to not be the case, deep down I hoped they would.

In the relatively short time that has elapsed since then, a lot has changed in my life. My 15-year-long career in the video business came to an abrupt end when my father's store--where I had worked as an assistant manager for six years--closed, I got married to a wonderful woman and moved from Oregon (where my entire immediate family lives) to a suburb of Dallas, Texas called Mesquite. A few of my friends and distant family members have passed on and my sister and brother-in-law welcomed a new baby girl into the world (which made me, for the first time in my life, somebody's uncle). In addition to these significant events, the ordinary, gradual changes that the march of time brings about on all of us affected me as well: namely, I grew older, fatter and more bald. I don't know if these occurrences have helped me to mature at all or made me a wiser, humbler human being, because it's hard for one to be objective about his own personal growth (or lack thereof), but I must say that I do at least "feel" somewhat different. Things that were incredibly meaningful to me before don't seem so now while other things that were more or less irrelevant to me have now become much higher priorities.

A lot has also changed in the world at large. The bottom dropped out of the American economy, our country got a new president (it's first African-American one), 3-D once again became the latest craze in theatre-going experiences and Twitter took off as the newest mode of communication. Naturally I had opinions about all of these events, but I largely kept them to myself, partially because I was engaged in other activities (such as searching for a new job) and partially because I had no real forum with which to express them... which, truly, I was fine with. Making sure I was heard may have been overwhelmingly meaningful in my earlier blogging days, but I had now come to regard it as a luxury. Everyone may have something to say, but not necessarily everyone should say it. The internet is teeming with blogs on any and every subject known to man and cinema is no exception. Just about anything I or anyone else could possibly want to say about movies is probably already being said, and more articulately, by the likes of Roger Ebert, Jim Emerson, Matt Zoller Seitz, Dennis Cozzalio, Kim Morgan, David Bordwell, Kristin Thompson, Jeffrey Overstreet, et al. These are the "big fishes in the little pond" of online film criticism. Still, I found that the further I got away from my old blog, the more I missed it. I missed the challenging interactions with smart people from all walks of life. I missed the sense of community felt with others who loved film as much as I did. I missed it all. My wish to return to blogging may have always been there in some small capacity, but it became harder and harder to ignore the more time passed.

Then, like a child who doesn't want to just jump impetuously into the cold water, I cautiously dipped my toe back in the virtual swimming pool.* Hoping to establish some kind of an online presence once more, I posted some writings on Facebook and with the occasional contribution for my friend Ed Copeland's blog, I slowly inched my way back into the blogging community. Despite my earlier acceptance of the possibility of never blogging again, I really didn't want my online identity to be defined by one of the stupidest things I had ever done. So, as we kick off a new year (a time when we tend to look back with reflection and contemplation but also look ahead with both eagerness and apprehension), I am likewise kicking off my new film blog CINEMEMORIES--the most original title I think of--with this inaugural post. I have no idea what the future holds in store for me here, but I am at last ready and willing to find out what it may be and I invite others who are so inclined to join me.

In preparation for this "maiden voyage," I looked back at the first piece I ever posted on my previous blog. It's always an interesting and surreal experience reading one's own words from years earlier, because they can feel like they were written by a completely different person. One finds himself thinking "Oh, how naive/foolish you were." Nonetheless, I saw that I had written something about "not taking lightly the responsibility that comes with possessing a means of self-expression that has the potential to reach the masses."

Even if I fail to live up to them, those are still words I believe in.

*Incidentally, I have no idea where I am getting all these water metaphors from, but they go well with image I've chosen to use as my header for the time being.