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Episode 19: Part Two of Tom Hatten on "The Islander", 6 'n 90, Big announcement 2, River of No Return and The Lost Missile, Best Picture Nominations
Posted on 11 July 2009 | 10:35 pm by Jim Rutherford
This week's podcast lineup:
6 'n 90
Reviewed by Da Man
PARANOID PARK
Directed by Gus Van Sant. Written by Gus Van Sant from a novel by Blake Nelson. Starring Gabe Nevins, Daniel Liu, Jake Miller.
DECEPTION
Directed by Marcel Langenegger. Written by Mark Bomback.
Starring: Ewan Mcgregor, Hugh Jackman, Michelle Williams.
SWING VOTE
Directed by Joshua Michael Stern. Written by Jason Richman & Joshua Michael Stern. Starring: Kevin Costner, Madeline Carroll, Paula Patton, Kelsey Grammer.
DONKEY PUNCH
Directd by Oliver Blackburn. Written by David Bloom and Oliver Blackburn.
Starring: Robert Boulter, Sian Breckin, Tom Burke.
GARDEN'S OF THE NIGHT
Directed by Damian Harris. Written by Damian Harris.
Starring: Gilliian Jacobs, John Malkovich, Ryan Simpkins, Tom Arnold.
SPECIAL
Directed by Hal Haberman and Jeremy Passmore. Written by Hal Haberman and Jeremy Passmore. Starring: Michael Rapaport, Paul Blackthorne, Josh Peck.
THE ISLANDER
Southern California TV legend, Tom Hatten, returns to share the remainder of his desert island movies.
THE BIG ANNOUNCEMENT 2
For sheer jaw dropping, head scratching, mind bending disbelief, the decision to make Bazooka Joe: The Movie was an announcement we here at It's Only a Movie believed could never be topped. How wrong we were.
GEM OF THE WEEK
RIVER OF NO RETURN
Directed by Otto Preminger. Screenplay by Frank Fenton. Story by Louis Lantz. Starring: Robert Mitchum, Marilyn Monroe, Rory Calhoun, Tommy Rettia.
CULT CURIOSITY
THE LOST MISSILE
Directed by William Berke. Written by John McPartland & Jerome Bixby and William Berke (also story). Staring: Robert Loggia, Ellen Parker, Phillip Pine, Larry Kerr.
IOM ROUNDTABLE
The IOM staff takes their best guess at what 10 films in next year's Best picture catagory will be nominated.
Such a Character: Thomas Mitchell
Posted on 7 July 2009 | 10:21 pm by Nancy the Fan
With all the hoopla circulating around the platinum anniversary of what was arguably Hollywood's greatest year, 1939, it's worth remembering that this entire era was rich for more than just great movies. The decades on either side of 1939 were also the golden age for the screen's great character actors. While the stars usually managed to squeeze out two, maybe three pictures a year, it often appeared that the character actors of this time were sprinting from one sound stage to the next. The good ones were very, very busy, and one of the greatest was Thomas Mitchell.
Born in 1892 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Mitchell, the oldest son of immigrant Irish parents, got his start on stage after briefly pursuing a career in journalism. For a while, he toured with a Shakespearean theater company headed by fellow character actor Charles Coburn. He then turned his sights to Broadway and appeared in more than twenty plays between 1916 and 1960, some of which he also wrote and/or directed.
Sit around and watch enough TCM, especially the stuff that gets aired at five in the morning, and you might begin to wonder if Mitchell wasn't legally mandated to appear in every third Hollywood film made between the mid-1930's and mid-1940's. He wasn't, of course, but he made nearly fifty films during that period. By the time of his passing in 1962, his combined film and TV credits totaled 103, the first one being a breezy 1922 silent called Six Cylinder Love (one of his co-stars, also making his film debut, was Donald Meek, with whom Mitchell went on to make a cramped journey in John Ford's Stagecoach).
If 1939 was a high point in American cinema, it was no less of a pinnacle for Mitchell's film career. He not only appeared in five of that year's greatest films, but he displayed his awesome versatility as an actor in each one: as Gerald O'Hara, the proud but doomed patriarch in Gone with the Wind; in his Oscar-winning turn as the drunken but ultimately heroic Doc Boone in Stagecoach; as the sympathetic pilot whose shoulder Jean Arthur cries on in Only Angels Have Wings; as Diz Moore, the sympathetic, drunken reporter whose shoulder Jean Arthur also cries on in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington; and in his rousing turn as Clopin, the King of Beggers, in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
(In case you don't recognize him, the idealistic young poet in that scene is none other than Edmond O'Brien, perhaps best known as the more severely doomed victim, Frank Bigelow, in the 1950 noir classic D.O.A.)
Seven years later, Mitchell played what might be considered his most memorable role, that of Uncle Billy, the well-meaning but scatterbrained uncle and "ol' building & loan pal" to Jimmy Stewart in Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life:
With the rise of television in the early 1950's, Mitchell took to the airwaves as effortlessly as he did to the silver screen. He was a fixture in numerous anthologies and series. He
maintained a presence on Broadway as well, taking over the lead from Lee J. Cobb in the original production of Death of a Salesman and winning the Tony Award in 1953 for Best Actor in a Musical for Hazel Flagg (a musical version of the 1937 screwball comedy, Nothing Sacred)...without ever singing a note. (That's Mitchell in the center of the picture, kneeling, looking after the supposedly infirmed Hazel). 1953 was also the year Mitchell won the Emmy for Best Actor (apparently, at that time, given for a body of work rather than one specific production). The Emmy, the Tony, and his Oscar for Stagecoach made him the first actor to win the Triple Crown of the major acting awards. 
Oh, and this...from the Little-Known Facts Department: Mitchell's last work was a stage play entitled Prescription: Murder in which he played the secondary role of Lt. Columbo. Yes, that Lt. Columbo. The play's leads were Agnes Moorehead and Joseph Cotten (with Mitchell, right), but Mitchell's performance as the bumbling detective was key, thanks to his performance, and while the play was on the road, the role was expanded, ultimately becoming the character Peter Falk made famous in his T.V. role.
Mitchell did what all all great supporting actors do...he supported. While he may have sometimes moved menacingly close to the scenery, the flats ultimately never reveal any bite marks. Between his elfish charm, his sparkling eyes, and the way he could toss out one-liners with ease...he never overwhelmed the frame, but you always knew he was there. And that, in turn, made the scene, or even the film, better (except, perhaps, 1944's Wilson. No one could have saved that clunker). While some of his films may have lapsed into obscurity, Mitchell never will.
Richard Herd Redux
Posted on 27 June 2009 | 9:53 pm by Jim Rutherford
In this audio clip from the IOM archives, Islander guest Richard Herd (Episodes 14 & 15) explains how he finds the time for all the different passions in his life. While of course best know for his acting (in film, TV and on the stage), he is also an accomplished poet and painter. Other topics under discussion: soap operas; Richard's one man Cecil B. Demille show (as pictured, left); and his favorite Shakespeare plays.
MP3 File
3 Fun-Size Reviews
Posted on 27 June 2009 | 8:00 pm by Jim Rutherford
By Da Man
MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN
Directed by Ryuhei Kitamura. Written by Jeff Buhler.
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Leslie Bibb, Brooke Shields.
With a title like Midnight Meat Train, I was hoping for a little softcore porn action, but no, it wasn't to be (sadly, the filmmakers chose a different direction to go in). No. No. No. No. No.What we have here is an OK movie that might have received a theatrical release with a different title. Course the stupid ending doesn't help and the film could definitely do with a little more, shall we say, female meat. Lucky for Midnight Meat Train, they don't grade movies like they do meat, 'cause no way is this thing getting the USDA Choice Prime rating. It's more like ground chuck -- a day or two from expiration. Still... I'm in!
MADEA GOES TO JAIL
Directed by Tyler Perry. Written by Tyler Perry.
Starring: Tyler Perry, Tyler Perry, Tyler Perry.
Tyler Perry again. Why this guy's so popular, I don't know. I'd rather see a Willy Tyler and Lester movie. That would be great. A ventriloquist dummy in jail! What would happen if they sent Lester to the electric chair? Does Lester sit in the chair or Willy? Maybe there'd be a jailbreak, and the cons could whittle Lester into a wooden arsenal of fake guns. They'd paint the guns with black shoe polish, and then the unfortunate, insulting racial jokes practically write themselves. As awful as my Willy Tyler and Lester movie sounds, it would still be better than Madea Goes to Jail. If you ask me, Tyler Perry should get a life sentence for making this lame-ass movie. I'm out!
