WHERE HAVE ALL THE STRONG WOMEN GONE (Apparently to TV, though not to the AFI)

Two interesting articles in the LA Times.

One is an excellent article by Mary McNamara as to the different ways women characters are portrayed in movies as opposed to television (deftly called the Shrew versus Shrewd). I know what she means. I often read romantic comedies for contests and a production company and instead of sympathizing with them, I often want to say, isn't it time for you to get a life rather than revolving your whole existence around the lack of a man in it. McNamara also does a good job of historical perspective by reminding people that knocking women off their pedestal is nothing new. This brought Katherine Hepburn back from being box office poison with The Philadelphia Story and was especially a common theme about women in film after WWII in which society wanted women to stop working and go back to being barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-women28-2009jul28,0,1374126.story

Patrick Goldstein in The Big Picture wrote an article about the AFI which seems to be spot on. I remember when the AFI annual award began and I always used to look forward to it. It was one of the most intelligent awards show on television recognizing some of the most remarkable people in show business. But it lost its lustre as the honorees got younger and seemed to be chosen for ratings sake. Goldstein has a great point: if the purpose of the AFI award is to honor those who have contributed to the art of cinema in significant ways, then why haven't any artists other than directors and actors been singled out: where are the awards that should go to writers, cinematographers and composers. And while we're on the subject, costume and set designers, editors, etc. The Oscars often aren't much better, but they have given special awards to editors and set designers (and in their defense, most of the people mentioned by Goldstein that are overlooked by AFI have already won an Oscar). However, he fails to mention that women are rarely rewarded by the AFI which has been heavily skewed toward men.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/the_big_picture/2009/07/afi-life-achievement-award-how-it-was-destroyed-by-tv-.html

LOOK AT ME: Why are the Europeans better at making films about writers

In continuing on my Netflix viewing, I came across a recent French film Look at Me about a writer/publisher and his relationship with his insecure overweight daughter whom he constantly demeans in a subtle yet ruthless manner. The excellent screenplay is by the writing team of Jean-Pierre Bacri and Agnes Jaoui who also wrote The Taste of Others. The two also starred in both films and Jaoui also directed both.

What struck me about the movie though is that it is about the writing world, a story about a writer and his daughter and his dealings with another writer and that writer's wife. It's intelligent and engrossing. And unlike any film in the U.S. on the subject of writers.

What I would like to know is why, when Europe makes movies about writers, we get this and movies like Reprise and Late August, Early April, among others, and in the U.S. we get The Shining and other movies about horror novelists with writer's block?

I once read, I believe in the New Yorker, though it was so long ago I can't be sure I'm right, that when a book in France wins one of their writing awards, it instantly becomes a best selle; one can't find the book stocked in bookstores; and everyone starts talking about it. I have never read the same about a book that wins the Pullitzer Prize or National Book Award. So is this why the Europeans can take writers in movies so much more seriously? Because they take writers so much more seriously in every day life?

I read and do coverage for a production company and contests (where many screenplays, especially the good ones, are not written with commerciality in mind or whether there is an audience for their subject matter) and in thinking about it, I can't really remember anybody even writing a screenplay about this subject much, if at all. Why is that? Could it be because screenwriters don't know very much about the writing world outside screenwriting? Are we that insular? How many screenwriters in the U.S. even have novelists and short story writers, much less poets, as friends? How many screenwriters have even had a novel published or even written one (unless it's to try and get their screenplay purchased)? Could it be that in the U.S., there is such a complete lack of interaction between these two worlds that it would never even occur to screenwriters to write about this subjec matter? After all, if one doesn't even know a novelist, how can one write about them?

Of course, I'm not any better. I've never written a screenplay about a novelist or the literary world. I don't really have any novelist friends. I am that insular, perhaps. And I don't live in Europe, so the reality could be totally different than what I'm describing here. But I do think America has developed an attitue toward novelists and poets in which we don't really consider them that important to society.



It's not that we don't read in the U.S. Book sales are up and though the economy has affected publishing like all other businesses, people can still be seen looking at novels in coffee shops and on busses (except that I'm writing this in L.A. and according to Joan Didion no one takes the bus here).

TOYS 'R US: Reviews of Night at the Museum: Battle for the Smithsonian and Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

A Night at the Museum: Battle for the Smithsonian is more fun than a barrel of monkeys (not an easy feat since there are only two in the movie). It’s a sequel and one of those sequels that is better than the original. This is mainly due to a brilliant performance by Hank Azaria as an even more fey Boris Karloff (if that’s possible) with a lisp so pronounced it’s like he has a tea kettle in his mouth. There is also crack comic timing from Ben Stiller (especially demonstrated in scenes with Jonah Hill and Ricky Gervais) and a performance from Amy Adams as Amelia Earhart that screams star turn. Much of the success has to be attributed to the silly, but would you have it any other way, script by Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon (you know, the gay guy from I Love You, Man; Garant also acts, the two play, appropriately enough, Orville and Wilbur Wright—if they can write a silly script, they can play people who designed a silly looking airplane). The downside of the film is that the two characters played by Owen Wilson and Steve Coogan have nothing to do and proceed not to do it (there are times when they even seem to be reciting their lines like they’re embarrassed to be in a movie that only seems to be including them because they had such an indelible presence in the first one, but this is L.A. after all where the only thing more unforgivable than failure is success).

