Shoe Leather Expressway
Cartoon time on video Wednesday! The Academy Award-nominated The Jaywalker (1956) exhibits all the modern trademarks of the studio it came from, UPA. I wish Columbia would get off their collective butts and release this stuff on DVD.
John Strejan Update
Remember that groovy Lady Godiva painting I posted about a couple of months ago? Shortly after acquiring it, I was having some difficulty finding any info on the painting or its creator, John Strejan. After posting a photo of the art on flickr, I heard from Strejan’s nephew. He confirmed that the painting was indeed by his uncle, painted in the ’60s before he became well-known as a pop-up book artist. Furthermore, he shared photos of four other paintings from the same period!
Love these. Mr. Strejan must have had a thing for full-figured gals.
Weekly Mishmash: September 20-26
The Ballad of Narayama (1983). Interesting film, a winner of the Cannes Palm d’Or award in 1984, follows a year with the inhabitants of a remote 19th century Japanese village. Mostly the story concerns Orin, one of the village elders, a healthy older woman who nevertheless must obey the village tradition that sends every resident off to a faraway mountain to die once he or she turns 70 years old. Although it sounds like a heavy handed affair, director Shohei Imamura handles the material with the same leisurely lightness and eye for detail that was a hallmark of his later film The Eel. The film contains a lot of uncomfortable scenes displaying the villager’s barbaric nature (accented with shots of wildlife copulating, eating each other, etc.), but there’s a lot of humor and heart in the characters as well. It’s also one of the few films that causes the viewer to ponder one’s own mortality.
Chinatown (1974). Last weekend’s showing was the third time I’ve seen Chinatown, a film that holds up well to multiple viewings. It’s still excellent, potent as ever, and the beautiful photography of various 1930s L.A. locales (including Diane Ladd’s wonderful Mission style apartment complex) serves as a great primer for our trip there next week. Interesting that we should give this a rewatch in the same week that a) director Roman Polanski gets arrested on a 31-year-old molestation charge, and b) MacKenzie Phillips grabs headlines for revealing a consensual sex relationship with her own father. Good timing.
King Kelly of the U.S.A. (1934). A chintzy, at times incomprehensible musical made by the z-budget Monogram studio. Forgotten tenor Guy Robertson stars as a cocky showman who meets the woman of his dreams on a transatlantic cruise. As it turns out, the woman is the princess of a country known for its fine mops (??) and Robertson must find a way too win both her heart and her kingdom. I rented this because Joyce Compton has a supporting role as a chorine who is improbably paired in a romantic duo with that limp-wristed classic movie icon, Franklin Pangborn. Compton and Pangborn display their reliable comic timing in their few scenes together, inadvertently highlighting the lead actors’ blandness (Robertson seems like Jimmy Cagney’s less charismatic older brother). Strangely, they both vanish halfway through the movie without explanation. In this movie’s bizarre universe, that move actually makes sense. As seen on Cartoon Brew, this cheesy animated clip is typical of the movie’s weird awfulness:
L’Avventura (1960). I added this to my Netflix queue after director Michelangelo Antonioni passed away in 2007. Considered a milestone in foreign cinema, the film opens with an intriguing tale of a woman (gorgeous Monica Vitti) accompanying her girlfriend on a boating trip to a remote Italian island with their superficial crowd. When the friend mysteriously disappears, Vitti and the woman’s boyfriend head up the search — becoming lovers in the process. The first half of this film was fascinating, beautifully acted and photographed. Once the characters leave the island, however, it descends into a glacially paced monument to pretentiousness. Lots of talking, lots of scenes which don’t add to the plot or mood or anything. The kind of film that gives foreign films a bad name, basically, which is a shame since the first part was so captivating. Like her contemporary Anouk Aimee, Monica Vitti is such a magnetic presence that I’d watch her in anything — so it wasn’t a total write-off.
