Book Review: Sketching and Drawing
Although Matt Pagett’s book Practice Makes Perfect: Sketching and Drawing has been in my possession for a couple of months now, posting about it now makes good sense. It would make a nice holiday gift for an aspiring artist — or even someone who just wants to hone their mad pencil skillz. The book is like a mini Drawing 101 course, with concisely written and illustrated examples that are easy to jump into.
Right away, what struck me about this book is its unusual format. The book actually contains its own blank sketchbook, bound on top and measuring about 9 inches tall by 6 inches wide, which is nestled in a sturdy hardback-style folder opposite the softcover instruction manual. The manual part is divided into chapters that explore Loosening Up, Composition, Line, Value, and Surface with an equal amount of written and visual info. Each subsection contains mini exercises such as drawing an object from memory, or sketching a piece of bunched-up fabric to get a feel for the line quality in rendering the object.
Practice Makes Perfect: Sketching and Drawing is published by Chronicle Books. Buy at Amazon.com here.
Flick Clique: November 27-December 3
Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011). Despite having a huge aversion to mainstream romantic comedies, I put this on my queue since it got fairly good reviews when it came out. Maybe I shouldn’t have bothered? Christopher put it more succinctly: “this is a film made for people who are not Matt and me.” Although it’s sparked by a semi-funny script and several appealing performances, the film’s strangely breeder-and-suburbia centric sensibility really bugged me. You recall this is the movie where Steve Carrell plays a schlub who is shocked to find that his wife of 25 or so years (Julianne Moore) wants a divorce. Crying into his drink at a bar, he befriends a young lothario (Ryan Gosling) who teaches him how to dress right and attract women. The scheme basically succeeds, but then Carrell decides that he’s lonely without the only woman he ever loved and resorts to the usual contrived stuff to get her back. There are some comical subplots with the couple’s kids, but that’s the basic gist of things. It was okay, kind of funny and kind of awful, with a climactic speech by Carrell that is total hogwash. Mainstream Romantic Comedies are not our thing, I guess.
Lost Horizon (1973). I was jazzed to get the new made-on-demand edition of this notorious musical flop for review at DVD Talk. Put briefly, the film is a plodding, overproduced bore – but the disc presentation as done by Sony Screen Classics by Request is outstanding. This was Ross Hunter’s musical remake of the James Hilton best-seller (which was made into a better-remembered but still financially disappointing Frank Capra film in the ’30s), complete with lavish production values, strangely miscast actors and a tuneful score by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. It is a weirdly structured, ill-conceived mess, but I can see where it could have worked with the right T.L.C. The most notoriously wrong thing about the film is having non-singers like Peter Finch and Liv Ullman performing the songs (dubbed, thank goodness). There’s also some disconnect between the happy/perky score and the heavy theme in an exotic setting. The utopian Shangri-La as envisioned by Hilton here comes across more like a blissed-out hippie commune with weird religious undertones (moonies, anyone?). For the DVD, the film is restored to its original length with some wonderfully campy musical segments that were deleted after the original release. There’s also some great behind the scenes stuff with Hunter proudly crowing about his wonderful achievement, and several demo recordings with Bacharach croaking out the tunes (to be fair, the soundtrack does have some wonderful songs that would have fared better in a more elegant setting). An awful film with a great DVD? This will be a challenge to write about. We’ll see how the final review comes out.
The Recipe (2010). This intriguing looking South Korean mystery was a film I picked out for review at DVD Talk. It’s slight, inconsistent, overall enjoyable. My review is here.
Super 8 (2011). This J.J. Abrams scripted and directed, Steven Spielberg produced kids-’n-aliens flick was one of the more overhyped films coming out of Summer 2011. I basically enjoyed it, although there were a lot of formulaic and borrowed-from-better-film elements that prevented it from being a true Popcorn classic. The story is about a group of Jr. High aged Ohio kids who are making their own zombie movie in 1979. While filming a scene at the local railroad depot, their shoot is disrupted by a huge train crash which revealed (through their still running camera) the train was the U.S. government attempting to transport an alien. The kid characters seem a little too Goonies-ish for me, but they were a well-cast and appealingly real bunch. I also like the generally spot-on attention to detail (except for a few glaring examples, i.e. a Rubik’s cube reference) in capturing a late ’70s Midwestern atmosphere. The movie gets more plodding as it moves along, and once the alien itself is finally revealed the end product is underwhelming. Still, it was a fun and expertly scripted movie that I’d recommend.