COLLEGE
Directed by Deb Hagan
Written by Dan Callahan & Adam Ellison.
Starring: Drake Bell, Andrew Caldwell, Andree Moss, Carolyn Moss.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing is worse in films than an excruciatingly unfunny, teenage fat guy. Even more unbelievable is that he gets his nut off with a big, blond college babe. Come on. Even stupid unbelievable movies have to be based on some kind of reality. I'm out on this movie, and I'm out of here like sweat off a fat guy!
5 + 5 = WTF?!
Posted on 25 June 2009 | 2:10 am by Jim Rutherford
The IOM staff weigh in on some of the pros and cons (well to be honest, mostly cons) of The Academy's decision to extend the number of nominations for Best Picture from 5 to 10.
MP3 File
Why, Oh Why?
Posted on 25 June 2009 | 2:01 am by Nancy the Fan
The mad geniuses at the Motion Picture Academy gave out today with a Big Announcement:
The 82nd Academy Awards to feature TEN nominees!
That's AMPAS president Sid Ganis in the picture, looking all pleased with himself after making this riveting announcement. Notice he's backed by two posters exhorting the anniversary of what many believe to be the greatest year in American cinema, 1939. Perhaps Sid is under the impression that 2009 will be the next 1939. Sid, dream on.
This. Is. So. Wrong.
Ten nominees? Heck, I can barely remember what the top five are every year. How 'bout you? Think about last year. Can you name the five nominees? In 3, 2, 1...Go!
Tick, tick, tick....time's almost up.
Bong! Time's up. How did you do?
Now, can you remember anything that was nominated the year before that?
The Academy claims that this will be a way to broaden the spectrum, allowing more overlooked, less mainstream films to garner a nomination. Finally, Michael Bay can sit near the front of the audience at the Kodak Theater and hope, hope, hope that his latest epic, Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen will get the nod.
He will, of course, be surrounded by a surfeit of producers of quirky indie productions, all of whom will have, by that time, convinced themselves that their Wes Anderson derivative movie will have been good enough to propel them to the podium to pick up their golden statuette. Wes might be joining them. Fantastic Mr. Fox is due for release in November.
Another theory is that the Academy is looking at this as a kind of economic stimulus...as in, box office numbers always rise for a film that garners a Best Picture nod. So, if it works for five films, why not spread the wealth for ten?
Why not? Ever hear of DVDs, AMPAS? How about Netflix? Do you all really think I'm gonna hit my neighborhood multiplex and plunk down twelve bucks for ten films when I barely do that for the usual five?
AMPAS is quick to point out that the whole ten nominee thing is not new. The last time it happened was in 1943. Here are the nominees:
For Whom the Bell Tolls (Paramount)
Heaven Can Wait (Twentieth Century-Fox)
The Human Comedy (MGM)
In Which We Serve (Two Cities; United Artists)
Madame Curie (MGM)
The More the Merrier (Columbia)
The Ox-Bow Incident (Twentieth Century-Fox)
The Song of Bernadette (Twentieth Century-Fox)
Watch on the Rhine (Warner Bros.)
Casablanca (Warner Bros.)
Ohhhhhh, check out the diversity on that list. There's some comedies, some dramas, and a few war flicks. War flicks are basically dramas, right? And which of these ten were really Oscar worthy? Oh, about five of them. And The Ox-Bow Incident didn't win, so...meh! I mean, really...when was the last time anyone sat through and actually enjoyed The Song of Bernadette or Madame Curie? I have the answer. NEVER. You can throw Watch on the Rhine onto that list, too. The Human Comedy is pretty brutal as well.
(However, The More the Merrier is still pretty snappy. Check it out the next time it makes its way through the TCM rotation).
Plus, can you imagine how bloated the already over-bloated Oscar ceremony will be with, not
five, but ten Best Picture nominees. Oh, good Lord, kill me now.
Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack
Posted on 24 June 2009 | 5:01 pm by Jim Rutherford
At the beginning of
Giant Monsters All-Out Attack, Godzilla has been absent from the Japan-leveling/Tokyo-destroying scene for something like fifty years. Judging by his appearance, the big guy wasn't just hibernating during the intervening decades, but instead aggressively pursued a strict regimen of drinking beer and eating donuts.
Godzilla's always been a tad pear-shaped, but this time around he's sporting a pretty sizable gut. When seen in profile stomping through the wreckage of a burning city, all he needs is a wife-beater t-shirt and you've got a giant reptilian Jake Lamotta gone to seed, blindly driven by haywire machismo, lashing out at any and everything around him.
The first in a trio of monsters to go up against Godzilla is Baragon, a ridiculous 
looking creature with a horn on his nose and goofy floppy ears. Aside from the ability to burrow underground, there's not much that separates him from any other giant monster. To be fair, the silly creature might have other abilities, but who's ever going to know? Baragon plays Joey Lamotta to Godzilla's Jake, and immediately gets the crap beat out of him, never to be seen again.
King Ghidorah, on the other hand (if you're to believe the buzz), is supposed to be something altogether different.
The beneficiary of some ancient PR provided by prophets placing items in legend and lore down through the ages, Ghidorah finds himself in the unexpected position of living up to a possibly over-hyped rep. Still, there's no getting around the fact that Ghidorah is gigantic! And he can fly! And he's got three heads! And crackling energy bolts blast from each and every one of this mouths!
And he's one of the Guardian Monsters!
That's got to count for something. Right? Not every monster can lay claim to that title. As a matter of fact, only three come to mind. But now that I think about it, Baragon was one of them and Mothra the other. Maybe it's not such a big deal after all.
Forget I even mentioned it.
Preoccupied with thoughts like, "If Ghidorah is a king, just what is he the king of?" and trying to decide whether the over-hyped monster is a has-been or never-was, it comes as something of a surprise to realize the three headed flash in the pan is dead. Killed by Godzilla.
Next up is Mothra, and guess what -- Godzilla kills Mothra also, kind of leaving the story with no where to go. Unaccountably, the expiring moth explodes in a Disney-esque burst of shimmering lights. Then Mothra's sparkling, iridescent life force envelopes Ghidorah, reanimating and bringing the fallen Guardian back to life.
Presented with a second chance to deliver on all the inflated claims made about him, Ghidorah rises from the ashes like a gigantic, golden, three headed phoenix, ready to do battle with Godzilla one more time and...
And not surprisingly, I guess, Godzilla kills him again.
Really.
At this point, the film is dangerously close to jumping genres and turning into Groundhog Day for giant monsters as, believe it or not, Ghidorah is resurrected yet again (by the thousands of souls contained in some ancient piece of crockery) only to be killed a third time.
Fortunately for everyone involved, the third time is indeed a charm, and Ghidorah remains dead, or at least has the good sense to play possum and refuse to be humiliated in yet another terminal battle with Godzilla.
This movie has a lot of problems, and predictable, one-sided monster rumbles are only the beginning. There's also a bunch of needless mumb-jumbo about Godzilla being the personification of the pain and death caused by Japan in the Pacific during WW II.
Trust me, this film hasn't got enough going for it to worry about a second overlay of meaning. Take care of bushiness first and stage some surprising, fun monster battles before you start dragging in your high falutin' metaphors.
Finally, the special effects are an uneasy hybrid of guys in monster suits and CGI. Later in this final series of Godzilla films, the mix between miniature sets, rubber monsters and CGI gets pretty good, but here, instead of creating it's own sort of oddball reality, it just comes off as too ambitious at best, and intermittently cheesy and lame at worst.
Make no mistake about it, Godzilla is definitely kicking monster butt in this film but (and who would have guessed?) it turns out you need more than that. I'm out!
Tom Hatten: Islander Guest and More
Posted on 24 June 2009 | 2:27 am by Nancy the Fan
Episode 18's guest on "The Islander," Tom Hatten, is part of that rare breed, the local television celebrity. In these days of hundreds of cable channels, local television stations are little more than a place to park sitcom reruns and celebrity chat fests hosted by former supermodels and C-list television personalities. But it wasn't always that way. There was a time...You kids all gather 'round Granny, now, as she spills a tale of days long gone by...when each local TV station could be identified by its own on-air staff.
For example, if you fired up the ol' RCA Victor Color TV in your living rooom and saw Seymour, AKA Larry Vincent, you could bet you were watching "Fright Night" on KHJ-TV, channel 9 Ah, Seymour! All us kids in SoCal loved him. Side Note: I went to school with his lovely daughters, Diane and Valerie. One year, their father actually attended our Hallowe'en carnival at Lincoln Jr. High in Santa Monica. No paparazzi, just lots of pre-teen adoration to be found.