Prince & The Revolution — Parade: Music from the Motion Picture Under the Cherry Moon. When I want to feel old, I’ll just remind myself that I bought this album the year it first came out — on vinyl. That was 23 years ago. Although I’ve never seen the film it scores (or any Prince film, for that matter), this is my second favorite Prince LP after the legendary Purple Rain. The album has a playful aura of European sophistication — which wouldn’t ordinarily mesh with the Purple One’s funky grooves, but strangely it works wonderfully. Given how eclectic the tunes are, this is also a surprisingly consistent album. I love how the album’s first half flows together. The only tune that sticks out is the huge hit “Kiss,” a song that’s perhaps too powerful and unique to be confined to an LP. Perhaps Prince should have pulled a Madonna “Into The Groove” move and issued it as a single-only release.
Experiment, Refresh, Repeat
The Scrubbles.net redesign continues … after a lot of trial and tribulation, the layout is now the way I originally envisioned it to be. Unfortunately, the header looks a bit lost — downright illegible, even — amid the background pattern. Back to Photoshop for more tweaks. The final design will be here, eventually.
There’s also the cross-platform issue. Although this page looks fine ‘n dandy in Safari and Firefox on my Mac, I’ve noticed that viewing it with Internet Explorer on Windows seriously screws with the layout. Apparently it displays just a header and a footer with nothing in between. This might be an issue only with older versions of IE or Windows. PC users, can you give me any feedback on how the site looks on your end?
It’s Witchcraft
Spotted this on my friend Dan’s Facebook. Elizabeth Montgomery and Agnes Moorehead shilling Kodak cameras in the ’60s. I love it when they do commercials in character like this:
Talking Heads
This photo fascinated me — a lot of stop-motion animation heads from Profiles In History’s Fall 2009 Hollywood memorabilia auction. The auction also contains several rare items from the George Pal Puppetoons of the ’30s and ’40s.
Weekly Mishmash: September 13-19
American Dreamz (2006). A slow week of pop culture consumption began with this well-intentioned but iffy comedy, recorded off the Oxygen channel. This was the recent but already dated American Idol satire with Hugh Grant and Dennis Quaid as characters which in no way resemble Simon Cowell and George W. Bush, no sir. Mandy Moore also stars, showing her chops as a surprisingly good actor. The concept of a popular A.I.-like talent show being infiltrated by a terrorist while the president is making a guest appearance is a solid one. The filmmakers never quite shed the fact that this is a mainstream Hollywood movie, however. Too many concessions were made and (despite a few effective bits) the satire ultimately comes across as toothless. The presence of Jennifer Coolidge as Moore’s earthy ma makes me wish Christopher Guest got his hands on the script first.
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956). Way, way back when I was first getting into “old movies,” I can remember watching this one as part of a personal Alfred Hitchcock cram course and not being very impressed. Something about James Stewart and Doris Day just bugged me, and the candy-colored photography didn’t jibe with the film’s dark plot. Watching it again, I found it to be a nicely cast and effective thriller — perhaps not one of Hitch’s best, but a good deal better than most films of that era. Stewart and Day play a prototypical American couple vacationing with their young son in Africa. A series of initially harmless events cause Stewart to cross paths with a man who is involved with an underground plot to assassinate a British ambassador, leading to their kid getting abducted. Doris somehow finds the time to sing “Que Sera Sera” twice during all this, too. As an adult, I found myself empathizing with Stewart and Day’s agonizing over their son’s disappearance. Both actors fret convincingly. Although she gets a bit histrionic at times, Day was excellent in the film’s climactic scene where she witnesses the assassination about to take place (during a concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall) — unable to do anything to stop it. The segment is Hitchcock at his best, manipulating the viewers’ thoughts to create a building, agonizing tension. Although I haven’t seen the 1934 version recently enough to compare, I believe that Hitchcock would have to perform the directorial equivalent of a triple axel to top the remake.
A Redesigned Scrubbles.net
Hey there — notice something different? I’ve redesigned Scrubbles.net. This is the first true sitewide retooling in five years. Although I still have some kinks to work out, I’m happy with the swanky retro-computer look we’ve got going here.