Flick Clique: November 20-26
The selections in this week’s Flick Clique all date from Monday-Wednesday of last week. We were out of town most of the time since then, spending Thanksgiving at Redondo Beach, California with my parents. The folks, who live here locally in Arizona, have made turkey day a tradition at a cozy seafood market in Redondo for the past twenty years or so. Don’t ask me why they chose that particular place, but it was a funky experience cracking open freshly steamed crab with a bunch of Asian families sitting at tables around us. We were joined by my aunt and her husband and my cousin and her s.o. Friday was spent exploring nearby Hermosa beach (I bought some clothes at one of the local shops), while on Saturday we went down to San Diego to meet my longtime friend Ion, his wife, Yvette, and their young son Evan. After breakfast, we all went to the local swap meet out by San Diego’s old sports stadium. It was lots of fun, and I was so happy to finally meet Ion after emailing and trading lots of mixes with him over the years (hi guys!). What a nice finale to a jam-packed holiday weekend. Onward to the flicks:
Fail-Safe (1964). Dr. Strangelove is one of those classic movies whose appeal strangely eludes me. Despite all that, I put it on my Netflix queue, reshuffled to avoid it, then when it finally arrived Christopher says “You wanted to see that? Watch Fail-Safe instead.” I didn’t feel like giving up two-plus hours on Strangelove, so I returned it and added this celebrated Henry Fonda bomb-scare drama to the queue top instead. Having never seen that one, either, what did I have to lose? This intense, Sydney Lumet-directed drama probably lacked the social commentary of Strangelove but it was a fascinating film all the same. It effectively dramatizes the fears that Americans had of a nuclear invasion during those Bay of Pigs times. In the film, Fonda plays the president who, on a day when he’s set to do some routine U.N. talks, learns that a phalanx of American aircraft are (due to a complex misunderstanding) being sent to Russia, ready to strike. The film also has some great work by two unexpected actors: Walter Matthau as a nuclear weapons expert and Larry Hagman as the interpreter who works the tense negotiations between Fonda and the unseen Russian premier. The intensity builds into an unforgettable finale that threw me for a loop, honestly. Be like a heat-seeking missile and hunt for it.
Reckless (1934) and Riffraff (1935). The last two Jean Harlow films I watched for DVD Talk. Reckless was a bit of a mess, but I really enjoyed Riffraff. I remember seeing it years ago and thought it was flat and kind of dull, but this second viewing revealed the snappy dialogue and the nifty performances from Harlow and Spencer Tracy. My review of Warner Archive’s new box set is here. Hope you like!
Sarah’s Key (2010). This Holocaust drama is another DVD Talk project. I specifically asked for this one, since both of us love Kristen-Scott Thomas and the story looked intriguing. In another of her recent great French-language turns, Thomas plays a contemporary journalist who is doing a magazine story on the Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup in 1942 Paris, a notorious persecution of Jews by the French police which had faded into history. Eventually she uncovers a personal aspect to the tragedy when it is found that the apartment she’s occupying from her husband’s parents once belonged to a Jewish family that was relocated in the roundup. Beautifully filmed flashbacks illustrate the plight of the relocated family, the Starzynskis, as the daughter Sarah frantically tries to get back to the apartment to free her little brother who was locked in a secret compartment in the siblings’ bedroom. Good film, nicely performed with some very moving scenes involving the Sarah character (who ages into a guilt-ridden young woman). The film does have the Julie & Julia problem of the contemporary story not being as compelling as the historical story, but it does fare well due to the magnetic Thomas (yes, I believe I can watch her in just about anything). Warning: the ending is a mawkish Children Are Our Future sop that would be more at home in a Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation.
Flick Clique: November 13-19
Bill Cunningham New York (2010). This recent documentary is one of the films whose DVD I am reviewing for DVD Talk. Bill Cunningham is a New York City photographer who has been doing the “On The Street” column in the New York Times for about 30 years now. The film follows Cunningham as the still energetic octogenarian bikes around Manhattan, furiously seeking out residents whose clothing catches his eye — be it socialite or some poor homeless woman. The energy and spontaneity of the photos is captured in the tight editing, aided by tons of samples and interviews with his often eccentric subjects. The filmmakers also spent a lot of time in Cunningham’s rent-controlled apartment in Carnegie Hall, and in the offices of the Times as the man fusses over one of his layouts with an exasperated (in a humorous way) page designer. This film had me grinning from ear to ear, mostly due to the ebullient personality of Cunningham himself. He seems like a pleasant fellow to be around, beloved by many. Eventually we learn that he’s also an enigma, choosing to live a modest existence with no significant other or family close by. The film briefly dips into Grey Gardens territory, when the director point blank asks him if he’s gay. It really isn’t relevant, however. By and large, the film hits its goal in getting the audience acquainted with a fabulous person whom most of us didn’t know about.
The Girl from Missouri (1934) and Personal Property (1937). More viewing from the Warner Archive Jean Harlow box set, with two films from very different periods in Miss Harlow’s short career. The Girl from Missouri is pre-Code fizz all the way, with Jean a delight as a gold-digging Midwestern girl whose dreams of finding a sugar daddy are thwarted by an unexpected death that implicated her and her best pal (equally delightful Patsy Kelly). This starts out as bubbly comedy, but then strangely u-turns into heavy, dramatic territory. Harlow proves to be good at both — hard to believe she was playing cheap hussies only a few years earlier. I can take or leave Franchot Tone as her ardent suitor, however. Personal Property was another glossy attempt on MGM’s part to shoehorn Harlow into more ladylike roles. In this one, she plays wealthy widow Crystal Wetherby, a woman who assists Robert Taylor’s Raymond Dabney, who has just gotten out of jail. Through a convoluted set of doings, Taylor ends up living at Harlow’s place and posing as her butler. The film is stagy and somewhat claustrophobic, but there are some bright moments. There’s a surprisingly free and easy chemistry between Harlow and Taylor (one of the few actors who started out loose and appealing, then grew stiff as the years went on). Mostly it was a big snooze, though.
