Hoodwinked

(2005)
Written and Directed by Corey Edwards and Todd Edwards
Starring the voices of: Anne Hathaway, Glenn Close, Patrick Warburton, James Belushi, David Ogden Stiers, Xzibit, Chazz Palmenteiri, Andy Dick.
IMDB Entry

Hoodwinked starts out with Red Riding Hood (Anne Hathaway) visiting Grandma's house, with the wolf (Patrick Warburton) in the bed. After a witty variation on the dialog on the original, the Wolf jumps at Red, Grandma (Glenn Close) is discovered tied up in the closet, and the woodsman (James Belushi) crashes through the window.

Then the police arrive.

Yes, Hoodwinked is another postmodern version of a fairy tale, following the ground that Shrek and others plowed. What sets it apart is witty dialog and a surprisingly sophisticated story.

Because, in the movie, the scene at Grandma's house is not the main thread.  Chief Grizzly (Xzibit) has a bigger problem:  the Goody Bandit, who's been stealing recipes and putting bakers and candymakers out of business. The chief thinks the Wolf is involved, but his detective, Nicky Flippers (David Ogden Stiers) thinks otherwise.  So he has everyone tell their story.

Here's where it rises above most animated films:  the stories are all different and are colored by the teller's point of view. As each of the characters tell their tale, we see the different perspectives and discover that what one assumes is not exactly what happened. 

The concept is reminiscent of Roshomon, though by saying that, I give the wrong impression.  The movie is fun, and part of the fun is discovering how the original story (by Red) plays out with the information given by the other characters.  None of the characters are the way the appear, and it's fun to see the truth and how it all dovetails.

In the final part of the film, Red, Granny, the Wolf, and the Woodsman unite to bring down the Goody Bandit. While the identity isn't a big surprise, it still is both fun and entertaining. Directors Todd and Cory Edwards keep the action and jokes coming from start to finish.

All the voice actors are excellent. The main standout is Patrick Warburton as the Wolf, but Andy Dick is also worthy of mention in his small role.

The movie did well enough, mostly because it was relatively cheap, and there's talk of a sequel.  I'm looking forward to it.

Edited 12/15/2014.  The sequel was a major disappointment, alas.

Force of Evil

(1948)
Directed by Abraham Polonsky
Written by Abraham Polonsky, Ira Wolfert (from his novel)
Starring John Garfield, Thomas Gomez, Marie Windsor, Howland Chamberlain
IMDB Entry

The Hollywood Blacklist had many innocent victims. Abraham Polonsky may not have been innocent, but he was a victim, and I think films are weaker because of it.

Polonsky (not to be confused with Roman Polanski) had some success as a writer of films, most notably the boxing drama Body and Soul, and decided he wanted to direct. This was still unusual in 1940s Hollywood (Preston Sturges had done it, but few others), but Polonsky took his shot with the gem of a film, Force of Evil (Not to be confused with Touch of Evil)

The movie is the story of an upheaval in the numbers racket.  John Garfield (not to be confused in any way with Alan Garfield) plays Joe Morse, a lawyer for an organized crime group. The group is working to take over the numbers racket.  Their plan:  causing the number 776 to be the winner on 4th of July.  Bettors always played that number very heavily on that day, so if it came in, it would be too much for many bookies to pay off.  Those who didn't join the syndicate would not be able to cover their bets, and either would have to borrow from the syndicate, or go out of business.  Joe is responsible for trying to get bookies to join the syndicate beforehand.

The fly in the ointment is Joe's brother, Leo (Thomas Gomez), a small time bookie who doesn't want to fall in with the big time crooks. Joe has to convince Leo before July 4, and Leo -- an honest bookie who will pay everything he owes, even if it ruins him -- refuses.

Polonsky made no bones about being a Communist, and the film is clearly an allegory about how big business crushes the small competitor. But the film works not because of that, but because of the relationship between the two brothers.

Leo is the moral one in the film, while Joe learns too late that some things come at too great a price.  Thomas Gomez is terrific in the role.  He was a well traveled character actor, best known as one of Edward G. Robinson's henchmen in Key Largo, and this is a performance to savor of a man who wants to stand up for what is right.

John Garfield was good (as he usually was) as Joe, one of his best performances as a cynical man who learns that cynicism isn't good enough.  Garfield was a vastly underrused actor of his time, a leading man type who was typecast as criminals and never really got the breakthrough role where he could become a major star.  The movie he first starred in,They Made Me a Criminal, pretty much describes

Polonski's Communist leanings did not sit well once the Red Scare began.  He refused to name names and was thus blacklisted for almost 20 years.  He did some film work -- writing a screenplay or two with a front, directing at least once without being credited -- but didn't show up officially until Tell Them Willie Boy is Here in 1969.  Once again, he showed his revolutionary credentials (the movie deals with the treatment of Native Americans), but the film was much more heavyhanded. 

As for John Garfield, he truly was one of the innocent victims.  Never a Communist, but socially very liberal, his politics caught up with him in the red scare and he found it hard to get work.  The stress contributed to his dying of a heart attack at the age of 39.

The film has been rediscovered and the allegory may seem a bit obscure, but as a drama, it's still as good as ever.

All These Women (För att inte tala om alla dessa kvinnor) (1964)

Directed by Ingmar Bergman
Written by Bergman and Erland Josephson
Starring: Bibi Andersson, Harriet Andersson, Eva Dahlbeck, Jarl Kulle
IMDB Entry

Back in college, I took a course called "Emergence of the Artist."  The idea was to follow the career of a film director and see how he developed.  The first time they gave it, it was about Alfred Hitchcock, but when I took it, the director in question in Ingmar Bergman.

The professor, Frank Gado, had his quirks.  One was that the only type of art that was worth studying was those which examined the relationship between man and God. The other was that he was a passionate fan (and acquaintance) of Ingmar Bergman.

We watched 23 films in the ten weeks of the course (Union College had 10-week trimesters and is still unable to change this to two 15-week semesters with various objections that boiled down to the argument "It can't be done!" as though 90% of US colleges didn't exist).

We started with Bergman's first film, Frenzy, (as writer, and it has nothing to do with the Hitchcock title) and went through a lot of things that are rarely shown these days:  Illicit Interlude, Thirst, The Naked Night.  And eventually All These Women.

In 1964, foreign films were given US titles, and All These Women is not exactly the Swedish title, which is better translated as Let's not talk about all these women. A bit wordy, but, in a way, it fits, since All These Women is unique among Bergman's films.  It's a comedy.  A slapstick comedy.

Yes, for someone known as making serious and often depression films. Bergman had his bright side.  Of course, his best known film (at least, in adaptation) is also a comedy:  Smiles of a Summer Night.  But that was a French-style reaction comedy, where the humor comes out of how the characters react.  All these Women is pure slapstick.

It announces this very early on:  it starts with a funeral scene.  But instead of Death in a black cape, the soundtrack is playing "Yes, We Have No Bananas."  The story involves flashbacks of the dead man, a famed cellist who has affairs with many women (he schedules their lovemaking so they don't meet).

Jarl Kulle plays Cornelius, a writer trying to do a biography of the cellist, Felix (who is never seen). The film was also Bergman's first film in color.

It did not get particularly good reviews, but I remember it was mildly funny and worth checking out.  It seems to have gained a bit in stature over the years, as people see the typical Bergman themes underneath the slapstick (it's clear that the character of Felix is a stand in for Bergman himself).  But it's especially fascinating if, as you watch the slapstick, you tell yourself this is slapstick done by Ingmar Bergman. The idea alone is worth quite a few smiles.

