High-Rise

My review of "High-Rise", Ben Wheatley's disturbing adaptation of the Ballard novel, can be found here. 

Modern Problems

My review of "High-Rise" is here.

"If elected I will not serve" -We should be so lucky

Originally produced as a special episode of "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour", this 1968 fake-documentary (music by Nelson Riddle!) is still a nice bit of political satire.


Pat Paulsen For President from The Hammer Works on Vimeo.

The declining stream

The New York Times offers a conversation between A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis on streaming video and its threat to film exhibition, triggered by the recent announcement by Sean Parker (you know him as the Justin Timberlake character in "The Social Network".   Also of interest (linked within the Times piece) are David Bordwell's observations on how the new emphasis on streaming video helps  the film industry maintain its control on what people can see. For over thirty years, the home-video and cable tv industries have been feeding audiences a myth that theyve places the entire history of film within your reach when in reality they've always tried to gain more and more control. Today we're seeing fewer and narrower theatrical releases, while services like Netflix and Amazon are using bait and switch tactics to push consumers toward their own exclusive productions (Consume! Conform!), while allowing their current libraries to shrink,   Will streaming services follow the lead of cable networks and gradually reduce their offerings in order to cut costs and maximize profits? (Remember when American Movies Classics actually showed Classic American Movies?),  Read this report from Allflicks.com about Netflix's dwindling selections for a glimpse of the future.
Granted, not all news is bad. While I tend to suspect that the only real achievement of the streaming revolution will be to line the pockets of our Internet providers,  I'm intrigued by the new announcement of Filmstruck, a reportedly inexpensive new streaming service combining the libraries of Criterion, Turner Classic Movies, Milestone, Flicker alley and others. Will it live up to its promise?  We'll find out in a few months.

It's her life.

A reason to wish you were in New York: Anna Karina is coming to town. And at theauteurs.net,  a great collection of her non-Godardian posters to commemorate the event.

Toomorrow never comes

Michael Moore's Friendly Invasion

Michael Moore's "Where to Invade Next" didn't quite get the attention it deserved when it opened earlier this year, in part because the director's illness put an end to a planned promotional tour, but also in part because of the kind of "What has he done lately?" attitude I describe below. It's now available on iTunes and other sites, and will hit stores in a few days,  My review , written in early February, was never printed, so I'm posting it here.

When I mentioned that I liked Michael Moore's new film “Where To Invade Next”, at least three people responded “Isn't his schtick getting kind of old?”. That question, posed by people who (I'm assuming) would identify themselves as “liberal”, reveals a great deal about how attitudes toward non-fiction film, the politics of image, and the general tone of political discussion have changed (very badly, as for that last item) since Moore first picked up a camera.

More than twenty-five years have passed since the appearance of “Roger and Me”, one of two films at the end the 1980s (the other being Errol Morris' “The Thin Blue Line” ) which re-wrote the rules of cinematic reporting and many of things which made traditional documentarians apoplectic – a deeply subjective narrator, deliberately provocative editing and an investigative approach that was structured more like a comic monologue than a dry news item – have since become not just common but inescapable. Moore's greatest invention was presenting himself as a faux-innocent everyman, a concerned citizen who viewed a serious subject (the economic decline of his hometown, Flint, Michigan, in the Reagan years) through its effect on his own friends and neighbors. Moore created a comic character who just happened to share his name and background, an aw-shucks small-town kid who doesn't understand why he can't get the head of one of the world's largest corporations to return his phone calls.

Moore's schtick caught on, creating a method that has since been imitated (badly) by tv hosts, stand-up comedians and right-wing weasels like James O'Keefe. Moore's willingness to satirize himself has made him a public figure and an easy target for ridicule, but it would be a mistake to confuse the popular image of Moore (as seen on “South Park” etc.) with the real thing. He's in the uneasy position of Lenny Bruce, who used to complain that he was being punished for the inept performance of attorneys and policemen who tried to imitate his act in court. But while Moore's detractors are stuck with criticising his fictional alter ego (yes, he wears baseball caps and he is fat) , the real Moore remains an ambitious thorn in the side of American politics, always finding new ways to irritate his victims. In reality, his schtick has changed, his subjects have become more serious, and his film-making more sophisticated and engaging. By focusing solely on his celebrity, his critics are -unsurprisingly – choosing to ignore the increasingly serious subjects he addresses.

Moore's latest film “Where to Invade Next” mostly abandons the political idiot-savant image (though he can't resist slipping into it at times, as when he horrifies a group of French children by showing them a typical American school lunch) and addresses a wide range of issues from education to prison reform, using the successes of nine different countries (Italy, France, Finland, Slovenia, Germany, Portugal and Norway) to show how the rest of the world manages to educate their children, give women an equal voice in politics, provide health care , enforce drug laws, treat workers fairly and create an awareness of their political history – almost always, he explains, using the “American Dream” or our constitution as their model.