Green Lantern (2011). Bloated, ridiculous superhero film (which is all that Hollywood can do anymore, apparently) is actually kinda fun once you peel away the hype. The film opens with a convoluted setup that would have all but the most devout comic nerds scratching their heads. From there it switches to trite earthbound storytelling with Ryan Reynolds as the hotshot pilot with daddy issues sparring against Blake Lively as his co-worker/semi-love interest. Like Thor, the film has a weird way of switching between the superhero world and the dramatic goings-on with the humans and never finds a comfortable groove. Reynolds is actually quite fresh and funny as the Lantern, striking the right goofy tone that this material needed. Too bad the script was so awful. There’s also the obligatory Birth of the Villain subplot with Peter Sarsgaard as a nerdy college professor who gets some meanie mojo in his blood stream and turns into Green Lantern’s oversized craniumed nemesis. Those scenes are broadly played to a laughable degree, and it gets worse when Sarsgaard deals with Angela Bassett as a scientist and Tim Robbins as a politician. All three actors are well-respected; I wonder what possessed them to agree to this tripe. My advice for the inevitable sequel is to hold on to Ryan Reynolds, ditch most of the CGI and the terrible, done-by-committee screenwriting.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009). We watched this on Netflix Instant, mostly to see what the hype was about with the source material. The Swedish filming of Stieg Larsson’s best seller comes on a bit poky paced and impenetrable at first, but overall I found it enjoyable. The plot revolves around a journalist (Michael Nyqvist), convicted and prison-bound, who is contacted by a powerful man (Sven-Bertil Taube) to help locate the man’s niece, a woman who mysteriously disappeared forty plus years earlier (around the same time she looked after the journalist as a boy). The journalist is also being followed by a pierced bisexual woman (Noomi Rapace), who has been hired by the journalist’s enemies to hack into his computer and track his every movement. She becomes drawn to the man and eventually works with him to solve the mystery. I enjoyed this film mostly because it never tried to shed its essential Swedish-ness. The stream was kinda disappointing (the picture was dark and semi-blurry), but aside from the poky intro I can see why the Larsson books became such a huge hit. I have little interest in the upcoming American version, but this film left me intrigued enough to check out the other Swedish Larsson adaptations.
A Lulu of a Toon
Jeez, I let nearly a week go by without posting something here. What better way to say “I’m sorry” than by showing two cartoons from the Little Lulu canon? Here’s Miss Lulu at her bratty best in the 1945 Paramount production Snap Happy:
Lulu was voiced by Mae Questel, who also voiced Betty Boop and Olive Oyl. 1947′s Musica-Lulu is highlighted with a surreal dream sequence involving anthropomorphic musical instruments. It’s a lulu, all right.
Flick Clique: November 6-12
Bombshell (1933) and Suzy (1936). Two flicks from Warner Archive‘s deluxe Jean Harlow box set of made to order DVDs. I’m so happy that I have the opportunity to review this for DVD Talk. Bombshell is my personal favorite of all her films, so I tore into that one first. Still snappy and fun, one of the best Hollywood sendups ever produced, with Harlow a delight as a beleaguered movie star whose chief bane of existence is publicity agent Lee Tracy. I loved Harlow’s character in this, especially when she gets to rant against the people who bug her (check out the scene where she tells off her no-good dad and brother, played by Frank Morgan and Ted Healy). Good as Harlow is, Lee Tracy is even better as the kind of modern, snappy dude who flourished in the pre-Code era. The romantic melodrama Suzy is Harlow in a more conventional vein as a café singer in World War I era Europe who catches the eye of a dynamic French flyer played by suave Cary Grant. The story is pretty far-fetched, but Harlow is engaging as always despite the silly things her character does. This was only three years after Bombshell, but it’s interesting to note that MGM modified her image to become less overtly sexual, more perky. It will be neat to check out the other films in the box, which spans the years 1933-37 in Harlow’s tragically short-lived career.
Galaxy of Terror (1981). Roger Corman’s bald faced Alien rip-off stars a galaxy of d-list talent, including Edward Albert (Eddie’s son), Erin Moran (Joanie from Happy Days), Sid Haig, Ray Walston, Robert Englund, Grace Zabriske, and a giant rubber maggot. This was such an awful film, in a way that is so fascinating. Despite borrowing so heavily from Alien, the production is actually semi-good. The acting and often incomprehensible script is not-so-good, however. The story concerns an eclectic spaceship crew who land their craft on a remote planet with an imposing, H.R. Geiger-esque pyramid. The crew decides to explore the planet in small groups, with tensions mounting as they each succumb to the aliens in ways that supposedly reflect their subconscious (at least that’s how the still elegant Corman explained it on the DVD). It wouldn’t be a Corman flick without the pretty blonde crew member getting stripped down before meeting her maker (with the giant maggot), would it? The cast keeps it interesting, however. Erin Moran contributes a lot with her bug eyes and one-note line readings expressing constant alarm over the situation. She has a point, you know. Who are these people and what are they doing on that planet? The movie fails to come up with an adequate explanation.