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is entertaining enough, though the most entertaining aspects of it are the characters showing they have more problems controlling their hormones than controlling their wands (I would say pun intended, but this is a family movie and the hormones never go below the neck). The three heroes who do little but fight off the evil Voldomor must now fight off puberty; they find both a losing battle. The Harry Potter franchise has never been that exciting to me, so my views are probably irrelevant. But I always felt the plots were sort of clunky, almost as if the author J.K. Rowling was kind of winging it, making it all up as she went along and hoping nobody would notice (and based on ticket receipts, most people haven’t, so what does that say about me). It doesn’t have the controlled and well thought out mythology of The Lord of the Rings, say. There is a wonderful performance (almost a redundant statement) by Jim Broadbent as a quirky professor straight out of Goodbye, Mr. Chips and Tom Brown’s School Days. He first appears as an overstuffed armchair and even when he becomes human again, he still seems like an overstuffed armchair. His appearance is accompanied by a wonderful sequence in which a destroyed house gets put back together again, with one little bobble from a chandelier trying desperately to get out from under Harry Potter’s iconic tennis shoe to rejoin his mates. And two fun scenes: one in a shop where Ron Weasley’s twin brothers have become wizard capitalists (in both senses of the word) and still won’t show their brother any respect (I guess, it’s not always who you know after all) and a kind of soccer game played on broomsticks (though they become unfortunately phallic at the worse times—but this is puberty after all, so it may be appropriate). The music by Nicholas Hooper is exciting and moving, especially over the end credits.

IS ANYONE AS FREAKED AS I AM ABOUT THE NEW PALM PRE COMMERCIALS WITH THAT PORCELIAN SKINNED RED HEADED ACTRESS MOUTHING ALL THESE INANITIES?

I mean does she really creep me out, or what?

That's all. I just had to get it off my chest.

Exiles, Nightwatch, Party Down, Torchwood

Still doing the netflix things and avoiding the high prices at the movie theaters, though I did take in Harry Potter, which hopefully I'll have a full review of soon. And Departures is going to open at the Fairfax, thank god. I've been wanting to see that for ages.

I watched Exiles, written and directed by Tony Gatlif and starring the hot young French star Romain (full frontal) Duris known for such movies as The Beat That My Heart Skipped and L'auberge espagnole. He plays one half of a couple on the road to Algiers because Romain's grandfather used to live there but had to leave for political reasons (Hope and Crosby it ain't). The two make their way there on foot, possibly for political reasons, you know, to show that they are one with the lower classes (if you've seen Sullivan's Travels, you get the gist). Whether one likes the film will probably depend on whether one finds the young lovers cute, adorable and full of life. I found them somewhat annoying as well as disingenuous; no matter how sincere they acted, they just seemed like tourists who were playacting at mingling with the working class (see the aforementioned Sullivan's Travels, though in the Preston Sturgess comedy, that was the whole point). As a result, the most interesting part of the movie was not the two hot young French leads who's only real worry is their next film role, but everything around them. I'm being cruel. Everybody's heart is in the right place, it just didn't connect for me like The Motorcycle Diaries did.

I then saw Nightwatch, which was written and directed by Danish writer/director Ole Bornedal, apparently based on his earlier movie of the same name (though in Danish). It manages to get some scares going by the end and one wants to know how the whole thing turns out, but it really doesn't work. The main problem, at least for me, is that Ewan McGregor's character was simply not interesting (and Patricia Arquette didn't fair much better). Which was too bad because they were surrounded by characters that were, played by Josh Brolin, Nick Nolte and Brad Dourif. I talked to someone who met Brad Dourif . Dourif said that it originally was a good script, but that it didn't end up that way (I think the word "abortion" was used, but the original source is so distant, that might not be anywhere near the truth). Steven Soderbergh worked on the script, and it might be interesting to see if that's what went wrong or if that's why what worked in it worked. However, I am now interested in seeing the original. It looks like Bornedal went back to Denmark to make movies, so maybe it was a good thing the movie turned out so badly.

I am also engrossed in two TV series. The first is Party Down on Starz, about a group of Hollywood wannabees working as caterers. The central character Adam Scott is a once promising actor who is only now known for a line he made famous in a beer commercial, but whose career didn't even crash and burned, it just ran out of gas, and now he no longer wants to act. It also has Jane Lynch in it which is reason enough to see it. It's very funny and addicting even if the characters are so incompetent as caterers it's hard to believe they can get hired (even Maxwell Smart and Inspector Clouseau maintained their status quo because, as incompetent as they were, they always got the bad guy).

