Brandon’s movie memory

Some shots from the ending:

Hedwig-Hansel as Gnosis-Corgan. It’s complicated.

That’s songwriter Stephen Trask on the left.

Yitzhak unleashed! I will look out for her next time I watch Shortbus.

An Emily Hubley moment:

My most important discovery about this film is that Marilyn Monroe’s performance (specifically her facial gestures) is the basis for Dean Stockwell’s Ben in Blue Velvet. Look into their eyes. Discovery #2 is that the film had a sequel (based on the sequel to the source novel), Gentlemen Marry Brunettes, but the only two people who worked on both movies were star Jane Russell and the costume designer. Not even the studio was the same. Discovery #3 was that this film was based on a novel!

Very great movie, starring Marilyn and Jane Russell at about the halfway point of their respective film careers. Mismatched friends on a pleasure cruise to France, Marilyn is a gold digger who is no genius but still smarter than she ever lets on, and Jane wants to find a good man, money or no money. Tommy Noonan (charlie ford in I Shot Jesse James) is Marilyn’s very rich wimp of a fiance who is content to be loved for his money. Elliott Reid (mostly a tv actor, starring in an indie film later this year) is the private eye whom Noonan’s father hires to spy on the girls aboard the ship and who falls in love with Jane. George Winslow (apparently a pretty famous child actor at the time) is hilarious upper-class kid Henry Spofford III. And the great Charles Coburn (The Lady Eve) is Piggy Beekman, a diamond mine owner who bumps into Marilyn. Piggy ends up giving a diamond tiara to Marilyn, Piggy’s wife reports it stolen, and Jane has to sub for Marilyn in a climactic courtroom scene, even stripping down and performing her “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend” (better than marilyn’s version, according to Katy) in court to stall for time.

The Howard Hawks irreverent/comic worldview and his “alternative forms of social and sexual arrangements outside of Hollywood’s idealisation of the nuclear family” are in proud effect here. The songs are great, Marilyn is great, and Jane manages not to be blown off the stage nor does she act out to overcompensate. Katy liked it too!

First rented this in December 2005, took over two years to finish it. Only movie to top that is The Decalogue (begun in 2001, still unfinished).

Katy didn’t want to watch it, and I’ve got trouble with it myself, not having any experience with opera. Some of the songs (”all in vain”) are lovely, though. The acting is extremely stagy, with huge facial expressions and body movements. Hoffmann himself moves stiffly through the film, maybe the only non-dancer in the cast but with a great voice (if he’s not dubbed). Sumptuous set design and costumes, one large room at a time with not much that is apparently cinematic about it. Even some of the effects (scattered, living doll parts created by actors wearing mostly black) are stagy. But then it can explode into incredible matte-painting sets with killer editing tricks and one very memorable camera-trick perspective shot involving a staircase shot from overhead. Camera is mostly still during dialogue/singing scenes, with some well-parceled sweeping movements… all fits together amazingly. Some of the richest color I’ve seen on my little television and laptop screens. They make great use of height in the frame, all columns and high-ceiling rooms. Since the dance numbers are mostly one or two people at a time, you never wish for widescreen. Only thing that really needs to be said is that it has more amazing bowl-me-over visual moments than almost anything else I’ve ever seen. Need to watch again as many times as possible.

Hoffmann is at the ballet falling for the dancer, whom his rival is also lusting over. He and his friends abandon the show for a bar where Hoff narrates three stories, starring himself, his rival, and Hoff’s nearly silent male companion (played by a female redhead), about three thwarted romances. At the end, the girls all dance together and collapse back into the original girl. And as Hoff falls exhausted to the bar table at the end of his story, the dancer shows up only to be escorted away by the rival.

The main dancer and the doll in the first story were Moira Shearer from The Red Shoes. The second girl with a jewelry obsession was Ludmilla Tcherina. Third girl, sickly with a dead mother, was Anne Ayars. All are stage dancers best known for this and other Powell films.

Hoffmann was a big opera star, also appeared in Carousel. Rival Robert Helpmann (probably the most facially expressive here) has played sinister characters in a few films. The most prolific was Pamela Brown, Hoff’s silent companion, who had fourth-billed roles in Cleopatra, Lust For Life, Olivier’s Richard III and Powell/Pressburger’s “I Know Where I’m Going”, which is the next one I’ve gotta see.

Also watched a 1956 widescreen Powell solo short of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice with some of the same art crew as Hoffmann. It was an early showoff reel for CinemaScope, only now available in a shortened far-from-pristine print. The voiceover stands out awkwardly, but the costumes and dancing are great - the living broom and dancers representing the water that fills the room. Cool little film. IMDB says the apprentice, Bulgarian born, was the second woman to ever be knighted in Norway.