The Heartbreak Kid

(1972)
Directed by Elaine May
Written by Neil Simon
Based upon "A Change of Plan" by Bruce Jay Friedman
Starring:  Charles Grodin, Cybil Shepard, Eddie Albert, Jeannie Berlin, Audra Lindley
IMDB Entry

I figured I should get this in before the Farrelly Brothers version hits screens this fall.  Nothing against the Farrellys (though they don't appeal to me much), but this is a film that needn't be remade.  The original was perfect (and from the trailer, I'm not hopeful about the new version).

Consider who was involved.  Bruce Jay Friedman was a major short story writer of the 60s.  Not literary (though he appeared in literary magazines), but with a warped sense of humor and a keen eye for human nature. Though I've treasured his story collection Far from the City of Class, I have not read "A Change of Plan," but the title alone is pure Friedman: an ironic understatement.

Neil Simon, of course, was already the toast of Broadway with an already long list of successful stage comedies. The rap on Simon at the time was that he was funny, but his characters had no depth (his Brighton Beach Memoirs changed perceptions) and that he went for the funny lines at the expense of characters.  In this, though, his screenplay stays away from wisecracks (I only noticed one) in favor of Friedman's vision.

Finally, Elaine May was considered one of the bright lights of sketch comedy, and her previous movie A New Leaf, had shown her to be a director of note.  The financial (though not artistic) fiasco of Ishtar was several years in the future.

The film is a real gem.  It's definitely May's best, but also had great roles for several of its stars.

The story is simple.  Charles Grodin (in his first major role) plays Lenny Cantrell, who is off on his honeymoon with Lila (Jeannie Berlin).  But as they drive south from New York to their hotel in Miami, Lenny begins to think he may have made a mistake.  And when he's there, he meets Kelly Corc\oran from Minnesota (Cybil Shepard) and decides she is the one for him.

So, he decides to fix his mistake.

Two scenes really stand out (out of many).  One is when Lenny explains to Kelly's parents (Eddie Albert and Audra Lindley) that he's fallen deeply in love with their daughter and wants to marry him.  There's only one small problem: he's on his honeymoon.  Albert does not take this well.  The scene is shot in a single take, the four principals framed so that you can see their reactions as Lenny goes through a long, sincere speech explaining what he wants to do.  It's all Lenny until he finishes, yet the reaction of the others -- Shepard's affection, Lindley's bewilderment, and Albert's slowly building anger -- is terrific.

The second is when Lenny finally tells Lila.  He takes her out to dinner at a restaurant famous for their pecan pie.  But they're out, and Lenny makes a ridiculous fuss over it.  It's clearly his way of putting off what he wants to tell Lila, and it has the same emotionally edgy humor that made Nichols and May the top comedy team of their day.

The real astounding performance here is Jeannie Berlin, May's daughter. Lila starts out nice and slowly begins to do things that make Lenny's decision reasonable.  She says the wrong things, does the wrong things, and makes you think that Lenny is better off without her.  Then, in one scene, she turns it all around, becoming a sad and pathetic figure and making it clear she is the one being wronged (looking at the trailer for the remake, they seem to be eliminating the sympathy in favor of turning Lila into a caricature). .  It is an award-worthy performance (and she did get an Oscar nomination and a couple of film critics awards for it). Alas, she made very little else (her starring vehicle, Sheila Levine is Dead and Living in New York, was a flop) afterwards.  Jeannie was not really leading lady material, but she had great potential in comic and second lead roles at the very least.

Groden is also great as Lenny, making a guy whose dumping his wife seem sympathetic.  You understand his reasons, yet, in the final scene, he shows that there are other reasons he doesn't understand.  Our reaction to Lenny is as complex as it is to Lila, and I'm afraid the remake will dumb it down.

Albert is a long way from Oliver Douglas in this, and gives a fine performance.  He never likes Grodin in the first place, and when he learns the story, his angry consternation is fun to behold.

The cast did well afterwards. Grodin, of course, has had a successful career.  Eddie Albert was already established (he'd already done Green Acres) and had continued success.  Cybil Shepard has become a star in her previous film, The Last Picture Show, and has also been successful, and Lindley (whose role here is pretty minor) became Mrs. Roper.

The only ones who had no later success were the two who were primarily responsible for making this a great film:  May and Berlin.  Such is Hollywood.

I hope the remake is better than the trailers indicate, but you owe it to yourself to see the original.

Ishtar

(1987)
Directed and Written by Elaine May
Starring Warren Beatty, Dustin Hoffman, Isabel Adjani, Charles Grodin
IMDB Entry

If there ever was a movie with an undeserved reputation, it is Ishtar.  You've heard of it — the worst comedy ever made.  A mention of the name gets laughs.  The movie is supposed to be one big unfunny mess.

Only it isn't.

Now, I'm not saying Ishtar is a great movie.  But it is, overall, a good one.  And parts of it achieve great comedy.  It's certainly funnier than anything Adam Sandler has ever done (OK, faint praise, but still . . . )

There was one big problem with Ishtar:  its price tag.  It cost around $40 million to produce.  While nowadays, that's peanuts for a film (Sandler's The Longest Yard cost over twice that), it was expensive back in 1987:  one of the most expensive films up to that point.

That $40 million figure poisoned the well.  Critics back then, remembering Heaven's Gate, figured that any film spending that much money had to be trash.  Even worse, there was no sign of the money on the screen.  So the knives came out.

A few critics bucked the trend (I remember that Newsday on Long Island ignored the expense and gave it a good review, and Vincent Canby of the Times -- one of the top film critics of the day -- mentioned it as just missing out on his ten-best list).  But others went into the theater expecting trash (some even bragged about it),   Every single review did mention the price tag, which is interesting, but hardly relevant to whether the film was good or not.

So the film tanked.  Self-fulfilling prophecy and all that.  And it has developed a reputation for the ages that is totally unjustified on all counts.

The movie is often compared to the Hope/Crosby "Road" pictures.  It is indeed similar, but also much different.  The Road pictures were pretty much plotless meanderings —Hope and Crosby get in trouble, with Dorothy Lamour in the middle.  Hope wisecracks; Crosby sings and gets Lamour.  But the Road pictures were filled with "anything for a joke" lines, self-referential humor, and topical references.  Ishtar had none of these.  In their place, it had characters.  Hope and Crosby always were Hope and Crosby.  Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman were Lyle Rogers and Chuck Clark.

The plot involves two talentless singer/songwriters who go to the mythical Arabian country of Ishtar, supposedly to give a concert.  They get involved in a plot to overthrow the government involving a missing sacred map, and a CIA agent (the delightful Charles Grodin) who tries to use them to find the map and keep the government in power.  A mysterious woman (played by Isabelle Adjani) is involved keeping the mix moving.

The first twenty minutes of the film is pure comic brilliance.  I can see why a critic coming in with a chip on his shoulder would dismiss it:  it's a very dry, wry comedy of character.  Rogers and Clark's career is shown in flashback.  They have no talent, of course.  And it's all excruciatingly funny. 

It's helped by Paul Williams's brilliant songs. Their tunes are catchy but unmemorable, but it's the lyrics that make them such gems:

Telling the truth can be dangerous business.
Honest and popular don't go hand in hand.
If you admit that you can play the accordion,
No one'll hire you in a rock 'n' roll band.

