Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘At the Movies’ Category

No Goats. No Glory.

Posted in At the Movies, Favorite Things, tagged , , , on October 29, 2009| 3 Comments »

clooney-staring-at-goatsThere are a few movies that I’ve been looking forward to and am finally seeing some ads for on the tube.  One is The Men Who Stare at Goats starring George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, Ewan McGregor and Kevin Spacey. It’s based on the 2004 Jon Ronson book of the same name that was an accompaniment to a BBC documentary on some of the odder aspects of US military intelligence.  Things like psychic warfare and mind control.

It looks like a very funny flick.  Clooney and Bridges have both shown great comedic chops in the past, particularly in Coen Brothers’ films, and look to do the same here.

Another film that I am looking forward to seeing is The Road.  Well, I guess I’m looking forward to seeing it.  Dreading it may actually be the better description to how well I really want to see this film, based on Cormac McCarthy‘s sparse, bleak tale of a father and his young son trying to find warmth and safety in an end of the world scenario.  It’s a dark story that plays on primal fears with little room for hope.  Like much of McCarthy’s work.

Like many books being translated into film, The Road could very well be a bust as a film.  I am afraid they will clutter the story with too much backstory instead of focusing on the simple father-son relationship of the two main characters.  McCarthy told the story with beautifully pared down prose that said everything but not too much.  He lets you fill in your own nightmare.  If you’ve read some of his other work ( No Country For Old Men and the Hieronymous Bosch-like Blood  Meridien leap to mind) you’ll know what I mean.

So, of the two I expect one to make me laugh and one to depress me, either from disappointment or from its portrayal of the abyss of hopelessness.  Now that’s good stuff…

Read Full Post »

The Great Conrad Veidt

Posted in At the Movies, Favorite Things, tagged , , , , , on October 20, 2009| 3 Comments »

Conrad Veidt as Major Strasser in CasablancaI’ve mentioned before that I really enjoy old movies and probably one of the reasons is the many great character actors who really embellished any story.  One of my favorites is the great character actor, Conrad Veidt, who made his fame as a star in German cinema before fleeing the Nazi regime in 1933.   Probably most of you out there don’t know the name very well, if at all.  But you are no doubt aware of many of the films and characters he has influenced, well past his death in 1943, only a year after his most famous part as the soon to be stereotypical Nazi, Major Strasser, in Casablanca.

Many of the characters he played became stereotypes or  prototypes in the movies after his death.  The haughty, cruel arrogance of Major Strasser became the way to play Nazis in the film world. conrad veidt themanwholaughsThen you have the charming fellow with the lovely smile shown here.  It’s a character, Gwynplaine, he played in American silent film The Man Who Laughs, based on the Victor Hugo book, in 1928.  The cartoonists responsible for the Batman comic book series were so taken with Veidt’s character that they used him as the basis for the Joker, many years pre-Heath Ledger.

Before that Veidt had been a star in post-WW I Germany, starring in the classic  The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. It is one of the gems of German Expressionist filmmaking and one of the most influential films of all time, conrad veidt caligari posterpaving the way for  future horror films as well as film noir.   Veidt’s character may have even influenced the Goth look of today’s youth.  He played Cesare, the murderous sideshow attraction of Dr Caligari.  Cesare was pretty Goth looking for the time, all dressed in black with darkened eyes and jet black hair.

The image of Viedt’s Cesare was one that I saw many times as kid and a horror movie fan.  I didn’t know who Conrad Veidt was but I recognized his character in the books and magazines I read that traced the history of monster and horror films.  Actually, it wasn’t until I was well into my adult life that I realized that Cesare and Major Strasser were the same man.  That speaks to the versatility of Conrad Veidt.

His influence is also seen in one of the most popular animated films of all time , Disney’s 1992 Aladdin, which is based on the film, The Thief of Bagdad.  Viedt’s character was Jafar, the villainous Grand Vizier.  As in all of his roles he made a huge impression in his characterization that it came to be the gold standard for such roles.  You can even see it in the pure physical similarity.

jaffarJafar-and-Iago-aladdin-270913_445_266As I said, character actors like Veidt, along with the likes of Charles Coburn, Ward Bond, William Demarest and hundreds of others, have really given great texture to many of the best films of all time and their influence lives on today.  The next time you’re watching and enjoying an old movie, keep an eye out for these  wonderful actors.  No doubt they will be there.