This redesigning process began about a year ago, actually, in search of a good Wordpress theme. I’ve noticed that many of the popular and nicer looking WP themes have one element that works, and a whole bunch of other elements that don’t work. Either the typography is fabulous and the layout is lousy, or the sidebar is beautifully designed but the rest of it uses terrible colors. It’s always something. I was about at the end of my rope before coming across a gorgeous and subtle theme called Vanilla Cart. Top to bottom, I love it. For the logo fonts, I went with Eurostile condensed and Gala (which cost a lot, but it’s absolutely perfect — sometimes one has to spend money for perfection). I also brought back this weblog’s original tagline, which hasn’t been seen here since about 2002. There’s even a new cartoon portrait of yours truly on the sidebar.
Although I currently have about 80% of the redesign in place, there are a couple of issues with the CSS that I’m sending out a plea for help on. Specifically:
- I have a kickass repeating background for the redesign, similar to the one on my Twitter profile — but I can’t get it to work. I’ve tried everything on this theme’s CSS stylesheet, but the only changes result in a pure white background. Any CSS experts out there who can help?
- This theme also has an option for you to use your own logo — but when I tried it, the logo was positioned down at the white space above the blog entries. I want it positioned above the “Home” and “About Me” tabs (which is where the blog name and description are normally positioned if one does not use a graphic logo). How can I move it up to its proper place without screwing everything up?
All Apologies
Sorry. I’m trying to give Scrubbles.net a long overdue design facelift, and it’s taking too long. I finally have a new Wordpress theme I like, but the changes I made to the theme’s CSS style sheet are not taking effect. And that’s annoying me SO MUCH. Meantime, here’s the super nifty video for They Might Be Giants’ “Meet The Elements,” found at Otherstream:
Weekly Mishmash: September 6-12
Big Bad Mama (1974). Trashy, sloppily made but endearing seventiesploitation flick made better by star Angie Dickinson (who seems to be having a ball). As Depression-era ma Wilma McClatchie, Dickinson only wants the best for her two teen daughters. So she turns to a life of crime, picking up Tom Skerritt and William Shatner along the way. It’s Bonnie and Her Two Boyfriends, basically. All told, this is a stupid movie filled with a bevy of cliché dumb hicks, but it does have a few interesting elements. One is the quasi-Democratic tilt of the screenplay, with bad guys bellyaching about taxes on the rich and encroaching Socialism (gee, that sounds familiar). Another is the amount of playful sex and nudity on display. Not only does Dickinson expose lots of flesh, looking great for a gal in her forties, but Skerritt and Shatner drop trou as well. A definite time capsule of its era, worth a peek for those who enjoy campy trash.
The Last Good Time: Skinny D’Amato, the Notorious 500 Club & the Rise and Fall of Atlantic City by Jonathan Van Meter. A fascinating book that Christopher bought earlier this year, then passed on to me. This chronicles the rise and fall of Atlantic City in the mid-twentieth century through the person of Skinny D’Amato — who ran the city’s most popular hot spot, the 500 Club. D’Amato’s hard rolling career included teaming Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin for the first time, befriending Frank Sinatra, and being involved with the Mob. An interesting book — more a bio of the city itself than of D’Amato, who survived long enough to witness legalized gambling and megacasinos in his town. I had no idea there was so much corruption going on back then, with surreptitious police and politician payoffs, secret gambling rooms, prostitutes, etc.
No Questions Asked (1951). Bland Barry Sullivan stars as an insurance agent who becomes a go-between in some shady dealings with big city thugs. He also gets caught in a love triangle with sweet co-worker Jean Hagen and fiery Arlene Dahl. Despite having the novelty of a pair of cross-dressing jewel thieves, this was a thoroughly okay noir with very little to distinguish it. Hagen’s performance as Sullivan’s world-weary onetime flame is the best thing going here. Aside from her, the film desperately needed to be better cast. Sullivan is a genial but bland lead, and having the white bread George Murphy as his cop adversary doesn’t help matters at all (Edward G. Robinson would’ve been perfect in that part!). I liked the atmosphere and a few of the smaller players were great, but as a whole this film didn’t jell. Ivan at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear also saw this movie recently; his review is here.