Meeting Seymour was cool, but for me, there was no greater local TV celeb than Tom Hatten. I didn't hit Southern California until I was nine-going-on-ten, so I missed most of his "Popeye Show" days. But that's just me. I know plenty of folk who grew up with Tom and his infamous "squiggles" from the time they were certified ankle-biters, and they all revere him as an important part of their childhood.
For me, it was only a couple of years after my family and I were enveloped into the Southern California fold that I caught the movie bug, and I clearly remember spending countless hours in front of the TV, practically inhaling the offerings of classic movies that were offered up over the air waves, mostly by local outlets.
Keep listening to Granny, kids, as she tells you how it was in them Olden Days. There were no VCRs or DVDs back in them times. Revival theaters were rare and certainly not within the grasp of the average teenage movie geek. If you had the inclination or desire to see a classic (or, as referred to them, old) movie, you scanned your parents' TV Guide and marked up your choices for the week (with an actual pen or pencil...no highlighters back then, kids). And you could bet dollars to doughnuts that there would be something to see on KTLA's "Family Film Festival" on channel 5.
It was there that thousands of other residents of the Southland and I came to know and love the host, Tom Hatten. Each weekend, at 3:00 PM (if I'm remembering correctly...and I believe I am), viewers would reunite with this most genial host, finding him comfortably ensconced in a chair next to a 16mm projector, holding a clipboard on his knee, and waiting to introduce his TV audience to another great film. Before the movie began, he offered an introduction; after commercial breaks, he gave out with more info about the film, the director, and the cast; and, at the end, if we were lucky, Tom introduced a special guest connected with the movie. As I say in my introduction to Tom on "The Islander," he was, indeed, the first film history professor many of us had.
Many, many years ago, I had a personal encounter with Tom on, of all places, Sunset Boulevard. I was a struggling film student at the time and was hangin' on Sunset to pick up some developed 8mm film I had shot for a class. Yes, 8mm. Imagine. You youngins can look that up. As I left the film-developing establishment, I spotted this dapper gentleman passing me, sporting a sharp satin jacket emblazoned on the back with the logo from the then new-ish musical Annie. Since I am also a musical theatre geek, I actually ran this fellow down so I could say something dopey, like, "Oh! Are you in the show?" The touring company had just hit L.A., and I had tickets to one of the first performances. The amiable fellow in the jacket turned around, and we chatted for a few moments. He told me that, yes, he was in the cast, playing FDR. Suddenly I realized that this most courtly gentleman wasn't just FDR, he was...TOM HATTEN...my "Family Film Festival" hero.
No one can ever accuse me of being suave when thrust in the face of my idols, and I remember that I babbled like a big dofus. But Tom was extremely gracious and even invited me to visit him backstage. I did, and he was enormously kind to me, going so far as offering me a tour of the backstage area and introducing me to other cast members.
He was a terrific FDR, by the way.
I also think he's a terrific castaway on "The Islander." Be sure to listen to his segments on our podcasts, Episodes 18 and 19.
Episode 18: Tom Hatten on "The Islander", 6 'n 90, Tales From the Front, Santo vs the Vampire Women, Guilty Pleasures
Posted on 22 June 2009 | 4:19 pm by Jim Rutherford
This week's podcast lineup:
6 'n 90
Reviewed by Da Man
ROLE MODELS 2008 (DVD review)
Dircted by David Wain. Written by Paul Rudd & David Wain, Ken Marino and Timothy Dowling.
Starring: Seann William Scott, Paul Rudd, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Bobb'e J. Thompson, Elizabeth Banks.
CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON 2008 (DVD review)
Directed by David Fincher. Written by Eric Roth.
Starring: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Julia Ormond.
ALEKSANDRA 2007 (DVD review)
Directed by Aleksandr Sokurov. Written by Aleksandr Sokurov.
Starring: Galina Vishnevskava, Vasily Shevtsov, Raisa Gichaeva.
ROCKNROLLA 2008 (DVD review)
Directed by Guy Ritchie. Written by Guy Ritchie.
Starring: Gerard Butler, Tom Wilkinson, Thandie Newtom.
IN THE ELECTRIC MIST
Directed by Bertrand Tavernier. Written by Jerzy Kromolowski & Mary Olson-Kromolowski.
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, John Goodman, Peter Sarsqaard, Kelly Macdonald.
RUN FATBOY RUN
Directed by David Schwimmer. Written by Michael Ian Black & Simon Pegg.
Starring: Simon Pegg, Thandie Newton, Hank Azaria.
TALES FROM THE FRONT
Lou shares war stories of his experiences in the entertainment trenches. He returns from London with stories of pitch meetings, a screenplay that refuses to die, and a love and appreciation for Hammer films that comes full circle.
THE ISLANDER
This week Nancy welcomes Tom Hatten to the island. Tom is a sourthern California TV legend. He will reveal the first of his ten movie picks to take with him to a deserted Island.
Popeye the movie is one of his picks, but you might be surprised to learn why.
SANTO vs THE VAMPIRE WOMEN
For many American Santo fans, this was the first Santo movie they ever saw (released here as Samson vs The Vampire Women). Forty or so years later, the IOM tag team of reviewers find themselves devided on its merits and whether it holds up or not.
GUILTY PLEASURES
There are some films we acknowledge as out and out classics, and others that we argue for and defend, believing that they are under appreciated or misunderstood. Then there are the films, in many instances favorite films, that we would just as soon not talk about. Sometimes these films fly in the face of everything we say we enjoy in a movie, or they simply embarrass us to admit we like them. This week the IOM staff share their cinematic guilty pleasures.
Episode 17: Part Two of "The Islander" with Mark Lisanti, 6 'n 90, TheWorld Theater Remembered, and Famous Films Recast
Posted on 30 May 2009 | 6:24 am by Jim Rutherford
This week's Podcast lineup:
6 'n 90
Reviewed by Da Man
WHILE SHE WAS OUT 2008 (DVD review)
Directed by Susan Montford. Written by Susan Montford.
Starring: Kim Basinger, Lukas Hass, Craig Sheffer.
FROZEN RIVER 2008 (DVD review)
Directed by Courtney Hunt. Written by Courtney Hunt.
Starring: Melissa Leo, Misty Upham, Charlie McDermott.
THE UNINVITED 2009 (DVD review)
Directed by Charles Guard and Thomas Guard. Written by Craig Rosenberg and Doug Miro & Carlo Bernard.
Starring: Emily Browning, Arielle Kebbel, David Strathaim, Elizabeth Banks.
EARTH 2007 (DVD review)
Directed by Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield. Written by Alastair Fothergill, Mark Linfield, and Leslie Megahey.
Starring: a bunch of animals.
WENDY AND LUCY 2008 (DVD review)
Directed by Kelly Reichardt. Written by Jonathan Raymond and Kelly Reichardt.
Starring: Michelle Williams, Will Patton, Wally Dalton, Lucy the dog.
OTIS 2008 (DVD review)
Directed by Tony Krantz. Written by Erik Jendresen and Thomas Schnauz.
Starring: Bostin Christopher, Ashley Johnson, Daniel Stern.
THE WORLD THEATER
Three IOM staff members look back at the infamous triple bill that played at The World in 1971.
THE UNDERTAKER AND HIS PALS 1966
Directed by T.L.P. Swicegood. Written by T.L.P. Swicegood.
Starring: Ray Dannis, Warrene Ott, James Westmoreland, Marty Friedman.
THE CORPSE GRINDERS 1971
Directed by Ted V. Mikels. Written by Arch Hall Sr. & Joseph Cranston and Ted V. Mikels (uncrdited).
Starring: Sean Kenney, Monika Kelly, Sanford Mitchell, J. Byron Foster.
THE EMBALMER 1965 (aka: Il mostro di Venezia)
Directed by Dino Tavella. Written by Dino Tavella and Antonio Walter.
Starring: Maureen Brown, Luigi Martocci, Luciano Gasper, Anita Todesco.
THE ISLANDER
Founding editor of Defamer, Mark Lisanti, reveals the remainder of his desert island move picks.
IOM ROUND TABLE
This week the IOM staff recast some favorite and not so favorite films. A few of the titles under discussion are: The Towering Inferno, Indian Jones and the Lost Ark, and of course, On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
A DOUBLE BARREL RANT
Outrage and horror so overwhelming that this rant requires two people to deliver it. The subject of the rant? Bazooka Joe: the Movie!