Somewhat-funny comedy with some good moments, but mostly made me wonder when it would be over. Did not leave in a good mood, and things only got worse from there.

Tim Meadows was the funniest part. Harold Ramis funny too. Dewey Cox’s love interest is in the American “Office”. Everyone’s favorite scene was Dewey’s meditation with The Beatles: Jason Schwartzmann, Jack Black, Paul Rudd and Justin Long (of “live free die hard”). John C. Reilly good, but not awards-good.

Katy liked the songs.

“Personally, I wouldn’t marry a man who proposed to me over an invention.”

The biggest MGM hit of its time, featuring original (original!) songs “clang clang went the trolley”, “meet me in st. louis”, and “have yourself a merry little christmas”. With the awesome Judy Garland (of “Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy”).

Seven-year-old Margaret O’Brien (Tootie) was second and third billed in three major 1944 movies, and won an honorary Oscar for this one. I’ll bet no seven-year-old has done as well in a single year since. Neither has Margaret, who starred in two big pictures in ‘49 then disappeared to television.

Silent star Mary Astor (Two Arabian Knights, The Palm Beach Story, Maltese Falcon) played the mother. The other sister, who nobody seems to care much about, older than Tootie by a few years, was in Leo McCarey’s “The Bells of St. Mary’s” the next year. I could swear oldest sister Rose looked familiar, but no she hasn’t been in anything else I’ve heard of. Servant woman Katie became famous as “Ma Kettle” in ten movies over the next ten years. Handsome boy next door John Truett worked through the seventies, when he appeared in “The Boy Who Stole The Elephant” and “A Matter of Wife… and Death”. Grandpa Harry Davenport (”Mr. Jarr” in a whole bunch of 1915 comedy shorts) also appeared in William Dieterle’s “Hunchback of Notre Dame” and a bunch of films with “Heaven” in their titles. And Leon Ames, the father of the Smith clan, was in a bunch of good films by name directors over the next ten years, including “Little Women” which featured four main “St. Louis” cast members, had a recurring role on “Mr. Ed”, and in his eighties appeared with Margaret O’Sullivan in “Peggy Sue Got Married”. June Lockhart appears briefly. I thought she was a big name, but I guess she’s best known for TV roles in “Lassie” and “Lost In Space”, later appearing in “Troll” and “CHUD II: Bud The Chud”.

The third feature, and first in color, by musical master Minnelli, who married star Judy Garland the following year. Produced by Arthur Freed, who wrote the song “Singin’ in the Rain”.

IMDB trivia sad note for Katy: “Van Johnson was supposed to play John Truett, but Tom Drake took over.”

More sadness: “The book on which the film is based originally ran as a weekly feature in the New Yorker Magazine in 1942. For the film many of the actions attributed to Tootie were actually done in real life by [author Sally] Benson’s sister Agnes. Also in reality Benson’s father moved the family to NYC and they never did come back for the World’s Fair.”

I liked it a lot.

N.P. Thompson: “the most numbingly inert movie musical ever made”.

Watched it twice in a week, the second time with good sound.

Barber is imprisoned and wife-snatched by judge, returns years later (with young sailor) for revenge, kills blackmailing rival barber, finds then loses interest in own daughter, starts meat pie business with neighbor, mistreats and tries to kill young assistant, kills judge, neighbor, and (accidentally) own wife, is killed by assistant while young sailor rides off with barber’s daughter.

Loving the songs, especially “not while I’m around,” “pretty women,” “I’ll steal you joanna,” and “these are my friends”. The actors all do wonderfully, and the ol’ Burton goth murk is back with a vengeance. Katy disliked the horror aspects and wished that any character besides the two kids in love was a likeable protagonist, someone she could root for, and not a horrible corrupt monster. I thought the two kids were plenty enough brightness in the black, black. I wouldn’t call it numbingly inert, but for a musical it doesn’t exactly pop off the screen. Maybe Thompson will dig the 3-D re-release.

Another quizzical music biography by Mr. Haynes. Someone said that any of his music movies (”Karen Carpenter Story”, Bowie doc “Velvet Goldmine”) could be titled “I’m Not There”. Dylan is actually there, playing harmonica in close-up at the very very end.