Even if you prefer to ignore Moore's jokey set-up (that he's “invading” these countries, American flag in hand, and stealing their best ideas) and his occasional tendency to overstate the obvious, “Where to Invade Next” is a thoughtful, detailed and, yes, optimistic film about real social issues and realistic solutions. It would be easy to argue (and I'm sure someone will) that all of those countries have problems of their own; Moore acknowledges this within the film but states that his intention is to show only what these countries are doing right. It's a defensible position: although the film shows the inner workings of these foreign schools, prisons, factories and other institutions at length, the implied message is “Why aren't we doing these things?” Moore has always presented himself as a kind of populist clown, but as we head deeper into an election cycle that proves nothing more than our ability to create a bigger freak show that the previous election cycle, this clown is starting to look refreshingly sensible.

American Spirit?

The St. Louis Art Museum, which once hosted one of the most vital film programs in the area but has long given up any serious interest in cinema, has announced its summer film series. The theme is "The American Spirit" and the selections are ...at best, banal: "Top Gun", "Rocky", "E.T." and "Forrest Gump". America: we're militaristic, slightly racist, infantile/paranoid and a little bit slow... 

This was originally posted on the Facebook page of a local organization, where it raised complaints from other members (well, at least one member) that it was  - wait for it - "inappropriate",  I stand by my criticism that an institution  that once hosted events like a complete Keaton retrospective (at a time when some of his films could only be found in prints had to be shipped in from France and Eastern Europe) , a sold-out "China Film Week"  or a comprehensive study of Hollywood genres timed to coincide with the Bicentennial , had fallen into what I call the Blockbusterization of film history ,  Perhaps I should update that phrase to the Redboxing/Netflixing  of Film History, but the point remains the same. Lots of institutions make poor choices when it comes to film presentations ("Hey, we'll show "Kung Fu Panda 3" on a big inflatable screen and bring in a lot of food trucks!") but given the stature of the Art Museum and its history, isn't it reasonable to expect more?

paradise

Nilsson does Ernie Kovacs

From a rare BBC special:

And the winner (maybe) is...

My final too-late-to-turn-back predictions:

• Best Picture: "Avatar"
• Best Director: Katheryn Bigelow "The Hurt Locker"
• Best Actor: Jeff Bridges
• Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz
• Best Actress: Sandra Bullock
• Best Supporting Actress: Mo'Nique
• Best Original Screenplay: "The Hurt Locker"
• Best Adapted Screenplay: "Up in the Air"
• Best Animated Feature: "Up"
• Best Foreign Language Film: "The White Ribbon"
• Best Documentary Feature: "The Cove"
• Best Documentary Short: "Music by Prudence"
• Best Live Action Short Film: "Kavi"
• Best Animated Short Film: "A Matter of Loaf and Death"
• Best Original Score: "Up"
• Best Song: "The Weary Kind" from "Crazy Heart"
• Best Cinematography: "The White Ribbon"
• Best Film Editing: "The Hurt Locker"
• Best Art Direction: "Sherlock Holmes" (This is the only one I'm having second thoughts about, simply because it was such an awful film.)
• Best Costume Design: "The Young Victoria"
• Best Sound Editing: "Avatar"
• Best Sound Mixing: "The Hurt Locker"
• Best Visual Effects: "Avatar"
• Best Makeup: "Star Trek" 

Through the looking glass

Related to the last post:

Down the rabbit hole, circa 1903

Courtesy of the British Film Institute, the first film adaptation of "Alice in Wonderland".  Read all about it here.

Cinematic altar

This memorial to James Whale can be found by the Showcase Cinema in his hometown of Dudley, England.

Walkin' my cat named dog

A great forgotten song.. How did this one fall through the pop-cult tracks?



More of Norma (the b-side?) here.

Not an animal

Thanks to The Playlist for drawing my attention to Richard Schickel's piece on the making of "Raging Bull" in the current "Vanity Fair" . Scorsese has never attempted to hide his personal problems during 70s and 80s, but Schickel does a good job of showing how they contributed to his commitment to make something more than a conventional sports film.
One important and rarely mentioned detail is how producers Chartoff and Winkler had to dangle the carrot of "Rocky II" ("Rocky" had been a popular and even well-reviewed film, but was not yet a sequel-producing-franchise) to convince United Artists to back Scorsese's film.
I suspect, however, that Schickel overstates the failure of "New York, New York" as a factor in Scorsese's personal bottoming out at the end of the 70s. Yes, "New York" was a commercial disappointment, but United Artists was still coasting on its reputation as a director's studio. As hard as it is to believe, the era of judging films solely by their opening weekends hadn't yet begun.