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Bazooka Joe Headed For the Big Screen
Posted on 24 May 2009 | 6:57 pm by Jim Rutherford
Listen, the problem isn't that Hollywood has run out of ideas. It ran out of ideas a long time ago. The problem is, Hollywood doesn't even know what an idea is anymore.
Michael Eisner's office. He is speaking to his personal assistant.
Eisner: Last night. I was taking off my shirt -- and I noticed in my belly button -- this fuzzy stuff.
Assistant: Really?
Eisner: Yeah. Spontaneous fuzz. I think there might be a story in it.
Assistant: What direction were you thinking of going in with the... fuzz. Horror? Sci-fi?
Eisner: More along the lines of an environmental cautionary tale. Every man, woman, and child in America wakes up one morning to discover that their belly button has become a toxic dump site for...
Assistant: Lint?
Eisner: Sends a shudder down your spine, doesn't it.
The assistant looks confused. Eisner has a sudden inspiration.
Eisner: Maybe George Clooney could star.
Assistant: Michael Clayton 2?
Eisner: Why not?
Long silence from Eisner. Then:
Eisner: Christ. I hope George doesn't have an outtie.
Another morning.
Eisner: Have you ever noticed how when your eyelids open and close kind of slowly, there's this... well, the only way to put it is -- darkness. Usually you don't notice, I mean your eyelids move so fast. But if you slow them down...
Assistant: There's this... darkness.
Eisner: Exactly! Now try and imagine this. An entire film -- presented in Blink-O-Vision. The tag could be something like: Don't blink... or you'll miss it!
Assistant: Should that go in the press release? Or do you want to save it for the one on one with Premier?
A more recent morning.Eisner is chewing something and reading a small unfolded piece of paper. He laughs.
Eisner: Bazooka Joe. That guy really cracks me up.
Assistant: You do know, sir, we own that property.
Eisner: You're shittin' me!
Eisner swallows gum and begins to choke. Personal assistant performs Heimlich maneuver. After a moment or two, the gum pops out of Eisner’s mouth.
Eisner: All this time, we've been sitting on top a gold mine and I didn't even know it. Bazooka Fuckin' Joe. And he's ours.
Assistant: Along with Mort, Cindy, Jake and the whole Bazooka Joe gang.
Eisner: Jake? Who the hell is Jake?
Assistant: Jake is the dog.
Eisner: No. Walkie Talkie is the dog.
Assistant: Sir, you're dating yourself.
Eisner: Whatever. Maybe we could change the dog's name to Cell Phone. Anyway, just think of the merchandising possibilities.
The personal assistant takes a moment to think about the merchandising possibilities before offering:
Assistant: Gum?Eisner: It's a natural. We could hold a nation wide contest and stick chewed gum under theater seats. If you find the special gum you win a big cash prize!
Assistant: (trying not to make a face) Chewed gum? Under seats?
Eisner doesn't respond. He's lost in a reverie.
Eisner: Bazooka Joe: The Movie. It'll be the biggest thing since...
Assistant: Navel lint?
Eisner: Bigger. I'm talking big, big.
Assistant: Even bigger than Blink-O-Vision?
Eisner: Oh, yeah. It's got Blink-O-Vision beat all to hell.
The House in the Middle (Civil Defense short film)
Posted on 19 May 2009 | 1:04 am by Jim Rutherford
In the mid fifties, a Civil Defense short was created to address what can only be called The Tidiness Gap. I'm assuming a great deal of human Intel, along with U-2 flyover photos and information from defecting Russian spies was collected and analyzed before reaching one inescapable, frightening conclusion.
The Presidential cabinet meeting that convened as a result of this finding probably went something like this:
Top General: So what are these Bolshevik bastards up to?
CIA Agent: General. Mr. President. I'm not going to soft-pedal this. I'm going to give it to you straight. They're painting their houses.
Shocked silence.
CIA Agent: Not only that, they're raking up the leaves in their yards.
A gasp from the back of the room.
The President (shaking his head, to himself): My God. My God. It's worse than we feared.
CIA Agent: Yes it is, sir. They're also tidying up in their homes. Vacuuming. Dusting. Do you want me to go on?
The President: No. I've heard more than enough. (long pause before rising and addressing cabinet members) Gentlemen, this is unacceptable. We can not allow a Tidiness Gap!
And so the film unit of The Civil Defense department snapped into action, producing "The House in the Middle." The short begins with an aerial shot of Anytown, USA. "One American town looks like any other when you see it from an airplane window," notes the narrator, leaving out the observation that once hydrogen bombs have been dropped on them, they all pretty much look identical.
Since the film is intended for the outlying suburbs and towns not immediately in the kill zone of a ground zero explosion, the whole issue of large metropolitan areas being vaporized is discretely sidestepped. The short also tends to focus on the atomic heat or "thermal wave" from a nuclear explosion, and doesn't have a great deal to offer on the other affects from the blast like... well, for one thing, radiation.
The short is apparently brought to us courtesy of "The National Clean up - Paint up - Fix up Bureau." Happily, this group wasn't in charge of naming any other government agencies or the Air Force might be know as "The Department of Heavier Than Air Vehicles - That Go Up And Come Down - Drop Bombs And Fire Missiles - And Sometimes Have Pilots With Cool Names Like Maverick - And Iceman And Goose - Well Goose Isn't That Cool - But Iceman is."
For the purposes of the short, Anytown, USA is replicated at the Nevada Proving Grounds by two miniature houses. Despite the minimalistic representation, you'd be hard-pressed to single it out from any of hundreds of other towns in America - that is, if they didn't look like two anomalous objects stranded in some kind of weird Daliesque landscape. A huge melting watch wouldn't look out of place there.
Structure-wise, the two houses are identical. Inside, however, it's a different story. House #1 is noteworthy for its untidy housekeeping. Newspapers and magazines are left lying around. The tables are cluttered with junk. House #2, on the other hand, is spic and span. The trash has been thrown out and tabletops are tidy.
The narrator then walks us through the steps in a nuclear explosion. The light flash! The thermal wave! Quickly followed by the blast wave! When all is said and done, both houses on the outskirts of the atomic detonation survive, but the clutter inside House #1 catches fire, and even though the structure survived the blast, it ends up burning to the ground.
At this point, it comes as something of a shock to realize that Hazel might have been our first line of defense against nuclear attack. Perhaps the Civil Defense seal should have been replaced by The Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.
A final test with three houses is staged for our edification, and ultimately, what the short comes down to is a retelling of the Three Little Pigs -- with the atom bomb in the role of the Big Bad Wolf huffing and puffing and blowing the houses down. House #1 is an eyesore with leaves and trash in the yard. House #2 (the house in the middle) is painted and has an uncluttered yard. House #3 is in rundown condition due to years of neglect.
Guess which house survives? Right. The house in the middle.
If this test had actually been a Russian sneak attack, the lucky owner of the house in the middle would have survived to take part in digging mass graves for thousands of irradiated and charred corpses. Still, when Mr. Lucky Homeowner looked at the ruble of the two houses on either side of his home, he'd be able to take a certain amount of satisfaction in the fact he was still alive.
"I tried to warn them," he might say, and then the tumorous growth on his shoulder which had been increasing in size and finally become a second freakish head, would add, "Yes you did. You and The National Clean up - Paint up - Fix Up Bureau."
Here's the helpful warning in its full-length glory, produced as it actually was by the friendly folks at the Paint, Varnish, and Lacquer Association. No doubt it was a big hit at their convention that year (and what a rip-roaring event that had to have been):
Mark Lisanti, marooned on "The Islander"
Posted on 17 May 2009 | 3:25 am by Nancy the Fan
Between 2004 and 2008, while I was assiduously running a reading program and computer lab at an inner-city LAUSD school, I was also spending a lot of time checking into a blog called Defamer (only on my breaks, taxpayers...never fear). Sadly, Defamer is virtually gone now, swallowed whole by its big brother, Gawker, but for those four years, it was one of the best reads on the 'net. It was a Hollywood gossip blog. There's plenty of those out there, and they are usually filled with snarky jabs and easy pot shots (I'm looking at you, Perez Hilton, and your blog-writing underlings). Defamer had something special going for it...the quality of the writing, which was unlike anything else out there in the vast blogosphere of gossip.
The reason was Mark Lisanti, founding editor of Defamer, and our newest guest on "The Islander."