Dylans:

Rimbaud / in interview room giving evasive answers / guy from “Perfume”

Woody / train-hopping authentic-sounding blues kid actually a runaway / Marcus Carl Franklin from “Be Kind Rewind”

Billy / quiet recluse living in a western town of his own imagination / Richard Gere

Robbie / guy playing Dylan in typical hollywood bio-pic / Heath Ledger

Jack / fame-shunning Christian folk singer / Christian (heh) Bale

Jude (also heh) / the well-known “don’t look back” 60’s dylan who cavorts with the Beatles and flippantly defies fan and media expectations / Cate Blanchett in one of my favorite performances of the year

Aaand Charlotte Gainsbourg is Robbie’s estranged wife, who is the heart of the movie, the only character with actual human emotion and understandable actions. She barely belongs except to keep the thing reigned in a little.

Fascinating movie, amazing music (Dylan of course) and b/w/color cinematography (Ed Lachman - The Limey, Far From Heaven, A Prairie Home Companion). Must see again and again.

Amusing musical - widescreen, color, full of marilyn and better than its reputation. Written by playwright Arthur Miller (married to Marilyn) and one of the Normans from “White Christmas” (also wrote Lang’s “Fury”).

Unexciting frenchman Yves Montand (”Tout va bien”, “The War Is Over”) is mega-rich, hears of a low-key theater production in the hipster part of town that will be making fun of him, heads down there with employees Wilfrid Hyde-White (Col. Pickering in “My Fair Lady”) and Tony Randall (Rock Hunter, “Down With Love” and voice of the brain Gremlin in “Gremlins 2″). The director notices Yves and casts him as himself, a perfect lookalike. Yves isn’t interested in shutting the place down anymore because he falls for Marilyn during her outrageously sexy intro scene and aims to get her away from her boyfriend, pop star Frankie Vaughan. Yves hires comic Milton Berle, dancer Gene Kelly and singer Bing Crosby, playing themselves, to turn him into a star, but to no avail… so he tries to convince Marilyn that he’s the actual billionaire he’s playing in the play, also to no avail, until he takes her to his office and proves it at the end.

Cute movie, and title song and “my heart belongs to daddy” are hot tunes.

IMDB trivia: “Milton Berle placed ads in Hollywood trade papers seeking a Best Supporting Oscar nomination for playing himself.”

Less of a feel-good-about-war movie than a salute to war veterans, with Bing Crosby and his partner Danny Kaye (of Secret Life of Walter Mitty) coming across their old general by chance and staging a christmastime salute to him with all the old guys. Movie was pretty okay with good enough music, didn’t feel as lightweight as most of the musicals we’ve seen but also not as exciting / high-quality. Paramount’s first widescreen movie, funny since so much of it takes place indoors on stages.

The guys fall for a sister act that sings about being sisters (like in Young Girls of Rochefort, but the American sister song isn’t half as good as the French) played by glorious Rosemary Clooney (one of her only other film roles besides Red Garters) and Vera-Ellen (of some other Danny Kaye movies, not much else). V-E had to wear high collars in the movie to cover her neck which was gross-looking from anorexia. The ol’ general Dean Jagger played the sheriff in Fuller’s Forty Guns.

Kaye’s part was written for Sinatra to reunite the duo from “Holiday Inn”, the movie that premiered the Irving Berlin song “White Christmas” 12 years earlier. They even used sets from “Holiday Inn”, which I’m starting to suspect might be a better movie. Highest-grossing film of 1954, oscar-nom for Berlin’s new “Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep”. I preferred “Gee, I Wish I Was Back in the Army.” This was Michael Curtiz’s 25th movie since Casablanca - he doesn’t seem a very distinctive or celebrated director. Shot by a guy named Loyal, written by a guy named Melvin and two guys named Norman.

We rented this on the drive home from “August Rush”. It had a dual purpose: Katy could watch another, hopefully better movie where Jonathan Rhys Meyers sings, and I could try again to join the growing legion of Todd Haynes fans before seeing “I’m Not There”.

Given a second chance (first time it totally lost me), it’s an interesting movie with an awesome look to it. Good music but not my favorite (I never got glam - the music’s not exciting when you take away the clothes). Another thing I noticed this time is how the story is a big ol’ ripoff/tribute to Citizen Kane, with Christian Bale in the reporter/interviewer role.

Jonathan RM is an illegal bootleg of David Bowie and Ewan McGregor is a semi-legit Iggy Pop.

Toni Collette (of nothing I’m likely to see except maybe “the dead girl”) plays RM’s wife and I got her confused a lot, and Eddie Izzard (of “across the universe” and his own bad self) is RM’s manager.

What is going on?, most of the time, still, especially towards the end, but with the lovely glammy visuals, who cares either? RM and Iggy Pop have a hot affair and half-fuel half-wreck each other’s careers, and there’s booze and such. I felt really on top of things while watching this, but just a few days later I’m lost in a drug haze of cool shots and floaty feathers and got nothing to say.