(One minor error in Schickel's account: "Home Movies" isn't one of DePalma's "earlier" films; Produced as a class project for his students at Sarah Lawrence, it was released in 1980 - the same year as "Raging Bull.")

See the tree? How big it's grown! and other ballads

I have a confession to make: I've always had a problem with songs that tell long, pathetic stories, especially the maudlin pop ballads that were popular in the early 70s. Call it a short attention span, but I tend to drift off somewhere around the second verse. It took me years to figure out what happened to Timothy when he was trapped in the mine. I'm still not sure exactly what happened on the night Chicago died or what Joey did to get the young singer's daddy so worked up. Even after 40 years, I don't know why the lights went out in Georgia, though I'm fairly sure that it involved hanging an innocent man.
But here's one I've always been able to follow (after the cigarette break):

And the winner won't be...

"Logorama"- although it's worth a look. My Academy Award predictions, trickling in a few at a time, can be found here.

Logorama Trailer from www.club-construct.com on Vimeo.

Tourism Dogme Style

Denmark Introduces Harrowing New Tourism Ads Directed By Lars Von Trier

Don't me our annual Dogville Days!

We are the world, too.

Looks even more refreshing compared to the rather stiff "We are the World 25".
(I know..they're both for a good cause, so do what you have to do...)

Barada nikto

Rockford's finest

Didn't I see you cryin'?

Today, dear father

hold on

Great Exploitations: Cannonball

In memory of David Carradine, here's the trailer for one of the most entertaining films from Roger Corman's New World Pictures, AND the only film where you'll see Martin Scorsese and Sylvester Stallone sharing a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Not so Innocent Abroad

From the "New York Review of Books", a good introduction to Patricia Highsmith's Ripley novels...

Built like a car

Don't wake me up too late

It ain't right.

But my eyes can see

Come now, gentlemen

inch by inch

Great Exploitations: The Doberman Gang

Human kindness is overflowing

Raising Caine

Regardless of how he died or what sordid tale emerges, we're truly saddened by the death of David Carradine. Here's a clip from Abbe Wool's underrated "Roadside Prophets".

Bystander on the mean streets

From The Guardian, news that Raymond Chandler has a previously unidentifed cameo in "Double Indemnity":

Remember.

I come apart., but that's okay...

Rivers, you know how is the story

We come with the dust and we're gone with the wind

won't be long

Bob Dylan does the Rolling Stones!

The Rolling Stones do Dylan!

Freud's last years

More here and here.

The Great Man walks

..and sips tea

Don't they know?

Hey Now! Little Mouse!

MiMi / Abba

Lock the gates, Goofy; take my hand

(Skip the first 2 minutes or so when David Sanborn is trying to interview him; He lloks almost as uncomfortable as this guy.)

Two sad songs

Two

Lie to me, tell me they're only robins.

Okay, so you've decided to post a video to accompany a great but fairly obscure country song from 1969 (Highest position: No. 19) - What images come to mind?



Why, a slide show of auto-dealers! What else?

(But what a great song!)

The Silver Tongued Devil and I

The middle part of life

And here's the sequel/remake made years later...

..in the summertime

listen

time for a change

New rules

1. Never beg another man.
2. Never Trust anyone
3. Never get between a gun and its target.
4. Punches are like bullets. If you don't make the first one count,you just might be finished.
5. If you wound a man, you better kill him or sooner or later he's going to kill you.
6. The right bullet at the right time, well aimed.
7. If you untie a man, take his gun before that.
8. Don't give a man any more bullets than what he's got use for.
9. When you start killing, you can't stop it.

Companeros

and you know it's right

Nobody?

A trailer for a relatively obscure Terence Hill western, "A Genius, Two Companions and a Dupe", also known as "A Genius" and "Nobody is the Greatest", directed by Damiano Damiani.

Happy birthday, Pete Seeger!

One of my heroes - and yours too, I hope - turns 90 today.

On Earth as it is in Heaven

working like a dog

Sita Sings the Blues

If you haven't already seen this, go here and follow the links.

This may be the creepiest video ever..

This just in...

The ugly truth

Choosing sides?

More seasonal greetings

This, the earlier Kinks and Roy Wood songs, are the only Christmas music you'll ever need.