The Real Joyce Compton: Behind the Dumb Blonde Movie Image by Joyce Compton and Michael Ankerich. A brief but fascinating read on one of my personal fave classic movie actresses. Author Michael Ankerich befriended Joyce Compton later on in her life and encouraged her to write her memories down. Although he couldn’t find a publisher at the time for her memoirs, luckily he persisted and The Real Joyce Compton is the satisfying result. Although Compton doesn’t go into a lot of detail with individual films, she writes extensively on the workaday existence of being a supporting player in ’30s and ’40s Hollywood. This non-glamorous side of the movie business isn’t covered often in books, and it’s fascinating to read. Throughout the book, she has a straightforward, non-sugarcoating attitude toward her career that is refreshing to behold. This carries over to her reflections on her personal life. For me, it was most insteresting to find out about the close ties she had with her parents and how they affected her many failed attempts at finding romance (including one short-lived marriage in the early ’50s). Most of all, she comes across like a fun person who lives life to the fullest. Ankerich used a lot of images from The Joyce Compton Shrine here (with my permission) — it’s pretty neat to see my name in print within these pages.
Sleep Dealer (2008). Mexican indie with a sci-fi bent asks a thought-provoking question: namely, what effect will future advances in telecommuting and robotic technology have on the current Mexican-U.S. labor problem? In a not too distant future, water shortages force a young laborer (Luis Fernando Peña) to a Tijuana firm that employs specially equipped people to virtually control robots in menial U.S. jobs. While searching for the implanted nodes that will enable him to work this way, he befriends a woman (Leonor Varela) who sells their visualized memories (unbeknownst to him) on a computer network. Although suffering from one subplot too many and borderline cheesy CGI effects, it’s the human element that drives this film. I liked the way it blends a current issue into a science fiction framework. Nicely acted and directed, too — seek this out.
Somewhere, An Eagle Is Crying
A museum of tacky 9/11 memorabilia from curator April Winchell. All those sparkly animated GIFs that people use to post on their MySpace pages … words fail me.
The White Bread Hour
While watching PBS this morning, I caught a promo for an upcoming Lawrence Welk Show special. It contained a “wunnerful” clip of Lawrence and orchestra performing “Do You Know the Way to San Jose” with ladies in white dresses whoa, whoa, whoa-ing on the side. I tried to find it on YouTube. No dice, but here’s Lawrence performing his signature hit “Calcutta” on the last network show before he and his entourage packed up their bubbles and went into syndication (1971):
Sweet, eh? Despite his doddering image, Welk excelled at spotting and developing talent, especially singers and dancers. I just can’t get past the fact that his music is so damn sleepy. I keep wishing the band would pump up the arrangements and make them swing a little more. A show like like this seems like a non-stop campfest on paper — but once you get past the bouffant hair and polyester fashions, the show is kinda bland and boring. Of course, one does find the occasional oddity like “One Toke Over The Line” performed by an oblivious boy-girl duo.
Weekly Mishmash: August 30-September 5
Battlestar Galactica — “Saga of a Star World” episode (1978). I remember being a Star Wars crazy kid and watching Battlestar Galactica when it had its showy premiere on ABC (the same network with Laverne & Shirley and Three’s Company — so you know it had to be good). I also remember enjoying it, but not being sufficiently impressed enough to stick with it week after week. When Christopher rented the DVD with the pilot movie, I was curious to see if it held up after thirty-plus years. For a ’70s TV effort, I thought the production design, special effects and acting were all mighty impressive (especially Stu Phillips’ music score). Despite great production values, however, you can’t get away without cheese on something like this. I noticed how much blonde actress Laurette Spang resembled Olivia Newton-John in Xanadu, two full years before that opus. The Supremes-like trio of singing aliens with multiple eyes and mouths were another tacky treat. It was also fun to find things one didn’t notice earlier, such as Rick Springfield as an ill-fated space pilot. So the B.G. pilot movie was actually pretty fun. No, I don’t want to watch the rest of the series.
District 9 (2009). Christopher had a day off on Friday, so I decided we should go to the cinema and see this talked-about feature. District 9 is a New Zealand-U.S. production set in an alternate universe South Africa in which aliens have landed on earth. Instead of being welcomed with open arms, though, these crustacean-like creatures are separated into a Johannesburg shantytown. Presented documentary style, the film follows an incompetent government official as he and his comrades keep the aliens in check. I was prepared for the obvious Apartheid parallels, but in reality the film follows a path that I never would have expected. I loved the way the characters developed, starting the transformation of lead actor Sharlto Copely from buffoon to unlikely hero (he transforms in other, less savory ways, too). The special effects on the aliens were excellent, and the entire film sustains an appropriately grungy, icky atmosphere. Seeing something so unique in a theater is a real treat. We experienced that recently with Cloverfield, and now this.