The Green (2011). A recent acclaimed indie whose DVD I’m reviewing for DVD Talk. Actor Jason Butler Harmer plays a teacher and sometime writer who relocates to Connecticut with longtime partner Cheyenne Jackson to teach high school history. Life seems pretty good at “the green” until he notices that a bright student (Chris Bert) has become moody and withdrawn. Harmer’s attempt to connect with the student results in a tense altercation that is witnessed by the boy’s family and several of the man’s colleagues. The next day, he’s placed on probation and the kid’s family files a lawsuit against the school. Harmer literally becomes a social outcast in the town, which places a strain on his relationship with Jackson. The film has a fine setup with the New England atmosphere and realistic domestic scenes between Harmer and Jackson. I also enjoyed the addition of Illeana Douglas as Harmer’s witty, cancer-stricken friend. Julia Ormond as the lesbian attorney who takes on Harmer’s case is also very good despite her character’s too-saintly behavior. The film’s second half plays out in an unexpected, somewhat weak way with stock characters behaving in bizarre ways. I had mixed feelings about this film, overall, which I will get into with more detail with my final review.
Léon: The Professional (1994). About French hit man Léon (Jean Reno) who befriends a streetwise girl named Mathilda (Natalie Portman) who lives next door in his grimy New York apartment. When the girl’s family is massacred by corrupt cop Gary Oldman and his goons, she is “adopted” by Léon and learns his tricks to avenge her little brother’s death. I added this one to our queue after noticing it in the IMDb users’ top 250 — what an amazing film. Luc Besson’s direction is tight, and Portman delivers a knowing performance as a girl who desperately wants to leave childhood behind (it reminded me of Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver). Oldman is too hammy, but I enjoyed Jean Reno as a man who is world-weary but still has the capacity to care for and shelter the Portman character (not in a sexual way). It has a lot of great action scenes to recommend it, too, but mostly it’s the unique Reno/Portman relationship that drives the film.
Paris, Texas (1984). Wim Wenders is one of those love-it or hate-it directors, isn’t he? I remember going to see his Wings of Desire (1987) in the theater, with my parents. I found the film slow-paced and incredibly dull, and I felt so embarrassed for dragging my foreign-phobic folks to this dirge of a flick. Despite all that, I added the Criterion Paris, Texas to my Netflix queue because I remember that it got glowing reviews. I’m glad I did. This is an excellent film; the pacing is deliberate, perhaps too much so (especially during the home movie watching scene), but it’s infinitely rewarding and emotionally resonant in a way that few films ever attempt. This one has a heartbreaking Harry Dean Stanton as a guy who is found wandering the deserts of Texas in search of his wife. He is picked up by his brother Dean Stockwell and is relocated to the suburban California home where Stockwell and his wife (Aurore Clément) are raising Stanton’s young son (Hunter Carson). Stanton attempts to reconnect with his son and eventually gets through to him. The two impulsively travel back to Texas, where Stanton finally tracks down his wife, played by a luminous Nastassja Kinski. Great cast, intriguing story line, but what I liked most about the film was the photography — Wenders has a keen eye for Americana and wide open spaces, one that isn’t the least bit patronizing. Wenders probably didn’t intend this, but the film serves as an excellent visual record of ’50s-’80s roadside and suburban spaces.
Remember the Name — Irene
I was looking up Irene Cara on Wikipedia. It mentioned that she did a sitcom pilot in 1981, shortly after appearing on Fame. Irene Cara, a sitcom star? Somebody uploaded this pilot to YouTube in three parts (the first part is below). It’s a cute if dated show, with young actors Julia Duffy and Keenan Ivory Wayans in the cast. To bad the pert and pretty Ms. Cara turned to coke and flushed her career down the toilet.
Flick Clique: October 30 – November 5
Cronos (1997). Seeking a scary movie for Halloween night, we ended up with this creepy Spanish thriller. One of the earlier efforts from director Guillermo del Toro, this film might as well be called The Steampunk Egg of Dorian Gray. The story concerns a grandfatherly antique dealer named Jesus (Federico Luppi) who comes across said mysterious brass object in his shop. While his granddaughter watches, the man ponders the object in his hand while discovering how it works — it grows legs and attaches itself to his hand, delivering a painful sting! Jesus recovers, but he finds himself rejuvenated. He also finds that the brass egg is a 16th century artifact that is sought after by a wealthy, dying industrialist (Claudio Brook) and his henchman (Ron Perlman), who is willing to kill (and does, or at least he thinks so) to get the precious item for his boss. More creepy than chilling, actually, and not nearly as absorbing as Del Toro’s The Devil’s Backbone and even the semi-overrated Pan’s Labyrinth. The DVD does contain a nifty tour of Del Toro’s guest house, filled with his fantastic collection of curiosities, books and movie memorabilia. Apparently the man has a serious jones for Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion!