Read Full Post »

Where the Wild Things Are

Posted in At the Movies, Favorite Things, Neat Stuff, Video, tagged , , , on October 15, 2009| 2 Comments »

Where the Wild Things AreThere’s a part of me that’s slightly embarrassed by my reaction to the ads running for the the release of the movie version of Maurice Sendak’s classic Where the Wild Things Are.  I find myself smiling every time the ad concludes and a certain lightness, a  kid-like giddiness rises in me at the prospect of seeing something magically special.

I don’t know why.  I’m seemingly long past the age of  kid-like excitement.  I never read the book when I was a child  so it doesn’t rekindle warm and fuzzy memories.  I usually don’t even like the idea of trying to make movies from my favorite books, usually with good cause.

But there is something very engaging in the trailer for this film.  Maybe it’s from the direction of Spike Jonze who is responsible for Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, two of the most unique films of recent years.  His choice of costuming and the beautiful golden colors of his cinematography make it so that you can’t pull your eyes from the screen.

I can only hope it meets my now raised expectations.  It opens this Friday.

There was a somewhat animated version from 1973 that was done by Peter Schickele ( AKA PDQ Bach) in collaboration with Sendak.  It’s a short piece that definitely lacks the finish of more recent animations but is true to the story.  Take a look…

Read Full Post »

A Face In The Crowd

Posted in At the Movies, Favorite Things, Television, Video, tagged , , , , , , on September 25, 2009| 2 Comments »

A Face In the CrowdIt’s funny sometimes how the truth behind a satire from another time seems to come to bear in the present.

This past weekend, I watched part of  A Face In The Crowd, the classic film that I’ve seen many times from 1957 starring Andy Griffith as slimy Lonesome Rhodes, a drunken Southern drifter who by virtue of circumstance becomes a media darling and mouthpiece for conservative populism a la Glenn Beck of today. It’s a great film, one that always provokes a strong reaction and always seems, even in its dated setting, to have something that we can see in our own circumstances today.  It was a tour de force performance from Griffith and a far cry from the gentle, wise Sheriff Andy Taylor of Mayberry.  Lonesome Rhodes was the type of character that would have had Barney Fife pretty nervous.

Lonesome Rhodes knows how to manipulate the people, spark them into a fiery force, yet has nothing but contempt for them.   He has a natural ability, like many cons, of being able to read people, sense their drives and triggers while ingratiating himself at the same time.   He is all charisma.  But beneath this patina of charm and folksy wisdom lies a core of anger, sex and violence- a dangerous timebomb who strives to shape the public opinion into his vision.

It’s a great depiction of how the public reacts to a man of the people, even when he may be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.  There is always talk of remaking this film and I always cringe at the thought.  Like most remakes of great films, it would probably lose that intangible spark that makes the original blaze, be it a stellar performance and natural charm like  that of Andy Griffith, a great supporting cast featuring Patricia Neal and Walter Matthau, or the sharp, angular storytelling from director Elia Kazan, a controversial figure himself.  I really hope that they choose to leave this one alone.

Anyway, if you like social satire check out this film.  Good stuff.  Here’s the original trailer-

Read Full Post »

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

Posted in At the Movies, Video, tagged , , , on June 9, 2009| 1 Comment »

The Life and Death of Colonel BlimpI’m taking a small break from talking about my show that opens Friday to mention a film that is showing today on Turner Classic Movies.  They’re showing several films of the great director Michael Powell and finish up with The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp from 1943.

It’s probably not a movie many of you know and that’s a great shame.  Colonel Blimp was a popular comic character in the British papers of the 1930’s, an older, round British officer who was a throwback to the Boer War, always recounting his exotic exploits in the far reaches of the Empire in a doddering, foolish manner.  The movie begins in WW II Britain and the main character, Clive Candy, is an older officer who has become the very embodiment of Colonel Blimp.  The movie traces his life and shows, sympathetically, how he came to be such a character.  It was a very controversial movie in wartime Britain because of the presence of a German officer who was portrayed as a sympathetic character.  Even though he was anti-Nazi, the portrayal of any German officer in such a favorable light drew the ire of Winston Churchill and the British government.

Visually, like all films from Powell and partner, Emeric Pressburger, Colonel Blimp is stunning and has the beautiful saturated color that are present in all of Powell’s color films, like The Red Shoes or The Black Narcissus or my favorite, A Matter of Life and Death.  There is a short sequence at the film’s beginning that could easily be the first example of the modern music video.  It consists of a group of troops on motorcycles speeding through the English countryside to the sounds of rollicking big band music.  The filming is sharp with daring shots and gives you the sense of the speed and power of the bikes as their movements were in sync with the crash of the music.  When I first saw it I was thrilled.  It had such a modern feel, something I wasn’t expecting in a film from 1943.  I wonder how many filmmakers had seen that short segment and been influenced to further highlight a scene with music.