The other series is the five part Torchwood, Children of Earth, starring everyone's favorite universal traveler who will sleep with any species and any sex (take that Captain Kirk). To say I'm hooked is an understatement. The characters are so exciting and vivid and the story so suspenseful, I can't wait until tonight to see Part III.

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME: GRAPHIC NOVELS: THE NEW PULP FICTION SOURCE FOR MOVIES?

There was an interesting article in the L.A. Times on Monday, July 20th about the author Donald E. Westlake, who wrote detective novels and pulp fiction. He is also noted for being the screenwriter of or his books being the basis of such movies as Point Blank, The Hot Rock, The Stepfather, The Grifters and Payback. The article was about a series of graphic novels being adapted from his novels with a hero by the name of Parker, Westlake's signature character. When it come to Hollywood, though, Westlake would let a novel with Parker be adapted to the screen, but only if they changed the name (Point Blank and Payback). I guess he didn't trust Hollywood--go figure.

But now he has allowed an illustrator Darwyn Cooke and a book editor Scott Dumbier to adapt his books into graphic novels, and allowing them to use Parker's name instead of changing it.

What interested me here is that I have a friend who noticed that in the 1930's and up to and especially in the 1950's, Hollywood (as well as France) would often base movies on pulp fiction stories and novels (Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain to name but a bare few). In fact, this was a prime source of movie stories and it eventually gave rise to what is now called Film Noir (it still is, especially in France). My friend believes that graphic novels are replacing these pulp writers as a source for movies and that they will have the same impact as the pulp fiction did. And it's not just superhero graphic novels like Batman and Spiderman. Movies such as A History of Violence, Persopolis and Road to Perdition are all adapted from Graphic Novels.

So for those who look down on graphic novels, remember, people like you looked down on pulp fiction 1950's and see what it gained you.

ORIGINAL CASTING FOR FRENCH CONNECTION

I love to hear about who was originally cast or wanted for different movies. I was watching an interview with William Friedkin who was talking about the French Connection. He first wanted Jimmy Breslin as Popeye Doyle because of the resemblance. When that didn't work out, he went with Peter Boyle, who had just completed Joe, but Boyle wanted to now play romantic leads (that may have been a little facetious on Friedkin's part, but the point is clear). Then Paul Newman, who would cost too much. The producer then told Friedkin just to cast someone good who would meet the budget. Friedkan said he didn't think of Gene Hackman, that he was suggested by his agent. Friedkin said that the producer of Everybody Loves Raymond told him that every day Boyle would say what an awful mistake he had made in turning down The French Connection.

WHATEVER WORKS AND WHATEVER DOESN'T: Reviews of Whatever Works and Surveillance

Whatever Works is the latest film (though it was written something like forty years ago) from the near legendary writer/director Woody Allen; i.e., screenwriters, never throw out your old scripts, you never know when they might come in handy. I went with a friend who pretty much summarized my feeling for the movie when she said, “I didn’t like it, but I didn’t hate it”. There’s probably no way I can improve on that. Though the movie doesn’t really work, by the time it’s all over, one actually is moved by the all these different people finding love and relationships that actually work for them. The central problem I had is Larry David who at first would seem the perfect person to cast as a misanthrope. But he tends to say all his lines on the same yelling, boisterous level that he becomes tiring and actually misses most of the comedy (it was originally written for Zero Mostel and you can almost hear these lines drip off his tart tongue). The rest of the cast are perfectly fine, but the story never really comes alive until Ed Begley, Jr. shows up and gives the bravura performance. Here Allen does something I never thought I’d see him do: give a sympathetic portrait of a gay man (though he’s still a bit too squeamish to actually have them kiss).

Surveillance was written by Keith Harper and co-written by director Jennifer Chambers Lynch (who is David Lynch’s daughter—there, I said it, now we don’t have to refer to it again, because it really should be irrelevant). It’s about two FBI agents called to a small town that is the victim of a serial killer. It’s a first script by Harper, who also plays a policeman in the movie. The movie has one incredible sequence when two sadistic cops, who tend to stop miscellaneous out of town drivers and psychologically fuck with them, target two cars, one with a family and one with two hopped up druggies, and then everyone is attacked by two serial killers. This sequence shows what the movie could have been, but wasn’t. Bill Pullman, one of the agents, has his partner Julia Ormond set up three rooms with three video cameras so three witnesses can be interrogated at once. One would think that such a set up would cut the time in telling the story by a third—one would be wrong. Everything slows to a crawl and it takes forever to get the full plot. The big twist, though it makes enough acceptable sense, is silly. The climax isn’t helped by a poor performance by Bill Pullman and an evil lesbian straight out of the 1970’s (note to Harper and Lynch, even Woody Allen isn’t this stuck in the past and his script is 40 years old).

WHAT JUST HAPPENED?

I just picked up and started reading the book What Just Happened?, the memoirs of Art Linson, the producer of such movies as Fight Club, Heat and Into the Wild.

I haven't gotten very far, but I did find one thing interesting. He left one place and went to another to start producing films. His first step was to come up with product. What I thought was odd was that instead of finding a screenplay he liked, he called David Mamet and asked him to come up with an idea, to write a screenplay from scratch (which eventually became The Edge). What immediately came to mind is no wonder Hollywood is in such a pickle. They waist time creating product rather than finding it. Why spend all that money on developing something from scratch, when one can find plenty of quality screenplays already written.

ADULT DRAMAS WHERE ART THOU

I'm continuing on with my Netflix/On Demand movie watching (still trying to conserve money) and last night I watched Olivier Assayas's Late August, Early September and Blindness. I had seen Late August... before, but though I remember liking it, I couldn't quite remember it. But seeing it again, all the pleasure came rushing back. This is a type of film I usually only see coming out of Europe, mainly France. It's not about anything but people relating to one another, strong character driven stories, non-genre, what's often called adult dramas in the U.S.

What I find frustrating in watching films like this, is that I don't usually see the same sort of films being made in the U.S. or if I do, they just don't seem to be anywhere near as good or insightful (of course, there are exceptions and the French also make their fair share of bad movies, so I am talking in generalities and personal feelings that could be seen as prejudiced). Woody Allen is probably our foremost practitioner here, God bless him.

All Late August... is about is a man who is struggling with three relationships, actually four if you can't the character himself. He's someone involved in the writing biz, but doesn't really write himself, but does odd jobs connected to writing (like encyclopedia articles on living writers or ghost writing a politician's biography). The three relationships he caroms among is his ex-wife who still loves him, his new lover who he doesn't love enough, and a writer who has never written a successful book and is considered a difficult read who can't connect with the audience. The writer is especially someone who causes the hero consternation because the hero feels that that is the life he should have lead, but didn't. But in the end, that's all the story is about.

Why don't we make such stories in the U.S.? Or if we do, why aren't they as good or ambitious as the French?

Some theories, which will have to remain theories because I don't know for sure, and these are just coming off the top of my head, improvisationally without a lot of forethought:

There must be an audience for them in France.

Perhaps the way French movies are financed, maybe not all of them have to deliver a considerable profit. There may be a part of the French film industry in which huge profits are not the primary motivator.

This may also mean they don't have to be pitched the same way here. After all, the way movies are made and sold here, it seems to be easier to get a movie based on the pitch line "a man is bitten by a radioactive spider and turns into a superhero" over a pitch line of "a man struggles with his relationships with an ex-wife, a new girlfriend and a failed writer the man is jealous of".

French morality may allow for a more open expression of sex and relationships and allows the writers/directors to take more chances (I'm sometimes amazed in writing groups and in talking with people who do coverage how prudish Americans still are).

There could be plenty of other reasons, but when I want adult drama, I rarely look for it in the U.S.


I also saw Blindness, which didn't get very good reviews and it's one of those movies where one can tell exactly where it stops working and that is when Danny Glover has to explain a lot of the plot via exposition. The characters, which were not that interesting in the first place (with the exception of a thief played by Don McKellar--who also wrote, go figure), never quite recover after this.

The project is the odd combination of the Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles (who did the wonderful City of Men and The Constant Gardener) and the Canadian Don McKellar, who I remember from the incredible Last Night (which he also wrote and directed) and the incredible series Slings and Arrows.

The idea is brilliant. People, one by one, start going blind. But as interesting as I found the first part, I never bought it. I had no problem with the idea of the government panicking enough to round up people and put them in quarantine--what I couldn't buy is the way the quarantine prison was run--it made regular prisons seem like gardens of Eden. But this is not what happened during the flu epidemic of 1917, during the AIDS epidemic, during Legionnaire's Disease. People may have been quarantined, but except in a few cases, they were not treated like animals. None of this made a lot of sense or was believable, which meant that a lot that happened afterwards was quite believable.

However, the idea was so strong, it does sort of carry one through to the end.

MOB STORIES: The Undercover Man and The Mexican

I really, really want to go to Outfest, but I just can't seem to justify the $13.00 ticket prices at this time. I did go see Night at the Museum: Battle for the Smithsonian (review to appear at some time in the vague future), but that only cost me $6.50 for the first show.

Instead of spending money at the movies, I decided to spend more time on my Netflix selection and my on demand and cable TV. Last night on TCM, the creme de la creme of movie channels, I saw The Undercover Man (oddly named because no one was undercover) a fictionalized account of the taking down of Al Capone for income tax evasion (here called Big Fellow for legal reasons). The heroes are CPAs and the writers (Jack Rubin, Sydney Boehm, and Malvin Wald) and directors do their darnedest to try to make it exciting, but bless their hearts, what are they gonna do? After all, the characters are just CPA's. All the action scenes seemed a little forced because of this and never quite believable. The lead is played by Glenn Ford, perhaps the perfect casting for an accountant.



It was produced by Robert Rossen who didn't have time to direct because he was directing some trifle called All The King's Men. Malvin Wald also worked on The Naked City.

There are a few things to note here:

It was James Whitmore's film debut.

Big Fellow is never seen (a great idea).

The most interesting performance is given by Barry Kelly as the mob lawyer.

And the ending has a judge exchanging a corrupt jury pool with another judge down the hall--which either means that this really happened or that in Brian de Palma's The Untouchables, the writers probably saw this movie.



I also saw The Mexican, the chick flick relationship movie meets the tongue in cheek action film. My memory is that this got mixed reviews, which is why I never saw it. I think it's a pretty fun film with some great acting by Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt and James Gandolfini (all very droll and funny) with a very, very witty, clever script by J.H. Wyman who is working on the Warriors remake. Maybe it was just a tad too quirky for the critics and audience of the time, or maybe it did better than I remember.

HEROES WITH FEELINGS OF ENTITLEMENT: Musings on Hung and Weeds

I have now watched two episodes of Hung and I can say that at least so far, this is an entertaining and intelligently written series (kudos to writers Colette Burson and Dmitry Lipkin) with an interesting central character.

But there is also something about it that is bothering the hell out of me. Hung is about a former high school jock who was one of the most popular kids in class. He had everything going for him: handsome, great at sports, dating the popular girl, well to do parents--you know, the world was his oyster and he had everything to look forward to.

But years later, he's a coach at a high school with no more of a future than that. His wife has left him to marry the geek that the hero would have bullied and made fun of when they were teens, a geek who is now very successful and has discovered the pearl in the oyster that the hero missed.

All that is fine, but what is bothering me is that the authors see this as a tragedy, that there is something so unfair about this situation, that this is proof that the universe is nothing more than a cruel joke. In other words, the authors sort of agree with the hero's underlying assumption--that there is something wrong with a world that would let him sink down to mediocrity and let the geek in high school rise to leader of the pack. The hero feels, and this in many ways is echoed by the authors, that because he was a jock, because he was good looking, because he was popular in high school, that he was entitled to be the success, while the geek was not.

And now because of this monumental injustice, the hero has to sell his body (which is a kind of every straight man's ultimate fantasy) just to pay for the house that his parents left him and that he doesn't want to leave for sentimental reasons.

This house thing also kind of bugged me. The fact that he wants to live there is seen by the authors as a tribute to his character, as something that the audience should like in him, that this should make him sympathetic. Yet, I don't know anyone who lives in the house they grew up in. I don't even know anyone who can say there is a house they grew up in since most people I know moved at least once if not twice during their life times. Everyone I know has two or three houses they grew up in and most couldn't wait to leave the last one they lived in. This is actually more a 1950's, Leave it to Beaver, type attitude than a 21st century one. I actually think he's an idiot for not selling the house, but I digress.

Another aspect of the show that also relates to this sense of entitlement is the hero's attitude toward his being a male escort. He harumphs and complains about it; he wants to do it, but doesn't want to. What it comes down to it is that he's willing to do it, but he doesn't really want to put any energy or hard work into it. Again, he feels that because he has a big dick, that that alone should be enough and he is entitled to make a living as a prostitute without any real effort on his part, that again the universe is playing a cruel joke on him by not making it easy.

This attitude on the part of the authors reminded me of the show Weeds in which a widow tries to make ends meet by selling pot. Again, there is something of a sense of entitlement on the part of the heroine (played wonderfully by Mary-Louise Parker). What's telling about her situation is that Parker isn't selling weed to keep her family together and to makes ends meet, not really. As she said on one episode, she's selling weed in order to keep up her life style, so she can keep on living in her upper middle class house in her upper middle class community with her upper middle class friends (can you imagine if someone from the projects used this as a defense in selling Weed). Again, because she is white upper middle class, she has this sense of entitlement that makes it okay for her to do what she does.

This sense of entitlement is one of the problems I sometimes had with the show in the way Parker's character would react to her situation. When things got bad or she got trapped, she kept having this reaction of "why is this happening to me, what did I do to deserve this" and my reaction would be "uh, do you think it might have something to do with your being a drug dealer; just suggesting". One of the refreshing things about Season Three was when Parker's character fully accepted her responsibility for her life when she finally admitted that she was a drug dealer and because of that this was the sort of life she was always going to have. It was a long time coming, but it was a relief to hear it.

In many ways both series are very clever. They are about people with feelings of entitlement, but this gets buried in the concepts: Weeds is about someone selling pot and Hung is about male prostitution. It's easy to overlook the sense of entitlement because of these concepts. It's a neat bait and switch and my hats are off to the authors.

At the same time, and this cannot be minimized in any way, I love Weeds. I think it could be one of the best half hour comedy shows in TV history. I don't watch it weekly, I've gotten to the point where I often wait 'til a series comes out on DVD and order it through Netflix, but I love it and can hardly wait to start season four.

I can't say the same for Hung, but that's only because I've only seen two episodes. However, I like it enough so far to keep on watching.

NETFLIX AND ON DEMAND RULES

So last night instead of going out to the movies, I decided to stay in and watch one of my Netflix as well as watch a movie on Demand if for no other reason than to justify my Netflix membership as well as paying for too many premium channels.

On Netlfix I watched the Day the Earth Caught Fire, a really, really neat low budget sci-fi thriller directed by low budget film director Val Guest who also did movies like 20 Million Miles to Earth. When the U.S. detonates two nuclear bombs at the same time at the North Pole the earth gets shifted on its axis and strange things start happening weatherwise. Then it's discovered that this actually moved the earth closer to the sun and the world will soon burn up and people will die out.

It's amazing what can be done on a low budget. The special effects and stock footage were cheesy, sure, but the script was so well written, as well as extremely witty (kudos to Wolf--A Kid for Two Farthings--Mankowitz and Val Guest, the two also worked on Espresso Bongo and Casino Royale together). The acting was top notch, especially Leo McKern as the acidic science writer. But its odd that the lead Edward Judd, who had a Richard Burton quality to him, never had a bigger movie career. The female lead Janet Munroe did, but she died tragically at a young age.

I read something interesting that when Val Guest was writing and working with Woody Allen on Casino Royale (his part of the directing was the Allen scenes), the producer kept editing the script always taking out the punch lines so that Allen's scenes would build, but have no payoff. Allen was frustrated by this, but Guest just said, don't worry about it, we'll shoot it with the punchlines anyway.

After that I switched over to On Demand and saw Evolution, a fun, clever sci-fi film that I don't remember ever getting a release in the theaters. I was surprised considering the cast of David Dachovny, Julianne Moore and Seann (two n's--whatever) William Scott (two t's makes more sense) with cameos by Sarah Silverman and Dan Ackroyd. It's one of these life forms brought to earth by a meteor, but it's extremely well told by Dan Jakoby who also worked on Arachnophobia, Lifeforce and the remake of Invaders from Mars, as well as David Weissman. Ivan Reitman directed. The solution to killing the life forms was an element found in the shampoo Head and Shoulders, which has to be one of the cleverest product placements ever.

Julianne Moore's character was the weak point here. She did little more than keep tripping over her own feet, but there's a great scene where the three leads go hunting for a flying dinosaur in a mall.

ITALIAN GRINDHOUSE GRINDS CARROLL BAKER

So last night I took the lazy way out and didn't go to LACMA and see Ivan the Terrible, Part I, but instead when to the American Cinematheque to see two Gaillo films, or Italian Grindhouse as they are now called for marketing purposes. They were two Carroll Baker films, the first Paranoia and the second A Quiet Place to Kill. Carroll Baker gave it her all, God bless her, but neither were that good. However, one doesn't go see Gaillo films because they're good. One goes because they are bad, very bad, often very, very bad.

The first one, Paranoia, about a wealthy widow seduced by a gigolo and his "sister" who then take over her life and imprison her has an interesting subtext--it's an attack on Communism as these two sociopaths are not after Baker's money, but just want to destroy another member of the upper class. At the end, it then attacks Communists by revealing that these two are hypocrites and did for money anyway.

Some observations on Gaillo films:

I still swear that they are not written based on an idea first, but that someone finds a location that would look great on film and then they create a story around it. I doubt that's true, it just seems that way and no matter what else one might say about these films, they have the most incredible set and art design.

The women are often naked and show their breasts, but the men always manage to just conveniently have their privates covered.

There's also something culturally interesting about these films. They were made in the 1960's and '70's when what was allowed to be shown on screen, what sort of themes were allowed to be explored, were changing and there's something ingratiating about the directors and writers attempts at broaching new ground sexually. Of course, in the end, Gaillo films were only interested in exploiting these ideas, not really exploring them, but they really do feel like they're a record of their period.

The dubbing is still annoying, though less so for Carroll Baker who did her own.

JUST PASSING TIME

Nothing new to report, so I'm just writing something, anything here because I'm getting antsy, I guess to write something, anything because that is the purpose of a blog though I often feel like I'm that tree that falls in the woods when no ones around and in many ways I guess it's all existenial anyway, one writes in a blog because that's what a blog is for and I wonder how long I can keep a run on sentence going anyway before I annoy anyone who reads this.

I am behind in my reviews and need to write ones for Whatever Works, Surveillance, Seraphine and The Girl From Monaco which hopefully will appear soon. It's surprising I haven't done them already because I'm one of the most opinionated people I know, but I'm also someone who loses steam very easily, so there you have it.

I am debating going to see the Italian Grindhouse films at the Americancinemateque tonight (two lurid suspense films that since they are Italian Grindhouse are probably pretty bad by definition) or going to LACMA to see Ivan the Terrible, Part I. Now, I know I'm suppose to go to LACMA, but if I'm too lazy by the time tonight comes, I make take easy way out and stay in the hood.

I have been doing what I call catch up--seeing films on cable and Netflix. HariKari was a cinematic experience and it has to be one of the greatest Japanese films ever. Memories of Murder (by the director of the Host) was a fascinating, at times darkly comic, dramatization of South Korea's first serial killer investigation. Secretary didn't quite work for me; the author never convinced me that this sado-masochistic relationship was a healthy one.

I'm not getting my own writing done as fast as I'd like. It's a little of a grind because of the coverage work I'm doing in order to make a living, but I am slowly making progress.

Sorry to be boring. Hopefully I'll have something more intesesting to say in the future.

BOYS WILL BE BOYS: Reviews of The Hangover, The Brothers Bloom and The Art of Being Straight

The Hangover is one of those high concept movies that studios love. Coincidentally, it also happens to be an interesting concept, a rare juxtaposition in Hollywood. It’s about four assholes who to Las Vegas on a bachelor party (actually, three, because the groom to be is actually a nice guy), and the next thing they know they wake up in a hotel room with a baby, a tiger, a missing tooth, a wedding ring…and the groom missing. What’s not to like? There are problems with the script. The first pleasure one hopes to derive from this farce is to see these idiots get their comeuppance, and they do for awhile (there’s one hysterical scene where they get tasered by the police). But in the end, they get away with everything they do with no serious repercussions, which is a bit of a disappointment; the authors, Jon Lucas and Scott Moore (among two others who are claiming they are not being given full credit), want to have it both ways—they want their characters to have arcs and be changed men while at the same time not having any arcs and not changing one iota. A bad idea aesthetically, but it probably contributed to the movie making as much money as it did. Many critics have complained that the story loses steam in the second half, and they’re right. At some point, it really stops building when it should be piling more and more on. A movie with a similar idea, Dude, Where’s My Car, doesn’t work as well overall, but it’s more imaginative and plotwise closer to what this movie should have been. This one’s still a lot of fun and it will be a long time before one forgets the nude Mr. Ken Jeong leaping out of the character’s car.

The Brothers Bloom is one of those con men films like The Sting, The Flim Flam Man, The Grifters, you get the drift. This one is very, very serious though, in spite of all the comedy. It’s about one brother who wants out of the game and one who thinks that keeping his brother in brings meaning to the brother’s life. The whole thing’s a mess and the plot never really makes a lot of sense by the time it’s over. Sorry to be so negative, but I really had a hard time following the damn thing, though I’m willing to admit it’s a “me and not you” thing. It’s directed in an “I’m the director and you’re not” style by Rian Johnson that probably obscures the real pleasure the script (also by Johnson) might have given one. Only Rachel Weisz as a classic 1930’s screwball heroine hits the mark here. She’s fun in a Katherine Hepburn/Carole Lombard sort of way.

The Art of Being Straight is one of those movies that thinks it’s being daring and it might actually be if the same sort of themes hadn’t already been explored for years in earlier films. The ads and reviews suggest it’s about a man who’s bisexual, though the way it’s written (by Jesse Rosen), it’s actually about a man who’s gay and hasn’t come out of the closet. There was potential here for a movie about a man who has sex with another man, but doesn’t understand why. Unfortunately, the screenplay doesn’t deal much with that (though it may think it does). There’s a second plot about a lesbian who considers an affair with a man which makes a lot more dramatic sense and is much better written. The mumble core approach to the directing and technical values don’t help. It only makes it seem like the author and director hadn’t figured out what they were trying to do yet. Again, I’m sorry to be so negative, but I do get a bit frustrated when someone thinks their dealing with a new subject in a daring way, when it’s really a bit old hat. It’s one of my pet peeves and I don’t do a good job of not wearing it on my sleeve (to mix a metaphor). But when it comes to bisexuality, give me Love Songs, Y Tu Mama Tambien, When Night is Falling, Sunday, Bloody Sunday, Chuck and Buck, Chasing Amy and the films of Gus Van Zandt to name but a meager few. In the end, unlike Star Trek, the author here is going where many men have gone before.

JEAN-JACQUES BEINEIX DIVA'S INTO TOWN

I've been catching up on my Beineix (I'm ashamed to say I've only seen Diva) in a slate of films that are making the rounds in Los Angeles. I saw The Moon in the Gutter, the movie he made after the success of Diva where he thought he could do anything and found out he couldn't. It stars a young and thin Gerard Depardieu who was probably right when he called it "movie in the gutter". The director's cut of Betty Blue (an extra hour in length) was a much more interesting film. It doesn't always work, but it's ultimately very moving.

But the main point of my blog here has to do with an interview in the LA Weekly in which Beineix came to the U.S. after Diva to see about making a film and was shown a script about Amelia Earhart. He was interested in the project, but didn't think the script was quite right, so he wanted to have a go at it. The studio said fine, but wouldn't pay for it. He thought they were trying to pull a fast one, and left town. I hate to say it, but I'm on the studio's side. If Beineix disliked the script to the extent that he didn't want to work with the original screenwriter, he should never have expressed interest in the project. To me, it was Beineix who sounded like he was trying to pull a fast one on the studio by getting them to pay for a screenplay when they already had one they had paid for that they were more or less satisfied with.

THE AUTEUR THEORY IS ALIVE AND WELL (OR WAS) ON IMDB

The other day, IMDB changed their format and only listed the director and actors in a movie at the top and moved the screenwriter down below, suggesting again how much the auteur theory for better or worse (more often worse in my opinion) has taken over the movie industry. I didn't really notice it at first, I didn't go on IMDB long enough to register. Then suddenly it was back to the way it was (so quickly, I didn't even register the change back). Nikki Finke has more to say on the subject.

http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/those-imdb-idiots-now-are-anti-writer/

FADE IN Fades OUT, HARVE PRESNEL R.I.P., A DIVA RETURNS, WOODY ALLEN REDUX, REDUX

A fascinating and wonderfully catty article that calls into question the validity or honesty of the Fade In screenwriting competition was in the blog The Wrap. Fade In demands a retraction while many of their contest winners just want their prizes.

http://www.thewrap.com/article/1812?page=4

Harve Preznel is now the latest celebrity to pass on. I remember him from singing They Call the Wind Maria from Paint Your Wagon which made one wonder why, if they had this singer available, they actually wanted to use those wonderful warblers Lee Marvin, Clint Eastwood (hey, I try never to miss a Clint Eastwood musical) and Jean Seberg. Where is Simon Callow when one needs him. He was also making a nice comeback ever since Fargo. It would be great to know what made the Coen brothers do that Quentin Tarrentino/David Lynch routine and cast someone from the past like that.

Tuesday night I did some movie catch up and saw The Seven Ups. Directed by Philip D'Antoni who also produced this as well as Bullitt and The French Connection, suggesting an interesting trilogy for American Cinemateque some time. It had a good idea, but the story never made sense and it reminded me of an Italian Gaillo film in which everything sounds dubbed and often has stories that never make sense. But it was still kind of entertaining in the "I wouldn't have liked it when it first came out, but now in a look back at the 1970's sort of way, it's kind of fun".

Tonight starts a retrospective of French director Jean Jacques Beineix at the American Cinematheque. I've only seen his film Diva for some reason, but can't wait to see others. I remember the excitement in the movie world when Diva premiered. It was so exhilarating. Nuart is also showing the director's cut of Betty Blue. Tonight is the Moon in the Gutter.

I have a friend who hates directors cuts because he thinks they're a rip off way of trying to make more money off a film. I find them interesting, so interesting I may even go see the director's cut of 1776 on Saturday.

http://www.americancinematheque.com/archive1999/2009/Egyptian/Jean-Jacques_Bieneix_ET2009.htm

I'm still thinking about the Woody Allen interview I saw on TCM. One thing that came to mind was some statements on the Purple Rose of Cairo. Allen's films usually made money, but never a lot of money, though just enough to make it possible for him to make his next one. People viewing said they loved Purpose Rose..., but that if he gave it a happy ending, it would be a huge hit. But Allen said that the only reason he wrote Purple Rose... was because it was a tragedy and he wouldn't have even made the movie if it had a happy ending.

This made me think of the movie Garden State, which was so enjoyable until the end when the resolution, the actor character decided not to return to L.A., was so ridiculous it spoiled everything that came before it for me. At the same time, I had to admit: It's very doubtful the movie would have been nearly as successful without the happy ending.

R.I.P. Karl Malden

It's getting to be real depressing reading the obituaries these days. Ed Macmahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Gale Storm and now Karl Malden. The even sadder thing is that I feel like Edina Monsoon in Absolutely Fabulous when her father died; it's not about them, it's about me and how I feel. It's just too many people happening too fast and making me think about my own mortality just a bit more often than I would like.

Karl Malden
http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-karl-malden2-2009jul02,0,5658128.story

I guess this time, he's going to leave home without it.

He gave some wonderful performances in A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront and Patton.

Sony sides with screenwriter over director

Patrick Goldstein had a fascinating column today in the L.A. Times about Sony pulling the plug on the Steven Soderbergh film with Brad Pitt apparently because Sony liked the original script by Steve Zaillian (Oscar winner for Schindler's List) better. It's rare that one reads a story in which the studio sides with the author over the director who often seems to think they're a better writer than the original author. Goldstein goes into some detail about the differences in the two scripts. All screenwriters should take a look at this.

MURMUR OF THE HEART: A Review of Tear This Heart Out

Tear This Heart Out is a movie promoted as the Gone With the Wind of Mexico, a sweeping epic set against difficult times. It was also Mexico’s entry in the Oscar race last year. The central character is a naïve teenager who falls in love with a General who fought in the revolution. It starts out promising, but as if written by Anton Chekhov, the marriage is a disaster. The wife finds out her husband has more mistresses and illegitimate children than King David and that he is evil and power hungry. It starts out promising, but the story never catches fire because the central character, unlike Evita and Scarlett O’Hara or even Georgiana, the heroine of the recent The Duchess, is simply not very interesting and the story as a whole is not that sweeping. In a world of revolution and government corruption, rampant poverty and exploitation of the working class, the heroine’s main problem is trying to find someone who can locate her g-spot. There are strong performances by Andres Ascencio and Jose Maria de Tavira. But the script by Roberto Sneider doesn’t really work.