IMDB user writes “ham-handed satire”, but I didn’t find it ham-handed at all. It’s somewhat a Western parody, but it’s not that the characters are unbearably macho (they’re actually kinda sharpshooting sissies, but that’s because it’s a 50’s musical) just that they follow “the code of the west”. There’s certainly not much Western about the look of the movie, which way out-fakes “Track of the Cat” in its deliberately artifical sets and backdrops. The movie was originally shown in 3D, so reportedly with the fakey sets it was supposed to feel like a stage production.

Reb Randall comes to town on the day they’re burying his brother, the much-hated Robin Randall. Reb doesn’t tell anyone who he is, just hangs out waiting to find out who killed his brother. Becomes friends with a fake Mexican who confesses to the killing, but wait, it turns out he was drunk and missed Robin, who was actually killed by the town’s self-professed coward (Robin killed the coward’s brother I think).

There’s no other killing, just some loving and lots of singing. Local song and dance sensation Calaveras Kate is sweet on town giant Jason Carberry, our hero is sweet on Carberry’s ward, and the Mexican fella falls for the daughter of a stuffy east coaster who has come to town to check up on things, having heard about the lawlessness of the wild west. The west is tamed at the end (with no help from the east-coaster), the code is thrown out, and it looks like a triple wedding on the horizon.

You wouldn’t think it from a plot description, but Kate is the star here and gets to sing most of the songs. Nobody here is an especially convincing actor, but the songs are nice and the movie’s just cool/weird enough to forgive all that. It’s also kind of awkwardly funny and half-heartedly romantic. Just good fun to watch a low-key (but quality) nearly-forgotten musical from back when it was okay for white people to play any race and school shootings were treated as light comedy. This was made three years before my other favorite white-people-with-painted-faces Western, “Run of the Arrow”.

Above, L-R:
Calaveras Kate: a very white Rosemary Clooney, also a singer who hardly did any other acting, appeared in White Christmas and Radioland Murders… George’s aunt.

Stuffy east-coaster: Reginald Owen of the ‘38 “Christmas Carol”, who played the awesome butler in “Double Harness”.

Jason Carberry, who somewhat runs this town: Jack Carson from a bunch of films, always third or fourth-billed. This same year he was #3 man in “A Star Is Born” and Axelrod & Robson’s “Phffft”.

Above:
Our hero’s Mexican friend: Gene Barry, who played Dr. Clayton Forrester (!) in the original “War of the Worlds”, cameoed in the Spielberg remake, and starred in his own TV series through the 60’s. He does a good job singing in a low voice with a fake hispanic accent with his face painted brown.

Stuffy east-coaster’s pretty, black-haired young daughter: Joanne Gilbert, who was only in a couple other movies, including Gene Rowlands’ debut film “The High Cost of Loving” in ‘58, directed by Rosemary Clooney’s husband José Ferrer.

Above:
Our nameless hero: Guy Mitchell, a singer who hardly did any other acting.

Jason’s ward, Latina Susana: TV actress Pat Crowley

Above:
Nonviolent coward who turns out to have killed our hero’s brother in the end: Buddy Ebsen, Holly’s ex-husband in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”.

Jason Carberry again

Goofy desexualized Indian woman: Cass Daley, an unmistakably white singer/comedian.

I still don’t like John Travolta and I still don’t have a clear handle on who Olivia Newton John is (I thought she was famous for doing workout videos in the 80’s, but now I realize I’m getting confused by her hit song “Let’s Get Physical”). But they’re both pretty cute in this movie, which was more of a chick-flick than I was prepared for. None of the other musicals we’ve seen have seemed quite as chicky as this one. Not that I disliked it, hey, I’m in touch with my chick-side, just didn’t expect such a giggling pillow-fight of a movie.

J-Trav is the coolest guy in a lame gang of guys without motorcycles or even cars (okay, one car), and Olivia NJ is a cute transfer student. They spend the summer together at the beach, but once school starts, he can’t hang out with her anymore because he has to stay cool, and I guess cool guys don’t date cute transfer students. Amazingly, NJ understands this, and shows up at end of movie with her clothes all gang’d up, coincidentally right after J-Trav has decided that he loves her and is gonna hang out with her anyway, cool or not. It’s like the gift of the magi. Well no it isn’t.

The “greased lightning” song is pretty happenin’, and I liked “summer nights” even if I can’t remember the tune so well now. Both of the hits are back-to-back at the end of the film: “we go together” (the changetty-chang-shoo-bop song) and “you’re the one that i want”, for the post-graduation-carnival scene. I was surprised at how functionally shot (or visually unexciting) the whole thing was, but I guess director Kleiser (big top pee-wee) and DP Bill Butler (Omen II, Rocky II, The Sting II) did the best they could for what looks more like a low-budget cult sensation than a big extravagant musical.