I don’t usually like to recommend movies for much the same reason I don’t like to recommend specific art.  Film, like art, is a really personal preference.  Totally subjective.  What I may see in a film or piece or art may elude you and vice versa.  But if you get the chance see Colonel Blimp or any of the other Michael Powell films.  They are visually beautiful and greatly interesting.  His eye for composing the image that you see reminds me of the way John Ford put his scenes together.  Both have a truly artistic feel, adding an elegance and magnificence to almost every shot.  There is nothing mundane in any of their work.  Good, good stuff…

Read Full Post »

Once

Posted in At the Movies, Favorite Things, Video, tagged , , on May 22, 2009| 2 Comments »

OnceYesterday I wrote about a personal commitment in my work.  It actually set off a bit of a word association when the other night I saw a few minutes of a film I hadn’t seen in many years , The Commitments, the story of an Irish band that plays old school rhythm and blues.  It’s a nice film with a lot of humor but the part that caught my eye was seeing the band’s guitarist and realizing it was Glen Hansard who starred in and wrote most of the music for the Irish film, Once, a couple of years ago. He won an Oscar for his songwriting on the film.  Even though it isn’t a film I would necessarily urge everyone to see there was something about Once that I really found engaging even though I can’t really define it.  Maybe it’s just the affability of the characters.  I found myself really rooting for the two main characters and liking the music as well.

 Now the word association comes with the following clip from the film where the two main characters have rented a recording studio to record a demo with a back up band assembled  from street musicians .  The technician at the studio hasn’t much interest in them as they start.  They play the song, When Your Mind’s Made Up, building layers of sound and tempo with each refrain.  What I like about this scene is the technician’s recognition as they play that this was something real, something authentic built on their commitment to the music.  I’ve seen that look when someone has underestimated you then realizes there is more than meets the eye.  

Anyway, take a look and give a listen…

Read Full Post »

At the Movies: The 39 Steps

Posted in At the Movies, tagged , , on May 12, 2009| 5 Comments »

The 39 Steps posterAt least once a year, usually more, I watch Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps in the studio.  It’s one of his early films and has  a very dark look to it, pretty grainy which might turn off some who don’t appreciate the unique qualities of black and white films.  Like most Hitchcock films it’s suspenseful but with comic touches and moves along quickly as we follow the hero, played by Robert Donat, who is wrongly accused of the murder of a mysterious woman and pursued across Britain as he tries to find the real killers.  It serves as a loose framework for his later and better known North By Northwest, featuring the iconic scene with Cary Grant being chased down a prairie road by a plane.  It’s good fun and a great film  that I recommend highly, especially if you have any fondness for Hitchcock and his genre, which I certainly do.

 Robert DonatThe reason I mention this film is actually to mention Robert Donat, the star of the film.  He is probably totally unknown to most movie fans today which is tragic.  He was one of the most popular British actors of his time and died in the 1950’s at age 51 from asthmatic complications. He is probably for his portrayal of Mr. Chips in Goodbye Mr. Chips in 1939 for which he won the Oscar for Best Actor, beating out Clark Gable in Gone With the Wind, Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Laurence Olivier in Wuthering Heights.  Pretty stiff competition.  

I have to admit that I didn’t know a lot about Donat but over the years, as I continue to come across his films, I have come to really appreciate the greatness of his talent for communicating his roles on the film.  He had a very malleable look that could be very soft and foppish or could come across as strong and dashing.  He could play both poor or aristocratic characters with ease and gave all a great a depth.  I hope that more fans of movies will rediscover this now somewhat forgotten actor.  

 There are a lot of great actors out there who are very much like Donat in that they,too, are little remembered.  One of my favorites is Joseph Cotten who starred in scores of great movies like Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, The Third Man and Niagara just to scratch the surface.  He was always exceptional but, unfortunately, remains relatively unknown today.  But to those who have found him and Donat and many others, they remain huge talents whose body of work lives on today.  

They’re out there waiting to be found…

Read Full Post »

I’ll Fly Away

Posted in At the Movies, Favorite Things, Video, tagged , , , , , , on April 20, 2009| 2 Comments »

Far WatchI use a single bird sometimes in my paintings.  The most common meaning for me is of the bird being the watcher, overseeing everything.  It represents patience and wisdom in this case.