Motivational video of the year

From the folks as Overthinking it.
Here's the full text - because you'll probably want this in a needlepoint sampler:
"Shame on you. This could be the greatest night of our lives, but you’re going to let it be the worst. And I guarantee a week won’t go by in your life you won’t regret walking out, letting them get the best of you. Well, I’m not going home. We’ve come too far! And I’m going to stay right here and fight for this lost cause. A day may come when the courage of men fails… but it is not THIS day. The line must be drawn HERE. This far, no further! I’m not saying it’s going to be easy. You’re going to work harder than you ever worked before. But that’s fine, we’ll just get tougher with it! If a person grits his teeth and shows real determination, failure is not an option. That’s how winning is done! Believe me when I say we can break this army here, and win just one for the Gipper. But I say to you what every warrior has known since the beginning of time: you’ve got to get mad. I mean plum mad dog mean. If you would be free men, then you must fight to fulfill that promise! Let us cut out their living guts one inch at a time, and they will know what we can do! Let no man forget how menacing we are. We are lions! You’re like a big bear, man! This is YOUR time! Seize the day, never surrender, victory or death… that’s the Chicago Way! Who’s with me? Clap! Clap! Don’t let Tink die! Clap! Alright! Let’s fly! And gentlemen in England now abed shall know my name is the Lord when I tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they’ll never take our Independence Day!"

No laughing matter...

And more seasonal...

Seasonal...

Brian Wilson rides the Black Cab

The Black Cab Sessions is a series of short videos in which musicians are asked to perform while riding in the back seat of a cab. Simple enough, right?

We all need a helping hand.

Watch the skies.

Heroes and villains

...won't pay the rent?

Straight Shooting

From Harvard's 02138, a no-nonsense talk with the great Tommy Lee Jones. (Thanks to Jeffrey Wells' always relevant Hollywood Elsewhere for bringing this to my attention.)

Recommended viewing:

Life in the city

He's got the silver..

I admit it; I'm pretty excited about "Shine a Light" one reason being the trailer, which cracks me up every time I watch it:



Turns out Marty's also on the accursed MySpace, if you're interested. Go ahead, be his friend.


(P.S. 5/4/08: I had to disable the Flash version. But, go see the movie. It's amazing...)

Hello sailor!

Popeye with Dorothy Lamour, courtesy of this post at Cartoon Brew.

This day in history...

1973: Dr. Hook actually made the cover.




"Aw man, that's beautiful!"

(I saw Dr. Hook perform shortly before this song broke, in between their 1st and 2nd albums, as part of a show that also included ShaNaNa and Flo and Eddie. This video catches some of the rowdy nature of their performance, which included a completely disrespectful trashing of their earlier hit, the weepy "Sylvia's Mother." It was the biggest single of 1971, only to suffer a huge backlash when the entire world collectively decided that the song got on its nerves.

Same as it ever was?

I've been looking for this clip for years and couldn't even find so much as a still from it until now. One more reason to name YouTube one of the Seven Wonders of the Internet World...
(The inspiration for it can be found here and here and here...)

from the old country...

Sacred chords and beautiful losers

A well-deserved honor for the debonair Mr. Cohen...

His week still beats your year.

Happy birthday to Lou Reed, still cooler than the rest of us...



More here and here and especially here.

and the final count...

15 out of 24.. Anything over 50% is respectable in my book..

My predictions (if "prediction" and "guess" mean the same thing):

Best Picture:
No Country For Old Men
Best Director:
The Coens
Best Actor
Daniel Day Lewis
Best Actress
Julie Christie
Best Supporting Actor
Bardem
Supporting Actress:
Cate Blanchett
Foreign Film
The Counterfeiters
Animated Feature
Ratatouille
Art Direction
There Will Be Blood
Cinematography
There Will Be Blood
Costume Design
Atonement
Documentary Feature
Sicko
Documentary Short
Freeheld
Editing
The Bourne Ultimatum
Makeup
La Vie en Rose
Original Score
Michael Clayton
Song
Falling Slowly
Animated Short
Madame Tutli-Putli
Live Action Short
At Night
Sound Editing
The Bourne Ultimatum
Sound Mixing
The Bourne Ultimatum
Visual Effects
Transformers
Screenplay –Adapted
No Country for Old Men
Screenplay –Original
Juno

Second gussing: The ones I am most doubtful about are the two actresses, original screenplay, original score and costume design...

The last good man

Seeing things in black and white...

A review of Persepolis, courtesy of Playback.

"What number is it, Chip?" ... "7A"

Folksinger John Stewart, formerly of the Kingston Trio, is dead. He's best known for this very fine song:






You can find Stewart's own version here.

Beware of "perilous stunts" and "fancy alcoholic drinks".

Today I became Jack Valenti's Worst Nightmare. I took a group of pre-teenagers to an R-rated movie (Sweeney Todd, which is, by the way, just as good the second time around).

Meanwhile, for those of you who think the MPAA isn't tough enough, The Guardian offers this helpful selection of highlights from various " parental guidance" websites..

The 666 Trio