Followed by Grease 2, which lands a full 3.5 points lower than the original on the scale of IMDB voting. IMDB has nothing interesting to say about Grease 2, besides that it was popular 1940’s supporting actress Eve Arden’s final film.

Katy likes it. If I wasn’t so concerned with acting super cool around all my film buddies, I might say I liked it too.

An attractive movie - fun musical to start with, gets more serious as it progresses. Shoulder-dancing Topol (of Flash Gordon, heh) is a poor milkman trying to get good husbands for his three daughters and stick to the all-important traditions. But he’s a smart fella and knows that traditions must change with the times. Some daughters want to marry for love instead of through matchmakers, unheard-of! Finally the police chief is commanded by higher-ups to force Topol’s whole Jewish community off their land. Topol does what he’s gotta.

Most amusing part is that one daughter is briefly engaged to a man named Laserwolf. Laserwolf! Then she marries a dude named Motel, a huge step down if you ask me.

The matchmaker was in Cannonball Run 1 & 2, Topol’s wife Golde was on television, and none of the daughters were really in anything else. Shot by Oswald Morris (Lolita, Oliver!, The Wiz). Orchestrated and conducted by John Williams.

A quality movie, affecting and with very good music and camera work. Liked it better than My Fair Lady.

“I have never spent two more miserable hours in my life. Every scene was cheap and vulgar. They didn’t realize that the ‘30s were a very innocent age, and that it should have been set in the eighties — it was just froth; it makes you cry it’s so distasteful.” - Fred Astaire

“Pennies begins with Martin in a state of despair that only intensifies as the movie progresses. Martin achieves his dream of opening a record store only to watch it die an unmourned death. Peters becomes pregnant, gets an abortion, and sinks into prostitution at the behest of Christopher Walken’s tap-dancing pimp. And while there is no sweeter phrase in the English language than ‘Christopher Walken’s tap-dancing pimp,’ I actually prefer Verner Bagneris’ otherworldly solo to the title song to Walken’s rightfully revered strip-tease tap-dance to ‘Let’s Misbehave.’ ” - Nathan Rabin at The AV Club

Emotionally, hits higher highs than the miniseries version, but not as low lows. Bob Hoskins was definitely a better, slimier and more depraved Arthur, but Steve Martin is fine. More importantly, the sets, design, musical numbers and camera work are all glowing and gorgeous in this version. The story is depressing enough without stretching it over four hours… some character dev gets lost, but the essence is all still here. Ross (or DP Gordon Willis, of the “Godfather” series and all the good Woody Allen films) lets the scenes play out in front of the camera without excessive cutting, proving that everyone in the cast was equal to their dancing challenges.

Martin’s wife stalking him through the bedroom holding scissors while singing “It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie” is truly awesome, but as Nathan Rabin says, it’s the title song that kills me. Incredible movie, I loved it. Katy walked out.

Bernadette Peters as the corrupted schoolteacher turned prostitute

Jessica Harper as Arthur’s repressed and frightened wife

“Christopher Walken’s tap-dancing pimp”

The cops close in, fantasy version

The cops close in, actual version

Wow, can’t believe I almost skipped this. A great movie, worth it just for the songs and the underwater photography. “Come Together”, “Because”, “I Want You”, “Happiness is a Warm Gun” and especially “Strawberry Fields Forever” were visual treats. The choreography is good without being dancey, and the look of the film (for the first half, anyway) is realistic, no digital nonsense flying about.

Jim “Ewan McGregor” Sturgess is Jude, Joe “The Ruins” Anderson is his new buddy Max when he comes to America, and Evan “Rachel” Wood is Lucy, Max’s sister/Jude’s love interest. They room with a Joplinesque singer, a Hendrixish guitarist and the cutest lesbian ever and meet up later with James Urbaniak, Bono and Eddie Izzard.

Fewer big wide-shot dance scenes than uncomfortably close-up solo singing numbers. Pretty straightforward love story that uses the 60’s and the Beatles without aping their career path (the two lovers get together during the rooftop concert rather than breaking up there). Better paced than Taymor’s last two films, entertaining and interesting throughout. Quite an achievement, especially considering what a bad idea a Beatles musical sounds like.

Shot by the cinematographer of the last two Jeunet pictures and the next Harry Potter, and with the art/production people from “Far From Heaven”.

Katy loved it, and would’ve loved it even more if she knew the songs.