I see the bird most often as a hawk but sometimes it’s a crow.  I admire both, the hawk for its physical prowess and the crow for its intelligence.  I remember watching a group of crows chase a hawk and when it appeared the hawk had nowhere to go he started leading the crows upward in  long loops.  As he rose, the crows closed in and just as they were about on him he made this powerful dive that carried him from above the spot where I was on a hillside to a point in the valley below, nearly a mile away.  The crows couldn’t match the dive and were left so far behind they gave up the pursuit.  It was an impressive escape.

Sometimes the bird represents to me a type of memento mori, a reminder of our mortality.  The bird is still the watcher but more of a spirit guide.  

In the spirit of this meaning, I’m segueing into a video of the old gospel song I’ll Fly Away sung by Allison Krauss and Gillian Welch. It feature scenes from the movie from which was taken, the Coen Brothers’ O Brother Where Art Thou?, one of my favorites.  It’s one of those films where when I see it’s on television will turn in it at any point to see what point the movie is at.  I particularly like the look of the film, the way they pulled a lot of the color out, replacing it with a sepia tone that kind of gives it a dated look.  The title of the movie is taken from the great Preston Sturges  film, Sullivan’s Travels.  In it, Sullivan is a movie director of mainly comedies who wants to make a deep, socially conscious film chronicling the poor and downtrodden, to be titled O Brother Where Art Thou?  He sets out disguised as a tramp to get a first hand look at the conditions of the poor and encounters many obstacles along the way.  Ultimately, his film is not made.  That is, until the Coens took the baton and finished the job.  Both are great, great films.

Anyway, here’s I’ll Fly Away…


Read Full Post »

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

Posted in At the Movies, tagged , , , , , , on April 13, 2009| 6 Comments »

Michael CaineI saw a short piece on the news-magazine show CBS Sunday Morning that profiled actor Michael Caine.  I have always liked Caine and many of his movies, although I sometimes question some of his choices.  The interesting part was when they pointed out how many of his 60’s era movies have had modern remakes.  Alfie, The Italian Job, Get Carter and several more have all been subjected to an updated retelling.  All fell short of the originals.

Caine said he didn’t understand why a moviemaker would want to remake a successful, well made film.  To his mind it made more sense to find a movie that had flopped but had a good storyline and remake that.  His Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was such a case, having been a flop, with another name,  starring Marlon Brando.

This kind of reinforced what I had mentioned in my Saturday post about The Ten Commandments where I talked about how modern moviemakers remake a classic film with new people and the newest technology and deliver films with more realism but less entertainment value.  They can never recreate the chemistry required to make a film  work. They forget that movies are about people first.  All the greatest cinematic technology and attention to detail mean nothing if the viewer can’t make some type of connection with the characters.  This human element is somehow overlooked by modern moviemakers.  

Like painting, all the technical prowess in the world means nothing if people can’t feel attachment to the work. 

I just thought it was an interesting point to think over while I’m waiting for them to remake Casablanca.  I hear they’re going to cast Matthew McConaughey to take over Bogart’s Rick character.

Just kidding- I hope…

Read Full Post »

MOSES!

Posted in At the Movies, Favorite Things, Video, tagged , , , , , on April 11, 2009| 6 Comments »

the-ten-commandments-1956-movie-05Well, it’s the day before Easter which can only mean one thing:  the annual showing of The Ten Commandments, the 1956 epic film from Cecille B. DeMille.  

I always look forward to watching this movie not so much from any admiration of its quality as great cinema (though it is great moviemaking with its beautiful cinematography and color and the great musical score) but more so for the treasure trove of kitsch it bears.  I love the clumsy, stilted lines of dialogue.  The stylized overacting- Anne Baxter’s Nefretiri and John Derek’s Joshua are right out of the earliest, clumsiest silent films.  The boo-hiss quality of Yul Brynner’s Rameses.  And how can you not love Edward G. Robinson playing Dathan, snarling, “Where’s your Moses now?”  in that oft imitated voice straight out of Little Caesar.

But the star is Moses.  Love him or hate him, Charlton Heston was the perfect specimen for this or any epic movie.  Don’t get me started on Ben Hur. His physical stature, his deep voice and his ability to deliver the most wooden lines with complete commitment make his portrayal a complete pleasure to watch.  A tour de force.

Modern moviemakers always try to remake these epic type movies with full attention to every detail, trying to bring realism and authenticity to the story.  But while there may be realism there is no entertainment quality and they never measure up to the very films that some of these people mock.  This is is real entertainment.

So if you get a chance tonight, look in for a while (because it is a very lonnnng movie) and enjoy…


Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »