by ·Comments Off on Velvet Goldmine (1998, Todd Haynes)

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.

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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.

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by ·Comments Off on August Rush (2007, Kirsten Sheridan)

A cutesy, saccharine drama with lots of insulting business about fate thrown about, and Robin Williams as Fagin with a soul-patch.

Freddie Highmore (Charlie of the Chocolate Factory) wants to find his real parents, runs off to the big city chased by a well-meaning but barely-in-the-movie Terrence Howard (Glitter, Big Momma’s House) in search of his parents (Keri Russell of Waitress and Jonathan Rhys Meyers, who hadn’t been in any bad movies until this one), who only met once and don’t even know that they are parents. Along the way, Freddie is helped/hindered by Williams (of too many bad movies to list).

Hardly any romance in the movie, so not even Katy was happy… just a rooftop hookup then some happy glances at end of film (complete with a shout-out-to-god skyward glance by Freddie). Robin has violent mood changes, Keri smiles too much, Rhys Meyers has a rock music career (in a plot thread as underdeveloped as Terrence Howard’s character)… wait, in fact the whole movie was underdeveloped. How did it spend two hours telling this story without even telling any part of it properly? Even August’s relationship with black 13-yr-old talented guitarist friend Leon is underdeveloped, as is Keri Russell’s whole star-cellist thing.

Director Kirsten Sheridan is Jim’s daughter and is my age. Writer Nick Castle directed “Major Payne” and “The Last Starfighter”. Composer Mark Mancina usually does Disney cartoons and action flicks. The kids come out of this one pretty okay, and if anything, this is a step up for Robin Williams.

by ·Comments Off on Track of the Cat (1954, William Wellman)

Another bizarro Western from the same year as Red Garters and with some similarly fake-looking sets/backdrops, but this time it’s not done on purpose. To be fair, much of the film is shot in a national park and looks fine.

More of a family drama than any kind of Western. Mitchum plays an unlikeable guy who’s strong-arming his family for lack of anyone else to strong-arm. He lives with Ma and Pa, middle brother Arthur, young brother Harold, sister Grace and 100-year-old Indian servant Joe-Sam. Neighbor Gwen comes over and wants to marry Harold and get him out of his dysfunctional nowhere household. But then, Mitchum and Arthur go hunting and a wildcat kills Arthur. Mitchum goes out in search of it, but loses his food by accident, then goes hungry and mad, running off a cliff to his death after a few days.

A strange idea for a movie, but stranger still is the fact that a third of the movie seems to take place in the snowy wilderness with Mitchum (the titular tracking of the cat) and the rest is screamy family drama, with Grace trying to help Harold escape, Pa always drinking, Joe-Sam being generally creepy and Mitchum hating on everyone. What kind of a Western is this? I’d heard the movie was bizarre, but it doesn’t feel bizarre while watching it (camera, sets and acting style are all pretty regular) until you stop and think about what is happening.

Katy hated the movie because she played video games while listening to it, so she hears the yelling and bitterness but doesn’t watch the tense/serene snowy bits in between. I liked it, but couldn’t imagine putting it on my top-100 all-time faves list or anything like that.

This was the year before Mitchum stunned in Night of the Hunter (that and Out of the Past being far likelier candidates for personal top-100 status).

Sister Grace starred in Shadow of a Doubt, girlfriend Gwen was the younger sister in Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, and young brother Harold was one of Tab Hunter’s first roles. Tab later had his own TV show and appeared in Grease 2. Ma was a professional Ma-actress, playing Ma in Make Way For Tomorrow almost 20 years earlier, Ma Smith in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and Ma Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life. She’s also in Baron of Arizona. And damned if 100-year-old Indian Joe-Sam wasn’t played by Alfalfa from Our Gang.

by ·Comments Off on Red Garters (1954, George Marshall)

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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 Gena Rowlands’ debut film The High Cost of Loving in ’58, directed by Rosemary Clooney’s husband José Ferrer.

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

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

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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.

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by ·Comments Off on Annie Hall (1977, Woody Allen)

Steve says it doesn’t hold up anymore, and Katy was dismayed to find that Woody is a shrill & neurotic whiner and Diane Keaton isn’t much better… and on top of that, they don’t even stay together at the end of the movie! What is up with that? That’s not romantic. How then can it be #4 on the AFI’s list of all-time greatest comedies and the #125 top all-time film on the IMDB?

I’ve always loved this movie, but last time I saw “Play It Again Sam” (with the same three lead actors as this movie) I enjoyed it more than I enjoyed “Annie Hall” last night, so maybe that one’s due for another viewing. Or maybe I should stop rewatching comedies I used to like, so I can remember them as being funnier/better than they really are.

I mistook Shelley Duvall for Sissy Spacek, but they’re the same age so now I don’t feel as bad about that. Marshall McLuhan’s cameo was funny even before I knew who he was, and even now I only know who he is from reading some articles about “Videodrome”. Jeff Goldblum, who cameos at a party scene having forgotten his mantra, previously appeared in two Robert Altman films and “Death Wish”. Almost-co-star Tony Roberts is only recognizable from other Woody Allen movies. I didn’t recognize Paul Simon as a Hollywood hot-shot who flirts with Annie.

Wow, never noticed this before. Annie Hall was co-written by Marshall Brickman, who also co-wrote Manhattan, Sleeper, and Manhattan Murder Mystery, which are all my favorite Woody Allen movies. Coincidence? Can’t be. DP Gordon Willis shot eight Woody Allen movies including this one between Godfathers 2 and 3. He also shot the movie I am lately obsessed with, Pennies From Heaven.

by ·Comments Off on Grease (1978, Randal Kleiser)

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.

by ·Comments Off on My Beautiful Laundrette (1985, Stephen Frears)

I’ve already done enough damage with this one, so I’ll be brief.

Golly-gee Omar used to date his punker racist friend Johnny (Daniel-Day Lewis in his first good role?), sees him again in a dark scary tunnel and they get back together. Help run O’s uncle’s laundromat, paying for renovations by stealing from uncle’s actual business, drug-running. Omar’s father is spaced-out-and-dreamy sick old man Roshan Seth (Monsoon Wedding, Temple of Doom) and uncle is Saeed Jaffrey (man who would be king). Omar gets on power trip, has some “reverse” racist moments with Daniel-Day, and flirts with a female cousin.

Something seems off throughout – nobody is quite behaving normally, and the camera work is slightly absurd (clean, shining, colorful images), and there are soap bubble sound effects on the soundtrack. I didn’t know what to make of it all.

Writer Hanif Kureishi was also the source of Patrice Chéreau’s Intimacy.

by ·Comments Off on Darjeeling Limited (2007, Wes Anderson)

Jan. 2013:
Watched again on blu-ray, including the scenes I missed last time. Things I forgot: they are all addicted to painkillers and cough syrup, Owen acts like he’s in charge of the others and when they finally corner their real mom she speaks just like Owen. Not the most terribly interesting Wes Anderson movie but the colors and camerawork are just wonderful.

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Missed part of the movie for being ill, including the river rescue scene, which I like to imagine was shot like the shaky-cam action bits in Life Aquatic with a drum solo soundtrack.

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ME: Had no idea Bill Murray would be in it. Me, I love the wes-anderson visual style and the music was nice, and the actors are funny, so I had an alright time… will rent sometime to see what else happened. Certainly not a disappointing movie, now that I’ve come to accept life aquatic, heh. Wes probably thinks this is unlike anything he’s ever done before (a road film! in india! with adrien brody? outrageous!) and doesn’t notice that all his movies are about three people (rushmore: 1 person) with father issues. The money issues were notably gone from this one.

P: I felt like the characters were pretty empty.. maybe it IS because all
his movies are the same, and the guys with father issues are now
caricatures instead of characters, but i think its deeper than that.

ME: I asked Katy if there were any postcolonial/racism problems herein and she said ohhhh yes there were, and told me all about ’em, but I have to get to a meeting so I’ll tell you later.

P: really? i mean, outside the whole white people traveling thru india on
a “journey”, which i imagine is the most common sight of white people
there, and which you have to kind of accept and ignore to watch the
movie, i didnt see much else. theres the christian missionary mom
(jarringly cameod by yoda in an anjelica houston mask), but they did
seem to treat the funeral scenes with respect.
i guess the entire film is indian-fetishism, so i didnt really pick up
on the specifics of it..

ME: Lemme see, I forget now, but I remember her saying that even in the small town where the funeral happens (I missed the whole river scene, btw) more people would speak more words of english, and it’d more likely be the older fellas than the kids who speak it, so the whole “we can’t communicate with anyone” thing was an untruthful narrative convenience. Oh, and she went on about the sexualization of the foreign “exotic” women, esp. on the train. Those two and the “journey” spirituality thing might cover it… but the spirituality thing is true. Not true necessarily that India is such a spiritual place, but true that white people consider it so and go there to get in touch with their inner hippy selves.

by ·Comments Off on Fiddler on the Roof (1971, Norman Jewison)

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.