(Elaine May and Dustin Hoffman also joined in.  A full list can be found at Richard Muller's Ishtar Lyrics website.)

The genius of the movie is that Rogers and Clark never really understand just how awful they are (except in a few flashes).  The have no conception that a song "I'm leaving some love in my will" might be inappropriate for an elderly couple.  They come up with really awful lyrics and start praising them as though they were the greatest things since Cole Porter ("When you're on, you're on" is one of the funnier lines -- said after a particularly bad lyric).  It's one of the few portrayals of the mindset of someone who is working his damndest to be artistic, but who just doesn't have the chops. 

The flashback ends with Rogers and Clark deciding to go to Ishtar for the gig.

When they reach it, the comedy does flag.  Adjani tries to recruit them both to find the map; Grodin tells Hoffman that she's a communist.  Hoffman is indignant that Beatty didn't tell him that Adjani asked him to be a communist.  There's a tedious bit about men with sunglasses all trying to shadow Hoffman and Beatty and trying to keep their movements secret from both the two men and the other spies.

Then Hoffman and Beatty go into the market, supposedly to make contact with an agent.  The password is to ask to buy a blind camel, and when they call the name of their contact (Muhammad), everyone answers to it (unsurprisingly).  This is where things pick up.

Hoffman and Beatty end up in the desert with the blind camel, with no food and little water.  There are some good gags, leading to one of the funniest scenes in film:  the arms auction.

Hoffman is captured by arms traders; Beatty escapes by donning Arab garb.  Hoffman tries to pass himself off as the translator to the native tribes they dealers are selling to.  Of course, a man who speaks English but not Arabic is immediately suspect, and Hoffman, at the risk of his life, is supposed to show his ability by telling the tribesman that their camels have been stolen.  Hands at his sides, he screams out gibberish.

But Beatty, disguised among the tribesman, begins to gesture and run to the camels; the others follow.  Hoffman's story is believed.

The rest of the scene is also very funny.  It is a real high point of any film.

Alas, after that, things fall apart.  The ending seems rushed, and doesn't really pay off properly.  It's OK, but it feels like May was very much under the gun to get things done, so patched together something that is just adequate.

But I don't find it disappointing.  The more I see the first section, the funnier it seems.  The humor is completely deadpan (which is why people missed it), but, if you pay attention, it's right on the mark.

The saddest thing about the flop is what it did to Elaine May.  She had made three previous films:  A New Leaf, The Heartbreak Kid, and Mickey and Nicky.  The Heartbreak Kid, in particular, is comic gold.  The story of a newlywed (Grodin again) who falls in love with Cybell Shepard -- on his honeymoon (with Jeannie Berlin, May's daughter and the part May probably would have played if she were younger at the time).  It's based on a Bruce Jay Friedman story (Friedman was a wonderfully warped writer) with a script by Neil Simon, and it's hilarious.  Watch it and never think of Key Lime Pie the same way again.

Where was I?  Oh, yes.  After Ishtar, May never directed another film.  That is a tremendous loss of a great comic talent.

So, if you have a chance, watch the movie.  You'll be pleasantly surprised.

(To learn more about Ishtar, visit the fan site at Ishtar: The movie.)

The Heckler (comics)

(1992-93)

Written by Keith Giffen and Tom & Mary Bierbaum
Art by Keith Giffen and Malcolm Jones III
Wikipedia Entry

In the late 80s, writer/artist Keith Giffen had a radical idea for superhero comics.  He wanted to make them . . . comic.

Giffen's big successes were the various Justice League titles, where his combination of superhero action and slapstick humor was a breath of fresh air.  Sure, superheroes had the obligatory gibes while fighting a villain, but Giffen's went for the belly laugh, and wasn't afraid to show the heroes as cranky and definitely nonheroic in between battles.

Giffen also created the delightfully bizarre Ambush Bug, a comic book character who didn't have a serious moment, even if he did interact with some DC superheroes (as well as with the reader, his editor, and fanboys everywhere).  And Giffen was involved in the creation of Lobo, the most nihilistic character in the DC universe.

And he cocreated the Heckler (Giffen at this time wrote the plots and did pencils, and had others handle dialog).  It was, perhaps, his weirdest creation. Probably because of this, it only lasted six issues.

The Heckler had a very stylized format:  every page of the comic (except the last pages of issues 5 and 6) was laid out in a nine-panel grid. Since each panel was filled with jokes and bizarreness, this led to a claustrophobic feel.

The Heckler was your average superhero, patrolling Delta City, and dishing out justice and wisecracks.  In some ways, he wasn't much different from Spider-Man, Daredevil, or Bugs Bunny (and there were parallels to all three. Especially Bugs.).  In his regular life, he was Stu Mosely, who ran a diner called "Eats" (or it would be if the sign painter didn't keep screwing up:  "Fats" "Feets," "Yeast," etc.).  Stu was rather put upon: his artiste of a French chef tried to serve all the food in the form of works of art, his quest for a waitress brought in a series of completely unsuitable candidates, and his partner never showed up.

And that was the strength of Heckler: the utterly bizarre and surreal characters that inhabited Delta City.  They included the Minx, a bounty hunter dedicated to bring to justice all the bad dates she had had in her life; X-Ms, the superhero of tinseltown; and Nina, clerk at Dozens O'Donuts (they only sell glazed donuts, but they have dozens of them).  My favorite was Mr. Dude, a greaser who vaguely resembled Elvis and who evidently knew everything (the Pope would ask him for advice).   

The criminals were also a bizarre lot (remember, there were only six issues):

• Boss Glitter, who ran the town and wore a mask.  Well, he didn't actually wear it:  he held it up on a stick like in a Renaissance costume ball.
• El Gusano, which means "The Worm" in Spanish, and who has certain Annelid features -- notable, no face.
• John Doe, the Generic Man, whose touch turned people into generic versions
• Buckshot, whose freckles were buckshot and could shoot it.
• Ratchet Jaw, with a machine gun for a mouth (literally).
• The Cosmic Clown, an intergalactic hit man.
• C'est Hey, a living scarecrow.
• The Four Mopeds of the Apocalypse
• The Flying Buttress (remember -ress is a feminine suffix).

But the greatest villain in the book was Bushwack'r.  He appeared in issue 4 and halfway through, I realized who he really was:  the Coyote from Roadrunner cartoons -- though he makes the cartoon coyote look like someone who knew what he was doing. His elaborate deathtraps for the Heckler -- who is completely unaware of them -- are worthy of Chuck Jones's best (the issue even shows a copy of Jones's autobiography).

The dialog by the Bierbaums was consistently funny.  The Hecker's jokes are funnier and more vicious than any other superhero, and the characters would always be going off on their own personal manias and tangents.  There's also a marvelously understated humor throughout, lines that wouldn't seem funny if I quoted them here, but which are hilarious in context.

It was evidently too weird for comic book buyers, and DC probably took one look at the first issue and said, "What the hell have we commissioned?"  The plug was pulled very rapidly, though it's hard to say it didn't have a chance to find its audience, since its audience probably didn't read comic books.  Since there was no connection or crossover with other strips, it was as though it never existed.  It's not even listed in the DC Comics Encyclopedia.

But if you search eBay and comb the cheapo bins, you may be able to pick some issues up (some people call it a limited series, which it was in a strict definition, but not by design).  It will be well worth the search.