Long story short: Mark came to Hollywood looking to work in The Industry. He dabbled about a bit, but also published his own blog, Bunsen, which got him noticed by New York-based Gawker Media Empire overlord Nick Denton who decided to branch out to the West Coast. Thus, Defamer was born.
From its very inception, Defamer was a little bit of brilliance. Lisanti worked anonymously at first, sort of as a joke, but it really didn't matter. What did matter was the amazing quality of his posts, often as many as two dozen a day, which left the denizens of Hollywood gasping for air, and the underlings...the overworked personal assistants, underpaid production assistants, and yahoos like me...craving for more.
And Mark always delivered, slavishly pounding away on his laptop inside his Los Feliz apartment. He fielded press announcement, trade postings, and tips from those on the scene. Like this tipster-supplied holiday message from Eva Longoria, which Mark ultimately turned into a very special Thanksgiving greeting. It has become the standard holiday salutation here at IOM HQ. I love traditions.
I was thrilled when Mark took me up on my offer to be our Islander, and it was an absolute honor to speak with him. Please enjoy the segment, and then read his other online offerings:
Episode 16: "The Islander" with Mark Lisanti, the founding editor of Defamer, 7 'n 90, Star Trek, and more Movie Moments
Posted on 16 May 2009 | 1:05 am by Jim Rutherford
This week's podcast lineup:
REVIEWS
TELL NO ONE (AKA: NE L DIS A PERSONNE) 2006 (DVD review)
Directed by Guillaume Canet. Writen by Guillaume Canet from a novel by Harlan Coben.
Starring: Francois Cluzet, Andre Dussollier, Kristin Scott Thomas. Reviewed by Da Man.
DOUBT 2008 (DVD review)
Directed by John Patrick Shanley. Writen by John Patrick Shanley based on his play.
Starring: Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams. Reviewed by J.
YES MAN 2008 (DVD review)
Directed by Peyton Reed. Writen by Nicholas Stoller and Jarrad Paul & Andrew Mogel.
Starring: Jim Carrey, Zooey Deschanel, Bradley Cooper. Reviewed by J.
THE SOLOIST (new in theaters) 2009
Directed by Joe Wright. Writen by Susannah Grant, based on a book by Steve Lopez.
Starring: Jamie Foxx, Robert Downey Jr., Catherine Keener. Reviewed by Jim Rutherford.
7 'n 90
Reviewed by Da Man
PINK PANTHER 2 2009 (in theaters)
Directed by Harald Zwart. Written by Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber and Steve Martin.
Starring: Steve Martin, Jean Reno, Andy Garcia.
CRASH AND BURN 2008 (TV)
Directed by Russell Mulcahy. Written by Frank Hannah and Jack LoGuidice.
Starring: Erik Palladion, Mirelly Taylor, Michael Madsen.
FIGHT NIGHT (AKA: RIGGED) 2008 (DVD review)
Directed by Jonathan Dillion. Written by Ian Shorr.
Starring: Chan Ortis, Rebecca Neuenswander, Kurt Hanover.
LOVE AND OTHER DISASTERS
Directed by Alek Keshishian. Written by Alek Keshishian.
Starring: Brittany Murphy, Matthew Rhys, Catherine Tate.
PING PONG PLAYA 2007 (DVD review)
Directed by Jessica Yu. Written by Jimmy Tsai and Jessica Yu.
Starring: Jimmy Tsai, Roger Fan, Shelley Malil.
THE WACKNESS
Directed by Jonathan Levine. Written by Jonathan Levine.
Starring: Ben Kingsley, Josh Peck, Famke Janssen.
CITY OF EMBER
Directed by Gil Kenan. Written by Caroline Thompson based on the book by Jeanne Duprau.
Starring: David Ryall, Tim Robbins, Bill Murray.
STEMPEL STIPEND
It's funny, sometimes, where well known locations are located.
THE ISLANDER
This week Nancy's guest on The Islander is web celeb Mark Linsanti, the founding editor of Defamer. Mark will share the first five of his ten movie picks to take with him on a deserted island.
Will Lawrence of Arabia be one of them? Listen
and find out.
A MINI-BOGIE TRIBUTE
J remembers his cinematic role model.
STAR TREK
The IOM away team renders their verdict on the latest Star Trek incarnation.
CULT CLASSICS
THE BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS and THE FLESH EATERS
What else do you need to know?
IOM ROUND TABLE: MOVIE MOMENTS
A line of dialogue, a scene, or a movie that resonated with you, that influenced you, or became a part of your life.
Never Weaken (classic silent comedy)
Posted on 9 May 2009 | 3:37 pm by Jim Rutherford
In Never Weaken, Harold Lloyd plays an odd kind of protagonist who starts out slightly duplicitous
-- even if it is for a good reason. His girlfriend works for a doctor, and since business has dropped off, unless a flood of patients suddenly turns up, the doctor will be forced to let her go.Fortunately,
Lloyd has a plan to turn things around, and he hits the streets with an acrobatic friend who has agreed to fake a series of spectacular falls. After each fraudulent accident, Lloyd rushes forward to administer bizarre chiropractic twists and stretches on his friend, and when the acrobat stands up and walks away good as new, Lloyd hands out cards with the doctor's name and address on them to the receptive crowd that has gathered.
Later in the film, Lloyd mistakenly believes his fiancee no longer wants to marry him and he decides to take his own life. Although each effort meets with failure, he continues to try to commit suicide in a series of increasingly complicated attempts.
Finally, as Lloyd so often does, he finds himself high above the city in some precarious situation - in this case, the skeleton of a high rise building under construction. With his life in imminent danger, all thought of suicide vanishes as he clings to a suspended iron girder.
Now what about this mildly criminal, suicidal, cowardly character makes him a silent comedy hero? He doesn't have the sympathy felt for Chaplin's tramp, or the amazing athletic abilities of a stone faced Keaton, but all that's really required for a silent comedian to become a hero is for him to go up against the status quo, to upset the apple cart of daily routine in some way -- any way.
Silent comedy, with its gag-driven imperative and its sense of economy and rhythm, demands that every situation be mined for every possible variation and laugh before moving on to the next set up. An unintended by-product of this structure is that everyday situations are injected with a dizzying kind of possibility, revealing in the dull routine of life a world that is more playful, dangerous, interesting, and surprising than most people have the courage to challenge or even acknowledge.
The joke-driven logic of silent comedy also expresses itself in a kind of spontaneous, rapid-fire karmic justice. The relentless set up/payoff, set up/payoff rhythm creates a world of instant reward and punishment. Every action has a reaction. Bad actions are ultimately punished. Good actions rewarded. Joke after joke after joke drives this point home. Occasionally, there's even a pause for a kind of comedic grace.
You know Harold Lloyd's the hero in Never Weaken because he's the one moving forward, meeting each new twist and turn with ingenuity, giving himself over to the spontaneous, but always thinking on his feet -- adapting, reacting, always moving forward.
At the end, it really doesn't make much sense that Lloyd gets the girl (although he certainly did in real life...Mildred Davis, our ingenue here, ultimately became Mrs. Harold Lloyd). He really hasn't done anything in a narrative sense to deserve it. But by his ingenuity, his inventiveness, and his insistence on never giving up, of hanging in there until the seemingly arbitrary casino logic of the possible finally pays off, he reveals himself to be a classic silent comedy hero who has risked all for the one and only thing worth risking everything: love.
And so he gets the girl.
But make no mistake about it. Never Weaken isn't about anything but being funny. The single burning question at its center is: how many jokes can be crammed
into a single 40 minute film? Like all good silent comedies, it can't help but reveal a world of unlimited possibilities, laughter, and surprises. Sadly, it's a world we don't see much in movies anymore, but luckily it will always be available in the films of Harold Lloyd and the other great silent comedians.
Three Fun-Sized Reviews
Posted on 3 May 2009 | 5:25 pm by Jim Rutherford
By Da Man
The Day the Earth Stood Still...
Directed by Scott Derrickson. Written by David Scarpa.
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connelly, Kathy Bates, John Cleese.
...or as I came to know it, The Day the Movie Theater Stood Still. Instead of exiting the film repeating the famous phrase, "Klaatu barada nikto ," I came out muttering, "Why can't they do a remake at least as good as the original?" I wish there was a phrase you could say to a deadly robot that would make it enter any theater playing this remake and destroy the projector running it! I'm out!
Walled In
Directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner. Written by Rodolphe Tissot, Olivier Volpi, Sylvain White and Gilles Paquet-Brenner. Starring: Mischa Barton, Cameron Bright, Deborah Kara Unger.