Freeway Killer (2010). In our continuing efforts to find a scary movie, I scrolled through the horror section on Netflix streaming and came across this taut serial killer indie. This one tells the real story of William Bonin, a Californian who slayed a couple dozen young men in a relatively short time (1979-80) before being imprisoned and eventually being the first man to die of lethal injection in that state. In the film, we see Bonin (chillingly played by Scott Anthony Leet) as he scopes out victims from the safety of his van. He uses the help of a local guy (Susty Sorg) to snag them, but the guy eventually gets replaced by another easily taken in trainee (Cole Williams). This was a modestly budgeted film which reminded me often of the Jeremy Renner-as-Jeffrey Dahmer film (both share the same screenwriter). The movie’s micro budget and many anachronisms are off-putting at first, but I found it gripping and better done than other projects of this sort (the snoozy Dahmer included). It doesn’t really break any ground and Bonin’s actions are strangely sanitized here, but Leet’s intense performance kept it watchable to the end.
Giorgio Moroder Presents: Metropolis (1984). Kino has recently reissued this MTV-influenced version of the Fritz Lang silent classic on home video; my DVD Talk review is posted here. I remember watching it on VHS eons ago (it was the first silent film I ever saw, actually), and was jazzed to check it out again to see if it holds up. I ended up giving it a Highly Recommended rating. Fantastic film and an intriguing ’80s relic, even if this particular version is no longer the best one available.
A Stolen Face (1952) and Blackout (1954). This “Hammer Film Noir” DVD double feature was Christopher’s second choice for scary Halloween viewing, even though neither film is particularly scary (or even film noir, for that matter). Like many, I had no idea that England’s Hammer studio, so famous for its horror flicks from the ’50s and ’60s, did anxious melodramas as well. Both of these films have American stars (Lizbeth Scott and Paul Henried in Stolen Face, Dane Clark in Blackout), but what’s most notable about them is their very British locales and sensibility. A Stolen Face has Henried as a plastic surgeon who falls so intensely in love with pianist Scott, and is so painfully rejected by her, that he re-creates Scott’s face on that of a badly scarred ex-con. Totally ridiculous, and with a let-down of an ending, but Scott is a lot of fun in the two separate parts (she affects a cockney accent as the luckless dame who finds out that her new face isn’t original). A half-hearted stab at noir, but hysterically campy at times (and Scott looks great in a wardrobe designed by Edith Head). Blackout is a more typical, serviceable drama which is undone by a convoluted plot. Dane Clark, reedy faced star of many a Warner Bros. melodrama, headlines here as a regular guy who emerges from a drunken bender in London to find that he married a beautiful yet manipulative blonde (Belinda Lee). Waking up the next morning in the flat of a lady artist, he learns that his “wife” is a debutante whose father has just been murdered — he then spends the rest of the film attempting to locate the real murderer before that blood-stained trenchcoat he’s wearing leads to the wrong conclusions. Rather dull, but I always liked the attractive-in-an-offbeat-way Clark. Belinda Lee is quite gorgeous, and very good. I was wondering why I hadn’t seen her, before learning she tragically died in her ’20s in an auto accident.
A Fall Mix: Cheap, Painless & Easy
Time for the Scrubbles.net Fall 2011 Mix! I put together this one relatively quickly. The mix has some good flow, veering from current stuff to ’90s dance to kiddie music to ’80s pop and oldies in an interesting way. I called it Cheap, Painless & Easy (named after an older tune by retro pop band Ivy) since most of the tracks were obtained for free or next to nothing at various places — Amazon.com, eMusic, Bittorrent (hey, I didn’t say it was all legal). Some of it comes from old favorites with new (to me) songs, others came from various things I was fascinated by lately. Last month, for instance, I found that eMusic had most of the Sesame Street discography — including track #11 in this mix, “My Name.” I wonder if Eminem heard that one as a child? The cover art comes from my Jim Flora thrift store find, Pishtosh, Bullwash and Wimple.
That new album by Ivy, All Hours, is excellent by the way. The download version below is a continuous mix, done as a single 70-minute file. Enjoy the tuneage!