VR.5 (TV)

(1995)
Created by Jeannine Renshaw
Starring Lori Singer, Michael Easton, Anthony Head, David McCallum, Louise Fletcher, Will Patton.
IMDB Entry

VR.5 was a show ahead of its time.  This doomed it to failure.

With The Matrix, and other films (not to mention virtual worlds like Second Life), the idea of virtual reality is just entering the mainstream.  But back in 1995, it was still a new, far-out, science fictional concept.  And setting a show based on virtual reality was a long shot.

The problem of virtual reality in fiction and films is that, since anything can happen, solutions to problems come out of the woodwork (this has happened as far back asTron)  If the hero has a problem, they can do something that had never been established as a possibility, since, well, anything is possible.  But if anything is possible, you have to work very hard on the script to keep things plausible.

VR.5 handled this problem with a great deal of imagination.  It starred Lori Singer as Sydney Bloom, a phone company employee and computer nerd who discovers how to enter into virtual reality at a level that gives her the ability to enter the dreams of others.  Her ability brings her to the attention of the Committee, which tries to use her for its own purposes.  She's assigned Dr. Frank Morgan (Will Patton) to be her guide and mentor.

I have to admit the first episode was not spectacular. It was the third episode that showed me that they were dealing with more than just routine:  Dr. Morgan was killed.

It was a shock.  He had every sign of being a regular (including being listed in the opening credits), and you don't kill off a regular in the third show.

The next show, her new mentor appeared:  Oliver Sampson, played by Rupert Giles  . . . I mean Anthony Stewart Head (he didn't use "Stewart" at the time).  The parallel to Giles on Buffy was uncanny:  Sampson was a little stronger, and not quite as witty, but otherwise the Giles we all learned to know and love.  I have no doubt that Joss Whedon saw Head's performance here when casting for Buffy (prior to this, Head's was best known in the US for a series of coffee commercials).

The show began to find more and more levels as it advanced.  Sydney learned that the Committee had its own agenda, and that Sampson could not always be trusted, since she wasn't sure whose best interests he had in mind. It focused in on the search for her father (David McCallum), who had been looking into VR and categorized its levels.  Sydney was at VR.5 -- where you could access the subconscious, but that was halfway up toe VR.10, where anything was possible.  She felt her abilities expand, and learned more about the Committee -- its factions and plans.

The show had some real depth to it, both in plotting and style. The VR sequences were designed as bizarre and surreal dreams, with imaginative use of splashes of color. They all had a kind of dream logic, which made the work.

The show ran ten episodes (there were 13 filmed), then cut off at a cliffhanger. Though there were fans, it was not enough for a DVD release.

The biggest casualty of the cancellation was Lori Singer.  She was a terrific presence and actress (she's also a model and professional cellist -- a highly unusual triple threat), but has worked very little since.  I would love to see her again.

Definitely a show worthy of a DVD.

Comfort and Joy

(1984)
Written and Directed by Bill Forsyth
Starring Bill Paterson, Clare Grogan, Eleanor David, Alex Norton, Patrick Malahide
IMDB Entry

Bill Forsyth came on the scene in the early 80s with several quirky little films set in his native Scotland. Gregory's Girlwas a coming-of-age story of a teenage soccer player who becomes infatuated on the first girl to play on the team.  His best-known film, Local Hero, tells how a Scottish town reacts to the idea of building an oil refinery on their shores. His movies were filled with odd and endearing characters and a meandering but entertaining plot.

Comfort and Joy is just as wonderful.  Around Christmas, radio DJ Alan "Dicky" Bird (Bill Paterson, who later appeared in Truly Madly Deeply), depressed over his girlfriend leaving, sees what looks like a gangland attack and gets involved in a territorial dispute between two rival Italian families.

Over ice cream.

The two families are rival ice cream vendors, "Mr. Bunny" and "Mr. McCool" in a humorously cutthroat battle over territory (evidently based on some real events in Forsyth's Glasgow). Bird gets involved and tries to achieve peace between the vendors, eventually coming up with a way to put an end to the battles.

The movie is filled with the quirky humor that made Forsyth such a delight. My favorite was watching them record the snappy little "Hello, Folks" song.  All the characters are a little off-center -- recognizably human, but with traits that make them unlike anyone else on film

It is a Christmas movie, after all, so you know that Bird will figure out a way to end the feud. Paterson is excellent in the role as the depressed everyman who tries to make sense of a strange situation.

Forsyth's career stalled after this.  He made a film of Marylynne Robinson's novel Housekeeping and a few other films that never really made any impression, eventually resorting to a sequel to Gregory's Girl.  It's a shame that such a charming and unique talent has had so little recognition or success.

Look at all three, Gregory's Girl, Local Hero, and Comfort and Joy if you want to draw knowing chuckles and eccentric but logical characters.

Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (Qian li zou dan qi)

(2005)
Directed by Zhang Yimou
Written by Zhang Yimou (screenplay and story) and Zou Jingzhi and Wang Bin (story)
Starring: Takakura Ken, Zhembo Yang, Lin Qiu, Li Jaimin, Jiang Weng
IMDB Entry

Sometimes you pick up a film at random and are just plain blown away.  We rentedRiding Alone for Thousands of Miles on a whim:  we liked foreign films, and lately have been picking up a lot of very good Chinese movies.  This looked like an interesting one, so we decided to give it a shot.

We were familiar with the work of director Zhang Yimou -- and you might be, too.  He made two impressive martial arts films, Hero and The House of Flying Daggers, movies that had a great deal of depth in among the action.  However, we didn't recognize the name (all Chinese might not look alike, but Chinese names are often hard for westerners to grasp).  That might have been a good thing, since the film is much different, one that concentrates on character instead of plot, with nary a bit of violence.  In fact, everyone in the film is just so nice.  That's very refreshing.

Takakura Ken (I'm sticking with the Chinese tradition of putting the family name first, though he's also been billed at Ken Takakura) plays Mr. Takata, a man estranged from his dying son. The son was a documentarian, and, in a film he made, he talked about going to China to see a local singer perform the Chinese Opera that gives the film its title. Takata decides to travel to China to film the performance.  But there are problems. . . .

This is a film that is clearly an unfolding. Takata's journey takes him to a small village in Yunnan Province in southwestern China and a meeting with the singer's five-year-old son, Yang Yang.  In it Takata learns more about people, himself, his own son, and his life.

Takakura Ken is superb as Takata, a taciturn man who goes upon this journey to try to connect. The rest of the cast were not professional actors, but you'd never know it.  Especially good is Zhembo Yang as Yang Yang and Lin Qiu as Lingo, Takata's guide and non-interpreter.

The film also deals with an issue you rarely see:  language barriers.  Takata speaks no Chinese and is dependent on others to translate and understand others. Lingo (interesting coincidence of a name) knows very little Japanese and is always struggling to figure out what Takata is saying. It manages to work out with some strategic cell phone calls to a real interpreter, Jasmine (Jiang Weng). The barrier is constant, but Takata manages to work his way around the country.

The film is beautiful, with some amazing scenery as background. This is definitely a wonderful opportunity to see life in other cultures and the importance of family.