Listen up, peeps! Watchin' this thing is about as exciting as watchin' a guy build a brick wall brick by brick by brick. I only wish to God someone had been in the projection booth makin' a wall in front of the projector! I'm out!
The Children of Whang Shi
Directed by Roger Spottiswoode. Written by Jane Hawksley and James MacManus.
Starring: Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Radha Mitchell, Yun-Fat Chow.
What made this movie boring was the lack of even one karate chop or kick and an over abundance of Chinese kids. And get this: not only is there no karate in the movie, these kids don't even know how to do karate. This just made the movie way too unbelievable! Hell, they should have used the projector as a martial arts dummy to kick and chop and practice on, and then made a real movie about Chinese kids who kick some butt! But this thing -- I'm out!
Episode 15: Part Two of "The Islander" with actor Richard Herd, IOM's Second Review-off, and Foreign Films Remade in America
Posted on 3 May 2009 | 2:33 am by Jim Rutherford
This week's podcast lineup:
REVIEWS
GOAL II: LIVING THE DREAM (on DVD) 2007
Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra. Written by Mike Jefferies, Adrian Butchart and Terry Loane.
Starring: Kuno Becker, Stephen Dillane, Lenor Varela. Reviewed by Da Man.
SEVEN POUNDS (on DVD) 2008
Directed by Gabriele Muccino. Written by Grant Nieporte. Starring: Will Smith, Rossario Dawson, Woody Harrelson, Michael Ealy. Reviewed by J
THE MIST (on DVD) 2007
Directed by Frank Darabont. Written by Frank Darabont, based on a Stephen King story.
Starring: Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Laurie Holden, Toby Jones. Reviewed by Jim Rutherford.
JOHN LOVES MARY (Classic film) 1949
Directed by David Butler. Written by Henry Ephron and Phoebe Ephron, based on a play by Norman Krasna. Starring: Ronald Reagan, Jack Carson, Wayne Morris, Edward Arnold, Virginia Field, Patricia Neal. Reviewed by Lou Aguilar.
REVIEW-OFF
J takes on Da Man.
18 reviews in 5 1/2 minutes.
May the best reviewer win!
STEMPEL STIPEND
Film history and screenwriting professor Tom Stempel shares a mini observation about the movies.
THE ISLANDER
Part Two of Nancy's interview with veteran stage, screen, and television actor Richard Herd (T. J. Hooker, Star Trek: Voyager, Seinfeld).
GRIM REAPER ALERT
(click on any of the above images to see full size)
Also remembered, film composer Maurice Jarre.
IOM ROUND TABLE
Foreign films remade in America, and why that isn't always a great idea.Buried Treasure: The Gay Deception (1935)
Posted on 3 May 2009 | 2:31 am by Nancy the Fan
There's a lot of movies out there, campers. Many of them are forgotten, and many of those deserve to be forgotten. But a few don't. They're treasures that, for whatever reason, have been buried. Call me the Great Resurrector. I'm here to bring them to light once more.
I'm going to start this series with a film I serendipitously discovered a few years ago. It's called The Gay Deception (1935). Now, of course, we're all very enlightened, and we know that the term "gay" had a different primary meaning many years ago. Right? OK. Moving on.
So, the plot. Noting terribly new. It's your basic Cinderella story. A small-town girl, Mirabel Miller (Frances Dee), wins $5,000 in a sweepstakes and chooses to blow it all on an all-out, month-long trip to New York. She poses as a big shot, and everyone is fooled except one of the hotel employees, a bellhop named Sandro (Frances Lederer) who isn't actually a bellhop, of course, but a European prince in disguise. Naturally. Complications ensue, but the happy ending occurs as expected.
To begin with, this film is so top-loaded with Art Deco imagery that it makes my brain nearly implode with happiness. It's positively scrumptious in that regard. As for the "gay" part....gay means gay....gay means happy. Take your pick. Welcome to the Walsdorf Plaza:
I want you to smile for me. SMILE!
Recognize the bell captain? That's Paul Hurst. You may remember him as the Yankee deserter whose face Scarlett blows off in Gone with the Wind ("Got anything besides these ear bobs?"). Hurst appeared in over 300 films between 1912 and 1953, directed 51 movies, and wrote six.
Bellhops. Bellhops and taxi drivers. They were such a reliable stable in films from the 1930s. I miss them.
The Gay Deception is chock-o-block with wonderful character actors. That was Ferdinand Gottschalk (you cannot make up such a name) playing the fussy hotel employee, Mr. Squires, in the above clip. He appears in a few charming scenes with another fine character actor, Richard Carle:
See, it's just a bit of a throw-away, that last line. Just in there for a mild chuckle. Were the same scene shot in a film today, you have to know it would be played for Big Laughs, with the director ham-fistedly announcing that This Is a Joke!
The ingenue, Frances Dee, was a lovely and charming actress in the 1930s and 40s. She was also Mrs. Joel McCrea for over fifty years, the lucky woman. Dee was adept at both light fare and darker roles (check her out sometime in Blood Money, a little pre-code gem where she plays a perverse and masochistic society girl). She is enchanting in The Gay Deception as she brings an honest sincerity to her role that, in lesser hands, might have been little more than a second-rate screwball characterization.
And then there's Frances Lederer. I risk sounding like a swooning fangirl here, but Lederer is completely dishy! This Prague-born actor, who appeared as the ill-fated son of Louise Brooks's lover in Pandora's Box, remains virtually unknown to most people today, and more's the pity, since he was absolutely charming in his performances from the 1930s. Apparently, Irving Thalberg had plans to make him a big star, but then Thalberg up and died, and it has been suggested that Lederer's continental charm just didn't strike the right note with an American public that was growing more xenophobic as the the decade of the 1930s was coming to a close.
I knew nothing about Lederer when I first saw The Gay Deception, and, within minutes, I was figuratively knocked for a loop. He's terribly good looking, of course, and his delivery and accent only add to his charm. It's clear that he has complete command of the English language, and yet he still makes it his own in a unique and stylish way. Here, masquerading as a bellhop (because, don't forget, he's really a prince), he meets Maribel Miller for the first time:
(Did you all see that adorable little white radio? I would kill to own that adorable little white radio!)
Then, later that evening:
Did you see that little bit of business with the olive in the martini? Was that Frances Dee or was it the always capable director William Wyler? There's likely no way to know, but Wyler's direction here is so deft and the Academy Award-nominated screenplay by Stephen Morehouse Avery and Don Hatman so winning, that it really doesn't matter. What does matter is that The Gay Deception is a lovely cocktail of its own, worthy of being rediscovered.
One more scene between Dee and Lederer, if only to demonstrate how adorable they both are:
Listen up, gents. If you're trying to win a girl's heart, you can take some lessons from this clip. Trust me, it's not about you changing because, deep in our hearts, most of us know you won't. It's about you accepting your lady love for who she is. That, my friends, is more romantic than any box of chocolates or bushel of roses.
When you hit your fiftieth wedding anniversary, you can thank me.
Do I NEED To Know that?
Posted on 3 May 2009 | 2:30 am by J
I never knew much about the split-back formation play in football or how many Triple Crowns a particular baseball player had won, and despite being an avid NBA fan, I remain relatively untutored in the concept of running the picket fence.
Recently, a fellow IOM reviewer, whom shall remain nameless (are you reading this, Steve?), chided me for daring to watch The Express, a film bio of Ernie Davis, the first African-American to win the Heisman Trophy, without knowing anything about football.
How could I enjoy a sports film without knowing anything about the sport?
At the time, I hadn’t realized I needed to review the greatest college football games, know all the plays, and research every Heisman Trophy winner before even sitting down to watch the film--let alone enjoy it.
I felt enlightened. Yet, I wondered...How could I have liked this the movie without knowing anything about football? Where had I gone wrong?
(Although this is a canard; as a kid I played football with said IOM reviewer, and I know plenty about the Heisman Trophy. It just happens that I'm more into basketball than football.)
I examined my shallow knowledge. Truly, I had been deprived.
The first time I watched The Pride of the Yankees, the Lou Gehrig story, I hadn’t known how many RBI’s he had in a season (that’s runs batted in. There, now that you know that, you’ll enjoy this commentary more).
Yes, I knew basketball. But I’d never followed high school basketball, or heard of the 1954 Hickory Huskers, or what the damn “Picket Fence” that Dennis Hopper kept shouting about in Hoosiers was. But they better run it, or lose!
Ernie Davis was fast. I was sure of that because the movie The Express showed hooligans chasing Ernie as a boy as he raced away. But I had no idea of the running back’s many accomplishments on the field.