Download ‘Cheap, Painless & Easy: Scrubbles.net Fall 2011 Mix (66.93 MB Zip file)
Track listing:
1. Neon Indian — “Polish Girl” (Era Extraña, 2011)
2. Herb Alpert — “Beyond” (Beyond, 1980)
3. Cliff Martinez — “They’re Calling My Flight” (Contagion soundtrack, 2011)
4. Lady Gaga — “Fashion of His Love” (Born This Way bonus track, 2011)
5. Frankmuzik — “Ludicrous” (Do It in the AM, 2011)
6. Pet Shop Boys — “Flamboyant” (PopArt: The Hits, 2003)
7. Still Corners — “Endless Summer” (Cuckoo EP, 2011)
8. Ivy — “Everybody Knows” (All Hours, 2011)
9. Sarah Cracknell — “Taking Off for France” (Lipslide UK edition, 1997)
10. Madonna — “Deeper and Deeper (Instrumental)” (single b-side, 1992)
11. Bob, Gordon, Maria and Susan — “My Name” (Sesame Street: Aren’t You Glad You’re You?, 1977)
12. Bobby Caldwell — “All of My Love” (Carry On, 1983)
13. Melissa Manchester — “The End of the Affair” (Emergency, 1983)
14. Ben Rector — “Let the Good Times Roll” (Something Like This, 2011)
15. The Monkees — “Apples, Peaches, Bananas and Pears” (1966 outtake first issued on Missing Links, 1987)
16. The Mamas & The Papas — “You Baby” (If You Can Believe Your Eyes And Ears, 1966)
17. Matthew Sweet — “She Walks the Night” (Modern Art, 2011)
18. Baby Washington — “I Can’t Wait Until I See My Baby’s Face” (single a-side, 1964)
19. Dusty Springfield — “Small Town Girl” (The Look Of Love, 1967)
20. Johnny Crawford — “Cry On My Shoulder” (single a-side, 1963)
Flick Clique: October 23-29
Blues in the Night (1941). Bought this DVD because it has Joyce Compton in a small part (as “blonde dancing with drunk,” as the IMDb puts it), but it’s actually one of the more enjoyable Warner Brothers melodramas of that time. Silly and overblown at times, but engrossing nonetheless. Richard Whorf heads a mid-level cast as jazz pianist Jigger Pine, a regular guy with a quartet that includes wormlike Elia Kazan, hulking Peter Whitney and young pup Billy Halop. The trio are at a crossroads. A scuffle with a belligerent customer at the dive where they’re playing lands them in jail, prompting them to stick with the noncommercial blues-influenced style they love. They travel to New Orleans to meet with trumpeter Jack Carson, who is married to lovely singer Priscilla Lane. The group form a swell combo, riding the rails and playing wherever they can to get a decent meal. Eventually they befriend a gangster (Lloyd Nolan), who leads them to a New Jersey dive where sad sack Wallace Ford and hard-bitten singer Betty Field (who is amazing in this) work. The story gets very complex from there, helped along by some eye-popping montages from the uncredited Don Siegel. I love the “traveling across America” montage and the “I hate these singing lessons” montage. The “I’m going crazy” montage (seen below at 1:40) is a pip, as well.
Body Slam (1986). This stupid yet watchable wrestling comedy has been shown on ThisTV a few times, curiosity prompted me to stick it on the DVR. Dirk Benedict stars as a washed-up rock promoter who winds up unknowingly representing a pro wrestler (Rowdy Roddy Piper). He dreams up a scheme to combine the energy of live rock music with the excitement of wrestling, a wild idea that catches on so quickly that he has a rival promoter (Captain Lou Albano!) on his tail. This film was directed by Hal Needham, whose main prior achievement was the Cannonball Run movies. That oughta tell you where this movie is coming from, although the very ’80s atmosphere and an odd supporting cast (Tanya Roberts, Charles Nelson Reilly, Billy Barty) keeps this one diverting, at the very least.
A Cottage on Dartmoor (1929). This British thriller is a good example of how stylized silent films got before sound came in and changed everything. The story concerns an escaped convict who, fleeing through the countryside, finds refuge in a farm house. The woman who is tending to the house is startled to see the man, but we soon learn (via flashback) that they know each other and once worked together. The film switches locales to the barber shop, where he was a shaver and she was a manicurist. They have a friendly rapport which borders on a relationship, but that’s changed when a regular shop customer becomes engaged to the woman. He becomes obsessed with winning the woman’s love. The man’s increasingly psychotic nature is captured by some daring camerawork, highlighted by a scene where the couple go to see a “talkie” in the local theatre. Interesting film. Kino’s DVD for this film includes an absorbing documentary, Silent Britain, which chronicles the UK’s often overlooked contribution to silent cinema with plenty of cool clips.
Going Places (1974). Easygoing buddy comedy stars a magnetic Gerard Depardieu and Patrick Dewaere as a pair of charming wastrels who roam the French countryside in search of men to piss off and women to bang. On a car thieving jaunt, they meet a passive hairdresser named Marie-Jange (Miou Miou), who eventually becomes the third corner in their traveling sex ‘n crime spree. I’m reviewing this DVD for DVD Talk, so I won’t go into too much detail. Generally, I found it entertaining for the first hour, including a wonderful bit with Jeanne Moreau as a jaded ex-con whom the two men take on as their latest conquest. Her character is intelligent enough to know that she’s being played, but she goes along with it and ultimately it emerges that it’s she doing the playing. The film kinda falls apart after her scenes, but it’s still interesting to watch as Depardieu and Dewaere are initially presented as stupid young punks who gradually become more human as the film progresses.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966). We’re two thirds of the way through this iconic Western, directed by Sergio Leone, starring Clint Eastwood and with Ennio Morricone’s cool and strange score. It does have some great scenes and lots of weirdly beautiful close-ups of actors’ weather-beaten faces, but overall I’m finding Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West the better film in almost every respect. Eastwood is too laconic and I’m not buying Eli Wallach as a Mexican, but I’m enjoying their banter and comradery. Morricone’s theme, once so cool, now seems so campy that I can’t help but giggle whenever it comes on. His OUATITW score is much more subtle and mood-enhancing. TGTBATU falls into more typical Spaghetti Western territory, bad dubbing and all, but the film holds my attention enough to keep me wondering what may happen in the last hour (which we’re seeing tonight).