God, the Devil, and Bob (TV)

(2000)
Created by Matthew Carlson
Starring (voices): French Stewart, James Garner, Alan Cumming, Laurie Metcalfe, Nancy Cartwright.
IMDB Entry

It's not uncommon to look at TV shows and ask "What are they thinking?" Usually, it's when a particularly stupid concept somehow makes it to the air. After all, network executive tend to err on the side of stupidity. But, every once in awhile, you ask yourself this even though the show is of high quality.  NBC had a history of showing things that were good, but which you could never understand why they'd expect good ratings from it (for instance, Dame Edna and Spitting Image).

God, the Devil, and Bob was clearly in this category. A cartoon show with God as a main character? At a time when the religious right was strong, and unlikely to look kindly on any irreverence?  This had to be either an All in the Family home run, or it would fail miserably.

In the show, Bob Alman (voice by French Stewart) is chosen by God (James Garner) in a bet with the devil (Alan Cumming) to perform good deeds in order to show that the Earth has some good in it so God doesn't have to destroy it.  No one believes Alman, of course, and God is little help, but he muddles along trying to do his best.

Bob is not a saint -- he watches porn, goes to strip clubs, drinks, and sometimes neglects his family (though he learns to avoid the latter). His wife Donna (Laurie Metcalfe) puts up with him, since he manages to keep the peace with her and their 13-year-old daughter Megan (voice by Bart Simpson . . . I mean, Nancy Cartwright), who's quite a handful (as God says, "I have them until age 12, then Satan gets them until they're 20").  Sometimes God gives Bob a specific task; other times, he just shows up. 

James Garner is wonderful -- the sort of laid-back God that's easy to like.  He makes everything sound so smooth and easy.  And Alan Cumming is hilarious as the Devil -- petulant, childish, and evil, and always trying to make things worse for Bob.

The show was heavily protested when it came out.  Religious groups (who, of course, never bothered to watch the show) didn't like the image of God as Jerry Garcia (there is some resemblance, but the image is mostly the old man with the beard image -- just a short beard and hair) or the fact he was shown drinking beer. The message of the show was fairly reverent, and Garner makes an appealing God, but when God is concerned, some people have no sense of humor.  The show only aired four times before the low ratings convinced NBC that it wasn't worth the hassle.

Luckily, all 13 shows are available on DVD.  It's well worth a rental.

Scarface

(1932)
Directed by Howard Hawks
Screenplay Ben Hecht
Starring Paul Muni, Ann Dvorak, George Raft, Boris Karloff, and Osgood Perkins
IMDB Entry

Back when I was in college, this wasn’t exactly a forgotten film.  It was considered one of the best gangster films of the early 30s. But a funny thing happened: Brian de Palma did a film with the same name that was originally designed to be a remake.  The remake was a sensation, and has vastly overshadowed the original.

Which is a shame.  Scarface is still one of the best of the 30s gangster genre. It went over what was familiar ground even then (both The Public Enemy and Little Caesar had come out the previous year), but Scarface was more violent, and overall was better than the other two because it had a bit more depth.

What it didn't have, was an iconic actor as the lead.  James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson were strong film personalities that dominated the screen made their gangster films work.  Paul Muni is pretty much forgotten.  He was a big star in the 30s, but his films are rarely shown (though you have to see his classic I Was a Fugitive from a Chain Gang to really understand parts of Woody Allen's Take the Money and Run, which has scenes that are a direct parody).

Scarface is the story of Tony Camonte (Muni) who, like Tom Powers and Little Caesar, is a brutal, small-time crook who works his way up to be crime boss.  Muni is abetted by his pal Guino Rinaldo (George Raft) and his sister Francesca, who is Guino's girlfriend.  The most interesting bit is the relationship between Tony and Francesca, which shows them as more than just brother and sister.  The hints of incest were quite daring for the time.

Boris Karloff has one of his few non-horror roles of the 30s as Gaffney, a rival gang leader and shows that he could have been quite successful without horror.  George Raft's performance of Guino defined his entire career.  Guino's habit of flipping a coin became Raft's trademark, so much so that he did cameos for years afterwards.  Even more, it became a trademark for anyone parodying a gangster film. 

I mention Osgood Perkins primarily because you probably know his actor son, Anthony. And the screenplay was by film and theater legend Ben Hecht, best known nowadays as author of The Front Page.

The film ran into censorship trouble with the new Production Code; Hawks and his producer, Howard Hughes, released it without code approval.  That may be one reason why back in the 70s it was harder to see than the other gangster films.  And with Paul Muni a forgotten actor, there was little impetus for its revival.

Hawks, of course, went on to a very successful career and it considered one of the greatest of American directors.  This is definitely one of his major works, and a film worth seeking out.

Neighbors

(1981)
Directed by John G. Avildsen
Written by Larry Gelbart
Based on a Novel by: Thomas Berger
Starring: Dan Ackroyd, John Belushi, Cathy Moriarty, Kathryn Walker
IMDB Entry
I may be the only person in the world who liked this film, but it's my web page and I can feature what I like.
It helped that I read the book.  Neighbors was based on a novel by Thomas Berger, a clever writer best known for his novel Little Big Man (made into a movie starring Dustin Hoffman) and the reversal of sexes novel Regiment of Women. Neighbors an odd novel. Earl Kease lives a perfectly ordinary life in the suburbs, until the new neighbors show up.  Harry and Rarmona are wild, unpredictable, and possibly psychotic.  Or maybe it's Earl who is psychotic. Harry and Ramona, and Earl's wife and daughter behave irrationally -- except they insist it is Earl who remembers things wrong.  It's arbitrary and quite funny with the humor coming from the fact that the characters seem to change personality for no reason at all (except maybe that Earl's grip on reality isn't all that firm).
The movie was directed by John G. Avildsen, who earlier did Cry Uncle, and I suppose it was something of a coup to get Dan Ackroyd and John Belushi. The casting of Ackroyd as Captain Vic (the character of Harry, renamed from the book) was especially brilliant:  he matched the character in the book perfectly.  Belushi played Earl, and was quite good as the quiet, normal guy. Oddly enough, the two actors switched parts, but, despite the critics' comments that Belushi would have been better as the wild man Vic, it was very a wise decision.  Belushi just didn't fit the image of Vic/Harry, who was a more psychotic wild man than Senator Blutarski would have been.
The movie does appear to be disjointed, partly because of friction between Ackroyd and Belushi and Avildsen. The two SNL veterans didn't care for Avildson's comic ideas (nor those of writer Larry Gelbart, who also cowrote Movie Movie). It's also due to the fact that the movie tried to be true to the novel, where the characters did bizarre things supposedly without any logical motivation.  That may be a turnoff.
Cathy Moriarty, fresh from her Oscar nomination in Raging Bull is also perfect as the sexy Ramona.  The movie was John Belushi's last, alas.
If you sit back an accept the idea that the characters are not going to behave logically, though, it's a funny and entertaining film.

American Flagg! (Comic Book)

(1983-84)
By Howard Chaykin

I read comics sporadically:  I'll pick them up regularly for awhile, then go ten years or so without reading them at all.  Around one of these times, I happened to attend a local comic book convention featuring Howard Chaykin.

I was impressed by his work on the graphic novel, Empire, written by one of my favorite SF writers, Samuel R. Delany.  With Chaykin in town, I took the book to be autographed and told him I thought it was the best comic book ever (I wouldn't say that today, but it was certainly very sophisticated for its time).  He thought I was referring to his newest project: American Flagg!

It wasn't an unreasonable assumption.

American Flagg! was set in 2033. Reuben Flagg was a Plexus Ranger -- a cop -- sent to a wild and decadent Chicago (in a fragmented US) to keep order.  Flagg had been the star of a popular TV show before being replaced by what would now be called CGI effects.