Yet, I was shocked at the ending of The Express; I erupted for joy in Hoosiers; I wept for Lou Gehrig in Pride of the Yankees.
Perhaps these movies aren’t really about the sport. They're about the people, their desires, the problems they face, and how we root for them to the end. The sport is just a stage to act on.
So don’t let ignorance prevent you from viewing a sports movie (unless it’s the remake of The Longest Yard. UGH! What were they thinking?).
The characters just might sweep you up their story. Hell, afterward, you might be inspired enough to go out and rent some DVD games of the sport.
Right this minute, though, I’m on my way to the library to read up on windshield wipers before I rent Flash of Genius. I know it’ll make the movie a whole lot better.
Go Lakers!
Pass in Peace: Beatrice Arthur
Posted on 30 April 2009 | 1:28 am by Nancy the Fan
Much has been said over the past few days about the passing of Bea Arthur, so I thought I'd chime in for a moment. I know this forum is intended as a movie blog, and Bea wasn't actually a movie star...
Oh, Lord..Mame. I watched the trailer a few minutes ago...at least, I tried to watch it. I couldn't get through it! What a dismal adaptation of a perfectly glorious Broadway musical. Interestingly enough, I heard a 2005 interview with Arthur today on The Bob Edwards Show, and even she hated that film. She knew what a gobbler it was.
Oh, well. No matter.
On Episode 13 of our podcast, the IOM staff talk about our "Encounters with the Famous." That reminded me of my own encounter with Ms. Arthur.
It was Christmas time...probably sometime in the mid seventies. My gang of choir geeks went out to do a little Christmas caroling. This was in Santa Monica, and we always aimed to cover the swanky part of the town on San Vicente Boulevard. Sometimes, we got cookies! Kathryn Grayson lived there at the time, but she had a big electric fence and a lot of nasty guard dogs, so we never bothered her. However, there was this one house that, a few years prior, had been rented by The Cowsills. At Hallowe'en, they were known for giving out 45's of their stuff. So we figured we'd hit that place.
We did. We rang the doorbell, and then started in on a short carol..."Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem" or some such ditty. The door opens, and there, framed in the backlight of her hallway, was this tall, distinguished woman.
"It's Maude!" my best friend Lisa whispered to me.
In 2.5 seconds, we all knew it was Maude. Beatrice Arthur! Maude! And she was listening to us!
When we finished the first carol, our usual practice was to wish the occupants a happy holiday and then move on. But, heck! This was Maude! So, as the leader of our traveling band of holiday mirth-makers, I asked if she'd like to hear another carol. She was extremely gracious, and yielded to our offer. And I called it. We made her stand there in her doorway as we sang the entire "Twelve Days of Christmas." I mean, c'mon! It was Maude. We wanted to bask in that limelight as long as we could.
She stood at the door for the entire recital. To be fair, we weren't terrible. But it was an awfully long carol. Still, Ms. Arthur held her ground most graciously, and let us prattle on about the maids a' milking and the lords a' leaping. When we were (finally) finished, she wished us a blessed holiday and we toddled off, happy with our conquest. We had sung for Maude...for Vera Charles...for Yente the Matchmaker! It was a swell Christmas! Joy to the World, indeed!
Thankfully, I cannot find a video of Bea and Lucy doing their "Bosom Buddies" stint together. But there's this...Bea and Angela Lansbury...as it should always be:
High and Dizzy (classic two-reeler)
Posted on 29 April 2009 | 4:22 pm by Jim Rutherford
Drunks are not funny.
The acceptance of this fact has probably cut down on traffic fatalities, enabled families to face a problem once swept under the rug and ignored, and is part of a number of realizations that must be faced before taking that first shaky step on the road to sobriety.
Unfortunately, we've paid a heavy cinematic price for this enlightened attitude. I don't bemoan the loss of a Foster Brooks or even Dudley Moore in Arthur, but silent comedy drunks, when done by the likes of Chaplin or Keaton, well, it's like watching some wonderful shitfaced ballet. The drunk with all his unfortunate comic possibilities is lost to any up and coming comedian, but thankfully, we still have silent movie comedy shorts and features.
In the annals of pie-eyed pratfalls, Harold Lloyd's two-reeler High and Dizzy is definitely a *high* point (pun intended. OK, OK. Puns about drinking aren't funny either, but that's not because of a shift in attitudes. It's just because they're puns). Lloyd and a friend get completely blotto and attempt to make their way home, ending up in a hotel where they can sleep off their drunken afternoon binge. Throw in a sleepwalking love interest and you've got 26 minutes of near disasters, perfectly choreographed mayhem, and visual comedy that depends on split second timing that can stop and turn on a dime.
Admittedly, there's not a great deal that's new joke-wise. You get bits where two guys put on the same coat at the same time, each one with an arm in one sleeve. There's the always reliable loading lift that arbitrarily goes up and down in a city sidewalk, descending and taking Lloyd out of sight just as a policeman rounds a corner, or rising as an inebriated Lloyd is walking down the street and about to step forward into the empty shaft. The drunk routine is like a virtuoso piece of music. The notes never change. It's all about the performance. Complicated, but clean and direct. Difficult, but appearing effortless. The drunk has three emotional gears he can shift between. Happy camaraderie, confusion and belligerence. There's more than enough emotional range to provide variety and pacing for a two-reeler.
Towards the end of High and Dizzy, there's even a hint of things to come, as a drunken Lloyd pursues his sleep-walking love out onto a building ledge. The look and basic set-up plays very much like an initial attempt at something that would be fully realized a few years later in Safety Last!
Finally, High and Dizzy even manages to set up and pay off a completely ridiculous and screwy ending, which, while being abrupt and unlikely, is still completely satisfying.
Look. I know no one wants to hear this, but drunks are funny.
Sometimes.
Just look at Harold Lloyd.
From the Trenches: Scarlett's Sin
Posted on 29 April 2009 | 1:06 am by Nancy the Fan
Way back when, back when I started out in my career as an Educational Professional, I could be found slogging away in an inner-city middle school, attempting each day, in my own little way, to elevate the minds of the squirmy and squirrely little 8th-graders entrusted to my care. I run into one or two of them every year or so, now all shiny and grown up, and the fact that they are not drooling and picking at scabs tells me that I at least didn't completely injure their fragile adolescent psyches. Too much.
Of course, there are the ones I don't run into, but let's move on, shall we?
The 8th-graders also took American history. So, at a certain time each year, their social studies teacher and I would team up to present them with a unit on the American Civil War. He would teach them about the politics, the battles, the Great Historical Characters...I would show them Gone with the Wind. I don't know how I pulled that deal off, but it completely worked for me. So what if I had to watch it five times a day for five days? It's not like I hadn't already seen it 1,425 times before.
Generally, the kids loved it. It didn't hurt that I was able to break it into 45-minute chunks, since many of my students had the attention span of a three-year-old hopped up on Halloween candy (I'm looking at you, Sara Ramirez, wherever you are). All of them fell for Rhett Butler; the boys imitated his swagger and the girls just got all ootsey and weak in the knees every time he appeared on screen. The character of Ashley pretty much registered a zero, but that's the point, isn't it? As for Melanie, well she was "nice," an adjective I usually abhor and forbid in essays and discussions, but....well, it's Melanie, after all. I mean, c'mon. She is nice.
But then there's Scarlett. I've always loved Scarlett...in the book, in the film...she's plucky. She's strong. She's got spunk! How can anyone not love Scarlett?
"She's conceited, Miss!"
I had plum forgot the greatest sin that can be perpetuated by a tweener...to be conceited. To my merry group of twelve and thirteen-year-olds, Scarlett was the big sister you just hate! The one who steals your boyfriend and grabs all the white meat at a chicken dinner. Kids this age have a very rigid idea of what's right and what's wrong...in their minds, anyway.
I was taken aback. "But," I responded, "she's plucky! She's strong! She's got SPUNK!"
"She's a user, Miss. And she's conceited!"
No getting around that. And, if you're of a certain age, that's the death knell. Nothing is worse than being conceited. You may have to lie, steal, cheat, and kill, but you better not be conceited when you do it!
And try not to steal your sister's boyfriend, OK? Even if he is that boring Frank Kennedy.
Kiddie Korner: The Shiloh Series: Shiloh, Shiloh Season, & Saving Shiloh
Posted on 28 April 2009 | 6:01 pm by J
Based on the Newberry Award-winning novel by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, Shiloh is the name of a beagle that eleven-year-old Marty (played in the first film by Blake Heron) rescues from an abusive owner.