Sh! The Octopus (1937). Preposterous yet enjoyable little b-movie is one of the earliest examples of that ’40s and ’50s staple, the horror-comedy. This one has Hugh Herbert and Allen Jenkins as a pair of police detectives who happen upon a mysterious lighthouse which appears to be terrorized by both a giant octopus and a human killer named after the octopus. This was offered as a free online stream by the Warner Archive on October 27th and 28th. It was a dumb little time waster, less than an hour long but made interminable by the stream’s constant rebuffering. The octopus was fake and unintentionally funny, but at least the special effect with one of the cast members transforming into a hideous ogre was nifty.
Nine Nations, Animated
My review of the shorts collection Nine Nation Animation has been posted at DVD Talk. This package of animated shorts from Europe includes the cute (and weird) German short Please Say Something, excerpted below.
The clip has French text, which is in English on the DVD.
Magoo, You’ve Done It Again
Here’s the first half of the Count of Monte Cristo episode of the animated series The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo, which ran on NBC (in prime time!) in the 1964-65 season. I’m getting acquainted with this show since reviewing the upcoming Mr. Magoo on TV Collection DVD set from Shout! Factory. The box also includes the other two Magoo series, The Mr. Magoo Show (1960-61) and What’s New, Mr. Magoo? (1977), along with the 1970 special Uncle Sam Magoo. That’s a lotta Magoo!
The Famous Adventures show, which puts Magoo in various well-known historical events and pieces of literature, might be the most interesting one. Unlike the others, I’d never heard of this show and don’t remember it at all from my childhood. There aren’t a lot of gags relating to Magoo’s blindness, but it’s a lot of fun with a kicky, ’60s feel.
Flick Clique: October 16-22
Dumbstruck (2010). A sunny, appealing documentary about ventriloquism and how it affects five different people. I reviewed this for DVD Talk.
Haywire (1980). This two-part TV movie immediately grabbed me when I saw it listed on the Warner Archive website. First off, I had no idea that there was a movie version of Brooke Hayward’s best selling ’70s memoir on her childhood with famous parents Margaret Sullavan and superagent Leland Hayward. Secondly, I love Lee Remick and was eager to see how she interpreted Ms. Sullavan, one of the more diverting, underrated classic film actresses. The film opens in 1960 with Brooke, played by Deborah Raffin, learning of her mother’s pill overdose suicide. As Raffin plans funeral arrangements with her father Leland (Jason Robards), she flashes back to the ’40s and Sullavan’s gradual unraveling, which has an effect on the high profile couple’s three kids — Brooke, Bridget and Bill. As the years go by, Brooke finds that Sullavan’s high strung insecurity and fragile mental state has been passed on to herself and especially her siblings. This is a pretty typical TV production of the day, with a laughably weak grasp on period detail, long scenes of exposition, and performances that range from affected (Raffin, who sometimes adopts a quasi-British accent) to workmanlike (Robards). The film takes on a strange, flashback-heavy format, likely to give equal screen time to Remick over the two halves. Remick is okay if somewhat histrionic. Overall, I enjoyed it, although the story would have been better served with a single, straightforward two hour treatment.
Jazz on a Summer’s Day (1959). I watched this in bits and pieces via Netflix over the last two, three weeks (having already seen it on the old, pre-commercial Bravo channel eons ago). It’s a film that actually holds up well in that fragmentary manner. Jazz on a Summer’s Day is a chronicle of the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival by photographer Bert Stern. Stern films the various acts in an impressionistic manner, giving as much time to the audience and the quirky, often lovely surroundings in and around Newport, Rhode Island. One can definitely see the advertising influence in Stern’s photography, which has that whiff of ’50s cool. Musically it’s a treat, with memorable performances from Anita O’Day, Louis Armstrong, George Shearing, Dinah Washington, and an out-of-place but stunning Chuck Berry. I think I most enjoyed the clothes, weirdly enough – on both the performers and the audience! I also loved looking at the audience and spotting the genuine music lovers who were there to groove and the hipsters, poseurs and families who just came to relax. Fun film, look for it!
Pale Flower (1964). More vintage Japanese goodness from Netflix. Actually, Pale Flower is too pokey and inconsistent to earn a full recommendation, but there are certain elements that stand out. Certainly the story, of a Yakuza gangster (Ryô Ikebe) who meets a thrill-seeking young woman (Mariko Kaga), isn’t anything too special. Much of the action centers around an inscrutable Japanese card game, while Ikebe and Kaga indulge in long conversations and speedy jaunts in his convertible, things which only amplify their nihilistic point of view. The main characters are unlikable, the gambling scenes are repetitive, but the final fifteen minutes are utterly absorbing and filmed in an audacious way that was at least two decades ahead of its time. Nice cinematography, too, but I wouldn’t put it anywhere near the top of my ’60s Japanese gangster movie list.