Chaykin populates Chicago with a wild cast of characters. There's corrupt mayor C. Keenan Blitz and his daughter Medea Blitz (Chaykin liked puns). There's Flagg's boss, Hammerhead Kreiger, and his daughter, Amanda. There's Gretchen Holdstrom, proprietor of the Love Canal brothel franchise ("Love Canal" was very much in the news at the time), William Windsor-Jones (the current Prince William in middle age), and the Russian pilot Crystal Gayle Marakova.  And, of course, there was Raul, the talking cat, and Luther Ironheart, the robot with a holographic head.

But, no, the strip wasn't comedy.  Reuben was trying to keep order in a chaotic and violent society and, while there were jokes, the entire strip was basically an antiestablishment view of society.  It was early cyberpunk.

Chaykin structured the comic into three-issue stories, and the first year was part of one arc, centering on the mysterious Peggy Kreiger, the mother of Amanda and Medea (yes, she got around), who vanished long ago (or did she?). He sprinkled in a bit of social commentary whenever he could.  For instance, in a visit to South America, one of the streets was labeled "United Fruit Boulevard." There were even some protests in the letter column that this was gay bashing until someone explained about the United Fruit Company and what they did in South America.

After completing the first year, Chaykin took a few issues off and when he came back, it was never the same.  There were visits to other areas (like the People's Democratic Prairie, a communist state in western Canada), but once the essential mystery of the first year was solved, it just wasn't the same. Eventually, Chaykin left, and the book lost contact with the world he created.  He came back to try to salvage it (retitling it Howard Chaykin's American Flagg! and renumbering it), but it had lost what had made it great.

The weakness of the later episodes cast a retrospective pall upon the original year. I think that at one point, the first dozen issues were collected into graphic novel form, but that's hard to find. It's a comic that's worth rediscovering.

Bob (TV)

(199-93)
Created by Cheri Steinkellner, Bill Steinkellner and Phoef Sutton
Starring Bob Newhart, Carlene Watkins, Cynthia Stevenson, John Cygan, Andrew Bilgore, Timothy Fall
IMDB Entry

Pop quiz: suppose, as a network executive, you have a TV sitcom with a well-known star, great supporting cast, and clever scripts.  It's not doing too bad in the ratings, either.  What do you do?

Well, you certainly don't treat it like Bob.

This was Bob Newhart's return to TV after the triumph of the Newhart 1finale (well, except for a Bob Newhart Show reunion special that continued where Newhart left off -- one of the better reunion specials on the air). The concept was a good one:  Bob McKay (Newhart, of course) was a comic book writer/illustrator and the creator of a failed superhero, Mad Dog. Years later, Mad Dog gets a revival, and Bob -- now working as an artist at a greeting card company -- is asked to help.

But there's a problem. Harlan Stone (a combination of Harlan Ellison and Frank Miller), is the new writer of the strip, and wants to darknight Mad Dog into the brooding, moody, haunted superhero who was the new style in the 90s.  "We can unleash the beast and reveal the true Mad Dog-a tortured, maniacal vigilante!'' Stone exclaims. Bob wanted Mad Dog to be an older model -- truth, justice, that sort of thing.  (Marvel Comics actually did a series of Mad Dog comics to tie in with the show.)

But that was only a part of the show.  Newhart knew how to use a good supporting cast, and a lot of the fun involved Albie Lutz (Andrew Bigore) and Chad Pfefferle (Timothy Fall), twos slightly warped, low-level comic book geek employees.  Cynthia Stevenson (later Georgia's Mother in Dead Like MeI) was also there as Bob's daughter Tricia (the only time Newhart had an offspring in any of his shows). Stevenson at the time had a nice loopy persona and was great at ditzy comedy.

The show was created by three writers of Cheers (Cheri Steinkellner, Bill Steinkellner and Phoef Sutton) so the writing was always sharp and funny. Even the title of the show was a joke: After The Bob Newhart Show and Newhart, Bob Newhart joked on the Johnny Carson Show that his next sitcom would follow the progression and be calledBob.

The episodes soon went far afield from comics:  One great episode starred George Wendt as "The Guy Who Played Norm on Cheers," and old friend of Bob's who can't avoid being confused with his TV roles. There was also a very funny show where Albie, Chad, and Tricia played "Mystery Date," and a nasty little parody of Barney the Dinosaur. Dick Martin, who directed some of the episodes, had some funny on-screen appearances as an old comic book writer friend.

The show got great critical buzz, but, for some reason, CBS moved it around the schedule like a chess piece in an earthquake.  Ratings were -- middle of the pack, and especially good when it was shown on Monday -- but were definitely hurt by the fact it didn't have a regular home.

Still, CBS decided to renew.  But I really wouldn't call it a renewal.  The entire premise was changed.  Bob left Ace Comics (leaving Harlan, Albie, and Chad behind) and went back to work for the greeting card company he had been at before Mad Dog called.  Betty White and Jere Burns were added to the cast, and the scripts were taking from the Beginning Sitcom Writers Guide to Bad Comedy.  It was unwatchable, and unfunny and quickly cancelled.

The first season is well worth preserving on DVD, so we can again see a show that deserved much better than it got.

The Carpet Makers (book)

(1995; English translation 2005) (book)
By Andreas Eschbach

It's rare that you pick up an unheralded book and realize it is truly great. Even heralded books are hard to find.  In the science fiction/fantasy field, there were things like Dune, Replay, The Book of the New Sun, and Lord of the Rings.  Lately, that feeling has happened to me less and less often.

That's why The Carpet Makers blew me away. It was released in the US in 2005, and came out with little fanfare. The main reason I picked it up was that its first chapter had already appeared as a very memorable story in Fantasy and Science Fiction and I was delighted to be able to read more.

Andreas Eschbach is clearly the greatest SF writer Germany has ever produced.  Not that there's a lot of competition -- SF is an English-language game, and even the best from other countries (Stanisalaw Lem, for instance) are reinventing the wheel.  Eschbach clearly knows his SF and, more importantly, he know how to tell a story.  He's evidently very successful in Europe, but this was his first (and so far only) novel translated into English.

And what a book. Eschbach sets up an intriguing situation:  a universe ruled by an emperor, and about one planet, whose men make their living by creating carpets out of the hair of their wives and daughter, training one son -- and one son only -- to continue in their profession.  The emperor purchases the carpets and then . . .

No one knows.  Because the emperor has been deposed, and the mystery of the carpet makers is has been lost.

The novel's structure is different.  Each chapter is told from the point of view of a different character, each with a different perspective. Little scenes are dramatized -- and dramatized memorably, each slowly coming nearer to the central mystery, while telling the stories of a wide range of people and how they are affected by it. And the resolution of the mystery is well worth the wait, and is one of the greatest dramatic outcomes I've seen in any book.  The solution is logical, with plenty of hints, and is also heartbreakingly terrifying.  And Eschbach does even more:  a final chapter that has an even greater kick that reflects on everything that has happened.

The book was released to good reviews, but didn't seem to be a big seller.  I've rarely found anyone who actually read it. And te biggest shame about the book is, if it did have poor sales, then no one will want to translate more of his work into English.  The Carpet Makers was Eschbach's first novel, and one can only marvel at how good his books will be as he continues to develop his craft.

And I'll be the first to buy one once they come out in English.