What makes this story stand out from the rest? The action is based on moral dilemmas that all the characters must struggle with. There aren’t any chases, big battles, or any hero coming in at the last second to rescue the day.
The parents are real, not Hollywood clueless idiots; the kids act like kids and aren’t allowed to sass back. Marty respects his parents, but must make up his own mind to do the right thing. His dad (Michael Moriarty for the first two films) stands on principle: Another man, Judd (Scott Wilson), owns the dog and Marty must give him back. In addition, the family is poor and struggling, and a dog costs precious money.
Judd, the brutal owner and local hunter, has his own demons. His father beat him when he was a child, and he can't remember a time when he didn’t have welts on his body. He treats his animals the same way he was treated, and he laughs when he hears Marty has named his animal. Judd, after all, just whistles when he wants his dogs and kicks them if they don’t do what he says.
Shiloh is the catalyst here. In the first story, Judd cracks a bit when he lets the dog out of his truck and allows Shiloh to run back to Marty. Judd has left the door open for change. The next two films are about his redemption. Marty figures that if love and friendship can turn mistreated dogs into loving pets, why can’t the same happen for Judd? Marty never gives up on him. The climatic ending to the final story will make you cry (or sniffle a lot).
Rod Steiger plays Doc in the first two films of the series, (the last film is dedicated to his memory), a man who runs a general store in the rural area, Doc can fix up animals as well as people, and he becomes a wise mentor to the young boy.
As a side note: I met Rod Steiger a few years ago at a play my acting teacher, Bob Monroe, took me to see. Afterward, Rod and Bob got together for a chat, giving each other jazz like two old cronies. They knew each other from New York when they were both struggling actors.
Steiger talked honestly about his life: “I’m too old and fat to have a baby and be a dad.”
He said this with melancholy and regret in his voice. A year later he passed away, and I thought how sad it was that his son would grow up without a father.
There’s a moral dilemma here, too: What is the right thing to do, and for whom?
See the Shiloh series with your children, or better yet, have them read the books and talk about them afterward.
The World's Greatest Sinner
Posted on 22 April 2009 | 5:26 am by Jim Rutherford
Plot: Frustrated insurance salesman Clarence Hilliard (
played by
Timothy Carey, who also wrote and directed) writes a Nietzsche-esque pamphlet that claims, "all men are gods," and then forms a rock 'n roll band to help push his agenda. Not long after this, politics beckon, and Clarence ditches his guitar and makes a run for the presidency.
Review: Like any good exploitation film,
The World's Greatest Sinner is a mix of low budget technical compromises, lurching story lines, ham-fisted visual metaphors, and odd, unpredictable moments. During Clarence Hillard's first speech about the "Immortal Man," he steps up onto a pile of sacks to make his pitch. The camera then slowly tilts down to reveal him standing on bags of manure, a sign reading "4 for a dollar." On stage with his rock 'n roll band, Clarence doesn't resemble a twitching, gyrating Elvis so much as he does a man having an epileptic fit. Then there's the never-to-be-forgotten, 50-state, stock-footage campaign for president, where vaguely familiar newsreel shots cheer on intercut snippets of Hillard exhorting his followers to become gods!
But for every ridiculous moment, there's also something a little disturbing or surprising. One of Clarence's first converts is an elderly woman who tells him he makes her feel young again. He replies that she reminds him of his own mother, and then the two embrace, sharing an uncomfortably passionate kiss. The flip side of this decidedly twisted sexual coin is when a young girl tells the-soon-to-be-president that she can deliver the youth vote to him. At first, Clarence seems a little more savvy than might be expected, getting the girl to admit she's not 18, and that she is actually 14. With this fact firmly established, he then proceeds to have sex with her.
An unsettling scene of a different sort occurs after a rock 'n roll concert/rally, where the all-white male audience decides to demonstrate its godhood by rioting. Where actual newsreel footage later used in the run for the presidency looks creaky and unconvincing, the riot looks all too real, as if shot during an actual rampage. I've seen crowds like this in big budget movies and it's not unusual to see a laughing extra or someone going lamely through the motions, but this group of young men seems to be deadly earnest as they swarm over cars in a frenzy of destruction. In this instance, the film's low budget actually works in the picture's favor, with it's harsh lighting and handheld camera creating a surprising sense of reality.
Many of the indoor scenes have an odd aesthetic all their own. Either by intention or because the light kit only included a couple of spots and maybe a reflector, many of the interior shots have two or three characters illuminated against a completely black background. It's like a minimalist play: this desk will now represent a room: this door is the entrance to a house: these silly Greek/kitsch statues represent a grand presidential candidate's strategy room.
This reductionist idea carries over to the characters as well. Hilliard eventually ends up wearing a coat with the word "GOD" embroidered in large letters on either
sleeve. The people who have bought into his "immortal" agenda wear a patch with an F on it to let us know they are "Followers." I was half-expecting a character to show up with a sign around his neck that proclaimed "Reporter" or maybe for another character to walk in wearing a T-shirt that read "Plot-Twist."
The ending to The World's Greatest Sinner is satisfyingly strange and unexpected -- and visual. All good things, especially since, at one point, it appeared as if the final revelation might depend on the emotional attachment Clarence still feels for his family, something the film never really pulls off.
I'll end this review with a description of one of the first images in the film. Clarence, in what I guess is supposed to be happier, simpler days, piles his family up onto a horse. Clarence, his wife, and their two small children -- everyone gets on. And they look a little precarious. You half expect someone to fall off before the shot ends. Here's another detail: the scene takes place in the rain.
Did it just happen to rain that day and the schedule and low budget demanded they had to get the scene in the can -- rain or no rain? Was it serendipitous? Or was it intentional? It doesn't really matter. This idiotic staging of the family pretending to be happy, when everyone is obviously miserable, not even able to successfully stage or go through the motions of being a normal, happy family, is the perfect image to begin this twisted and singular film.
Some stuff worth knowing: Timothy Carey is probably best know for his role in Kubrick's
Path's of Glory. He's one of the three soildiers being executed for cowardice and not following orders. In the film, he is sarcastic and somehow both intense and laconic at the same time. And, of course, there are dark circles under his eyes. Does this man ever sleep?
Ray Dennis Steckler (director of
The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?) was the cameraman, and there are some genuinely striking images mixed in with more pedestrian and low budget aesthetic stuff.
Finally, Frank Zappa did the music, and the title song is a classic.
Richard Herd: Islander Guest and More
Posted on 21 April 2009 | 5:40 pm by Nancy the Fan
Hollywood is filled with stars, but these stars come in different forms. There are the stars who continuously burn strong and bright over the years and seldom disappoint (How ya' doing, Meryl Streep?). There are the ones who explode dynamically when they hit the scene, only to burn out, little by little, flickering only occasionally (How's it hangin', Matthew McConaughey?). Finally, there are those stars who initially appear with great brilliance and promise, only to crash and burn and either fade away or hang on, only to be listed occasionally in one of those "Where Are They Now?" articles (I'm looking at you, Tatum O'Neal!).
Dorothy Comingore is a name I'm going to repeat, Dorothy Comingore. I won't have to repeat it much longer -- you'll be repeating it.
Well, Orson...maybe just to say, "Dorothy Who?"
It's a great trailer, though, isn't it? It's got ballyhoo!
And, of course, it's a wonderful movie...for many reasons. One of them is because of the cast, the stars (even Dorothy), but especially the fine host of character actors in supporting roles.
I love good character actors...their light may be dimmed a bit by the Big Stars they support, but it burns, much like Polaris, the Northern Star, with smooth, dependable consistency.
And, since I love a good character actor, I've got a bit of a crush on our current guest on "The Islander," actor Richard Herd. He's been shinning brightly and consistently in films and on TV for decades, literally. His credits, as listed on IMBd, are nothing short of astounding.
He didn't begin in Tinsel Town, however, but rather on the East Coast, where he worked in the theater. I could tell you more, but I think the story is best related by Richard himself...here:
Richard's abilities extend far beyond the big and small screen. He writes poetry. He paints pictures. And he's currently in rehearsal for a radio broadcast of Leviathan 99, a tribute to Ray Bradbury and Norman Corwin.
I trust our readers and listeners will enjoy hearing Richard's picks for his deserted island DVDs. In addition, I hope you will all take a moment to check out some of his other works...by following these links:
Thank you, Richard, for allowing us to ship you off to our deserted island. Enjoy your BBQ chicken!