The Perfect Host (2010). A Netflix streaming offering that came at the recommendation of C.’s former co-worker. The Perfect Host kicks off with Ray Liotta-ish actor Clayne Crawford as a thief who is frantically evading the police after an attempted bank heist. After attempting to contact his girlfriend, he hides out in an affluent L.A. neighborhood. Posing as a stranded tourist, he goes to the door of one house, but the lady (Helen Reddy!) tells him to move on. Luckily the neighbor, a fastidious man planning a dinner party (Hyde Pierce), welcomes the guy into his home. Crawford intends to rob Hyde Pierce and move on, but the tables are turned when Hyde Pierce turns out to be a lunatic, with all of his dinner party friends being figments of his imagination (or are they people he once knew? The film doesn’t adequately explain that.). Crawford becomes a prisoner and spends much of the film trying to escape as Hyde Pierce immobilizes, drugs and mutilates him. Kind of a blah movie, really, one which becomes even more ridiculous when another twist is revealed regarding Hyde Pierce’s character. Disappointing ending, too. This resourcefully made indie thriller might be worth a peek for Hyde Pierce fans; mostly I was bored.
Checking Out Criterion
I guess it’s not a good time to be Netflix. The company’s recent DVD/streaming fracas has us scrambling for alternative ways to get entertainment. I’m still sticking with them (and, despite the price increase, it’s still a heckuva deal), both with disc and streaming. Currently we have the two discs/unlimited streaming, but the constant flow of discs from DVD Talk will probably prompt me to take it down to one disc at a time with the occasional Red Box visit in case we need a recent flick for the night. Another alternate possibility I’ve been exploring is our local public library. I was astonished to find that they had tons of newer Criterion discs available for checking out, one week at a time. What’s more, the library Criterions have the booklets — cool! A few weeks ago, I checked out a batch:
The first film we partook of, Make Way for Tomorrow, is something I’ve been wanting to see for several years. Leo McCarey’s highly regarded tearjerker used to get some airplay on American Movie Classics, but despite being a huge Beulah Bondi fan I never caught it. The film just looked too depressing — who wants to cuddle up with a movie about an elderly couple whose children treat them like dirt? The film really is a treasure, however, touching on human issues in a manner that’s very rare for films of that vintage (1937). Bondi and Victor Moore play a long-married couple who gather their adult children to announce that they must sell the family home. The financial situation makes it impossible for the couple to stay together, so they wind up in the households of two different offspring while being treated in an equally callous way. Moore is great; so are Thomas Mitchell and Fay Bainter as the couple who take Bondi in. Bondi is remarkable — her character behaves at first in a stereotypical “martyred old lady” fashion that would grate on anyone’s nerves — but as the film unfolds, her humanity is gradually revealed. It’s a relief when the couple is reunited and finally get treated with some dignity when they visit the hotel where they once honeymooned. This Criterion edition particularly jazzed me because it has designs by Seth, the cartoonist who also designed the Complete Peanuts volumes from Fantagraphics.
The next DVD we saw, oddly enough, has a similar theme to Make Way for Tomorrow — Hirokazu Koreeda’s 2008 drama Still Walking. This film has an elderly couple dealing with the after effects when one of their children has died. It takes place mostly during the annual gathering the couple holds in remembrance of their son. The couple’s other offspring seem to live happy lives, but as the film unfolds one starts to notice the tension between the parents and the other son, who didn’t follow the dad’s career path and is now involved with a widow raising a young boy. The daughter is also grappling with how to handle the aging parents. Like Koreeda’s Nobody Knows, this film takes its time establishing character and mood to the point where you’d ask “when is this thing starting, already?” Stick around, however, for a rewarding experience. At the very least, I loved the ambiance of the seaside town where it took place. The booklet contains recipes (!) for the delectable Asian dishes prepared in the film.
I’ve already seen My Man Godfrey, but for the commentary I gave the Criterion disc a rental (and why not? The library had, like, ten copies in the bins). The commentary was pretty dry and scholarly, but it had a few nice tidbits about the making of the film. Mostly it made me appreciate what a beautifully put together film it remains, the apex of ’30s screwball. I loved William Powell in this, but a huge surprise came with Gail Patrick as the bitchy sister. What a gorgeous lady. Carole Lombard was also quite funny, but I noticed how she played similar (annoying) characters in this, Twentieth Century and Nothing Sacred. Her “beautiful lady gone wacky” schtick was good, in small doses. I really prefer her in more “normal” parts like Mr. and Mrs. Smith or the nursing drama Vigil in the Night.
It was fun checking these out, and I’m looking forward to trucking down to the library for more. P.S. Don’t ask about going back to cable or satellite — I’m totally finished treading down that money-sucking route!
New at LitKids: Alice in Silver, Black
At LitKids, I came up with something to make up for the dwindling supply of Alice In Wonderland prints on hand. These new prints use the same design and book pages, but they are printed in silver and black inks. These came out really nice, even better than the original red-on-pink design. The black-on-silver ones are gorgeous, and the reverse silver-on-black gives the image a striking “goth” feel (although they didn’t come out as nice). I feel especially proud of these since they were done from a brand new silk screen — Alice is the most complex image, and to get a good screen exposure in the sunlight, it has to be timed especially right.
The silver prints cost $15 and the black ones are $12. Check them out!