Addendum 12/13/14:  Still no translations, and none are likely.  I understand it would take $10,000 to translate a book, and Eschbach just isn’t worth it.  <sigh>

Mother Night

(1996)
Directed by Keith Gordon
Written by Robert B. Weide from the novel by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Starring Nick Nolte, Sheryl Lee, Alan Arkin, John Goodman
IMDB Entry

I was a fan of Kurt Vonnegut from the time my cousin left a copy of Cat's Cradle in my room one summer.  I picked it up and read it guiltily, with the impression that it was somehow a dirty book I shouldn't be reading.  I loved it (I recently reread it and was amazed at how much I missed the first few times -- truly a sign of great literature) and started to read all of his books I could get my hands on.

Vonnegut was ill-served by movies, however.  There was a very nice version of Slaughterhouse Five (which I may talk about here one of these days), but, generally, dramatized versions of his works were few, and came and went without attracting much notice. A version of Cat's Cradle was in development for years with nothing coming of it.

Mother Night was one of my favorite Vonnegut novels (and one of his most underrated).  It was perhaps his most realistic, the story of Howard Campbell (Nick Nolte), an American caught in Nazi Germany who becomes a Nazi propagandist on the behest of a mysterious US spy (John Goodman).  While broadcasting, he is told to insert phrases, pauses, and sneezes that are really coded messages to the underground.

Vonnegut once called it his only novel with a moral:  you must be careful what you pretend to be because in the end you are who you're pretending to be.

This is one of Nick Nolte's best roles.  He's perfect as the weary Campbell, a hunted criminal after the war is over, hiding out in New York and trying to make sense of the universe.

The movie follows the book pretty closely, both in plot and spirit.  Vonnegut even makes an appearance -- a cameo as a man walking down the street.  If you like Vonnegut at all, it's a film worth seeking out.

The Doberman Gang

(1972)
Directed by Byron Chudnow
Written by Louis Garfinkle and Frank Ray Perilli
Starring Byron Mabe, Hal Reed,  Julie Parrish,  Simmy Bow, and  JoJo D'Amore
IMDB Entry

There's a category of movies and TV shows that I sometimes use:  Better Than It Has Any Right To Be. It applies to films that on the surface seem undistinguished, with a cast of unknowns, a silly story line, routine direction, etc. Yet, even though all the elements seem wrong, somehow it manages to be entertaining.

A classic example is the TV show Sabrina the Teenage Witch. The writing was pedestrian, the characters not particularly funny or interesting, and they had the phoniest looking mechanical cat in the history of film.  But, if you sit through a half hour, you'll find you enjoyed it and even laughed from time to time..

8The Doberman Gang is Better Than It Has Any Right To Be.  It's a low budget film with a cast of unknowns -- some successful TV actors, but no stars and only Julie Parrish has ever had a major part (in the forgotten Good Morning World, a footnote because Goldie Hawn was a regular -- her first film or TV role).

The concept is interesting, at least.  A small-time crook decides the way to commit the perfect crime is to have it done by Dobermans.  Yes, the dogs.  After all, in 1972, Dobermans were considered the meanest of dogs (if they remade it, it might be The Pit Bull Gang). And Eddie Newton (Byron Mabe) figures they can be trained to rob a bank.

So he and a gang of small-time crooks steal a group of Dobermans (and one bulldog), and trains them.  The film shows the process, as well as the relationships among the crooks, as the dogs are taught what to do.

I probably would never have bothered with it, but my girlfriend at the time was a real dog lover, so anything with a dog in it got her attention.  And when you're dating, you'll sit through a lot of things that you wouldn't bother with otherwise.  Still, this was well worth the time, most notably for the twist at the end.

Director Byron Chudnow went on to direct The Daring Dobermans, The Amazing Dobermans, and Alex and the Doberman Gang(do I detect a pattern here?).  He was also credited with Kwaheri, which the Medveds skewered in "Son of the Golden Turkey Awards" for its circus of an ad campaign.

I can't vouch for the sequels, but if you're looking for a pleasant bit of fun, you can do much worse than The Doberman Gang.

Flying Blind (TV)

(1992)
Created by Richard Rosenstock
Starring Tea Leoni, Corey Parker, Michael Tucci, Marcus Giamatti, Clea Lewis
IMDB Entry

Flying Blind is remembered, if at all, for the star turn by Tea Leoni. Though she had had a role in A League of Their Own, this put her on the map.

Technically, she wasn't the star.  Flying Blind was about Neil Barash (Corey Parker), a somewhat repressed young man in a dull job who meets up with Alicia (Leoni). She has to pretend she's dating someone to keep away an old boyfriend, and chooses Neil, who's sitting alone in a restaurant. 

Alicia is smart, sexy, and uninhibited -- Neil's complete opposite.  Of course, in TV and romantic comedies, opposites attract. The two become a couple, but he's flying blind -- Alicia is spontaneous and moves in circles Neil never knew about.

Leoni is spectacular.  She's the type of woman most nerds dream of -- and know they're never going to get.  She's had many relationships, often with rich handsome men, and Neil is never sure where they stand, and always walking on eggshells, afraid that he can't measure up to her past and present.

Parker is good as the slightly neurotic lead character.  Michael Tucci plays Neil's father, who also finds it hard to accept the relationship.  Marcus Giamatti is especially funny as Ted Sharperson (the name's ironic), Neil's go-getting co-worker.

There were a few nice guest turns, most notably Peter Boyle as Alicia's CIA agent father, whose life makes her whirlwind look sedate, Thomas Haden Church as Alicia's ex-boyfriend, and Charles Rocket as her ex-husband.

The show had an odd style, with long, drawn out punch lines.  They were very funny, but the humor came from the amount of detail and description in the joke, and the style put some people off.  It also changed direction in mid-stream, as Neil moved from a mundane job to working in a small-time movie studio (with Mary Woronov as his boss).  I get the feeling they were trying different things to help the ratings.  It didn't help, and the show was cancelled.

In the final episode, Neil and Alicia break up -- but they meet six months later and it's clear things aren't over yet.

Creator Richard Rosenstock went on to work on several successful TV shows, including Friends, Arrested Development, Family Guy, Will and Grace, and The King of Queens.One of the writers, Linwood Boomer, later created Malcolm in the Middle.

Corey Parker has worked in TV since, though not consistently and not as a lead.

Leoni used the role as a breakthrough and has been working regularly, with good roles in Flirting with Disaster, Spanglish and other films.  Alas, she suffered the fate of too many women in Hollywood once they turn thirty:  switching from romantic to "mommy" roles even though she still looked good enough to play romantic roles. But whenever I see her, I think of Alicia.

Emmitt Rhodes (music)

(1971)
Emitt Rhodes -- all instruments

When I decided to branch out "Great but Forgotten" to include music and other things the first thing that come to mind was Emitt Rhodes.

Rhodes was a surprising talent who came out with a promising album in 1971. He had been with a group called Merry-Go-Round, which had a minor local hit before breaking up.  Like Paul McCartney, Rhodes went into a home studio and emerged with an album where he played all the instruments himself; he didn't even have Linda to help with vocals.

The McCartney parallel goes further.  There is a certain similarity in their voices, for one. Both were able to write catchy pop tunes, and if McCartney is undeniably better, Rhodes is following honorably in his footsteps.