The Marvelettes – Forever: The Complete Motown Albums, Volume 1. The Marvelettes have always had an overlooked place in Motown’s history. I tended to think of them more as a Girl Group than a Motown group, despite the fact that the company kept issuing singles under the Marvelettes’ name all the way up through the early ’70s. Even in the CD era, they tend to be glossed over in favor of The Supremes and The Vandellas. Which points to why the arrival of Forever: The Complete Studio Albums Volume 1 is so refreshing. This beautifully packaged Hip-O Select release collects just about everything the girls from Inkster recorded in the first half of their existence, from their initial flush of success with 1961’s “Please Mr. Postman” through the end of 1965 with Smokey Robinson’s elegant “Don’t Mess With Bill”. Although the set is heavy on simplistic R&B covers, it’s fun to hear the entire thing front to back and witness the group’s development from awkward teen balladeers to assured, sophisticated performers. One fun bonus is a rare 1963 live album from the girls, a total time capsule of an era when audiences really got into their concertgoing experience. This was a neat splurge for me. Now I’m anticipating the forthcoming Volume 2, which will cover the largely hitless but rewarding 1966-70 period.
Trumbo (American Masters, PBS). We were both looking forward to this documentary on screenwriter Dalton Trumbo and his horrific experiences with the anti-Communist witch hunts in the ’40s and ’50s. While it’s certainly a worthy subject handled well, the doc seriously gets derailed by having various actors read passages from Trumbo’s letters. By and large, the actors terribly overplay these readings, and the results come off like pretentious acting class exercises (I kept expecting James Lipton to come in and congratulate them for their “beautiful” performances). The rest of the documentary was all right. Trumbo comes across like an insufferably smug jerk, but if I went through what he did, I suppose I’d be a jerk, too.
Trog (1970). Joan Crawford closed out a brilliant career heading up this horror cheapie, playing opposite a guy in a nasty caveman costume. Not nearly as awful as its reputation, this film has its moments. Although Crawford looks like a fish out of water here (really, what is a lady who looks like a Park Avenue matron doing in a grimy British research facility?), she actually delivers a decent performance. About as decent as can be expected when feeding rubber lizards to a caveman while saying “Trog is an herbivore,” that is.
PBS: Petrification Before School
Priceless Sesame Street segment: the lower case n. Maybe it’s the vaguely depressing tone of the music, but as a child this bit gave me the creeps.
As long as we’re discussing nightmare-inducing Sesame Street bits, how about this one?
Book Review: On Tender Hooks
Artist Isabel Samaras is one sick puppy. At least that’s the impression I got while looking through the paintings collected in On Tender Hooks: The Art of Isabel Samaras. Back in the ’90s, Samaras first made a name for herself by adorning cast-off metal trays with provocative images of classic TV characters in the style of old master painters. Picture Mary Ann and Ginger from Gilligan’s Island sharing a tender moment of Sapphic love, the cast of I Dream of Jeannie at Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass, or Batman’s Robin posed like a flirty Caravaggio boy. These pieces would seem silly if they weren’t rendered with such obvious affection for the characters.
Interesting as her earlier stuff is, Samaras’ work has gotten even better in recent years. Her painting technique has improved exponentially, giving the work that much more depth. Although she still handles pop culture subjects (a disturbing Marsha Brady with Maori tattoos, for example), more timeless themes such as fairy tales give the newer works a lot more resonance. They’re lush, dark and unsettling, reminding me a bit of Mark Ryden’s art. Supplemented with essays and interviews, this book is a beautifully designed showcase for Samaras’ abundant talents. If I could only get that image of Spock’s family jewels out of my head.
On Tender Hooks is published by Chronicle. Buy at Amazon here. Although I have a few spreads pictured below, you really have to visit Samaras’ official site to fully appreciate this stuff (she does a swell weblog, too).