There isn't a song on the album that couldn't have been a hit single and it's mysterious that he never had one.  Songs like "Fresh as a Daisy," "She's Such a Beauty," "Lullaby," "With My Face on the Floor," and "Live Till You Die" are catchy and infectious melodies. You could almost imagine the Beatles doing something like this.  He was even called "The American Paul McCartney" -- a bit of hyperbole, of course, but with a grain of truth (at about the same time, a young musician was being billed "The American Elton John," but he did a bit better -- Billy Joel).

Rhodes's problem was his record company.  He was signed to ABC-Dunhill records (we used to call it ABC-Dunghill for the quality of their releases), who fine printed him to death.  They insisted he tour.  Usually a good idea, only Rhodes played all instruments himself and didn't have a band.  Then, they required he produce an album every six months.  Awfully hard with you do everything yourself, don't have a band, and are supposed to be out touring. Then they sued him for not living up to his contract.

If he had been signed to a label with a bit of common sense, they would have nurtured hit talent and give him some time between albums.  But they didn't.  His follow-up to Emitt Rhodes, entitled Mirror, was, inevitably, a disappointment. He was eventually dropped and stopped putting out music.

Most of his music has been forgotten, and the album is not easily found (eBay only shows expensive Japanese imports).  But sometimes, someone remembers:  his "Lullaby" -- a beautiful little love song -- showed up on the sound track to The Royal Tennenbaums. He's an artist that deserves more respect, and, at the very release, a reissue of the CD.

The Last Waltz

(1978)
Directed by Martin Scorsese
Starring:  The Band (Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Levon Helm, Richard Manual, and Garth Hudson), Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Eric Clapton, Muddy Waters, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Paul Butterfield, Neil Diamond, Dr. John, Emmylou Harris, Ronnie Hawkins, the Staples Singers, Ringo Starr, Martin Scorsese, and Ron Wood
IMDB Entry

The greatest rock concert movie ever (as the cast list shows).

The Band was one of the biggest of rock groups in the late 60s and early 70s, but are surprisingly obscure today.  They started out as a backup band for rocker Ronnie Hawkins, but were thrust into the spotlight when Bob Dylan asked them to join him on stage when he went electric. When Dylan had his motorcycle accident, the group got together in a house in Woodstock and recorded some songs; the album "Music from Big Pink," was a classic.  The follow up "The Band," made them into stars -- reluctant ones, but stars nonetheless.

In 1977, songwriter Robbie Robertson decided to call it quits and the group performed in a special farewell concert, and asked a few of their friends to perform with them. They also asked Martin Scorsese to direct.  Scorsese had already established himself as one of Hollywood's top directors, but he knew his rock and roll (he had worked as editor and second unit director on Woodstock, the second greatest rock concert movie).

Scorsese appears in the film, interviewing the Band and talking with its members. The interviews are not very in-depth; Scorsese is a better director than interviewer.  But I've always had the suspicion that his appearance here had some influence on the creation of the character of Martin DiBergi, "director" of This is Spinal Tap (a look at the IMDB indicates this might be so).

But the movie is about the music. The Band plays most of the best-known songs: "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," "The Weight, "Stage Fright," "Up On Cripple Creek," "The Shape I'm In," and "Ophelia," among others.  There are also some new studio songs that are just as good.

But the guest stars are what really shines.  Usually, one-time all-star conglomerations suffer from everyone being too respectful to cut loose, but here each musician has his or her own time in the spotlight.  And the Band started out as a backing band, so they knew how to let the star take over.

Some of the more memorable songs include Muddy Waters's singing "Mannish Boy" as though he invented the blues single-handedly, Eric Clapton performing "Further on Down the Road" and playing amazing riffs as though he wasn't just warming up. Joni Mitchell does a terrific version of "Coyote," Neil Young performs "Helpless," Van Morrison shows his stuff with "Caravan," and, of course Bob Dylan is given a special spot in the limelight.

The Band then went their separate ways.  Levon Helm -- drummer and singer for "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" who thought breaking up the group was a bad idea -- tried a little acting (he played Loretta Lynn's father in Coal Miner's Daughter), as did Robertson (in the great little film,Carney). But the group never reformed.

The odd thing is how a group this well known has slipped of the radar, but the answer is simple:  The Band never had a hit single.  Their albums did fine:  four in the Billboard top ten, but the best they ever did with a single release was #25 for "Up on Cripple Creek."  (The most successful chart hit was when Joan Baez's rather bland and inferior version of "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" made it to #3).  Thus, they have no presence on "Classic Rock" radio.  Occasionally, you may hear "The Weight" (it was recently used in a wireless phone commercial and has been featured in quite a few movies), but nothing else.  It's one of the major gaps in "Classic Rock" (the other being Traffic).

But don't bemoan.  Listen to the concert on either DVD or CD and listen as the Band begins to play.

Support Your Local Sheriff!

(1969)
Directed by Burt Kennedy
Written by William Bowers
Starring James Garner, Joan Hackett, Jack Elam, Walter Brennan, Bruce Dern, Harry Morgan, Henry Jones
IMDB Entry

It's hard not to like James Garner.  He ambles on the screen with that easygoing walk and crooked smile and charms the sox off the audience. And he gets to use all his charm -- and then some  -- in the comedy western Support Your Local Sheriff.

The setup is simple:  Gold is discovered in a frontier town.  Jason McCullough (Garner), who is "just passing through on my way to Australia," is persuaded to become sheriff and clean up the town.  McCullough may be the fastest gun in the west (though he doesn't think that means very much).  But he is smarter than anyone else in the town, especially Pa Danby (Walter Brennan) and his son Joe (Bruce Dern).

Director Burt Kennedy and screenwriter William Bowers were old hands at making westerns, so knew enough about the genre to play with all the cliches. For instance, when McCullough arrests Joe for murder, there's one problem:  there are no bars on the jail.  McCullough draws a line with chalk where the bars should go, then drips red paint.  When he brings Joe in, he tells him to stay behind the line.  "Are you crazy?" asks Joe.  Then he sees the red paint.  "What is that red stuff all over the floor there?"  "Uh oh," says McCullough.  "That's the poor fella that crossed the line earlier today." Joe stays put.

And when Pa Denby goes to spring Joe, McCullough faces him with a ploy directly out of Bugs Bunny. 

Similarly, McCullough's demonstration of his shooting ability for the town fathers will bring you a smile whenever you think about it.

The role seems tailor-made for Garner, and he makes the most of every line and situation, with a straightforward charm that cuts through the plots others have for him.

Just as impressive is Jack Elam as his deputy Jake, who has just been promoted from shoveling horse... working around the stable. This was a milestone part for Elam; prior to it, he usually played heavies and henchmen.  The movie helped start a second career as comic sidekicks (even starring in a TV show The Texas Wheelers).  He makes a perfect foil to Garner.

Walter Brennan is always worth seeing, and Bruce Dern is good as the especially dumb Joe.  Joan Hackett plays Garner's love interest, who keeps trying to impress the sheriff, but ends up taking pratfalls each time.  (The title, by the way, is a parody of a bumper sticker slogan of the time, Support Your Local Police, used by people who weren't happy with the social changes of the 60s.)

Kennedy, Garner, and Elam collaborated for Support Your Local Gunfighter. It's not a sequel -- the characters are different -- but it has the same easygoing comic charm.  Kennedy also did one of the better made for TV movies, Shootout in a One-Dog Townand kept active directing (mostly westerns) until his death in 2001.

Support Your Local Sheriff! is among the best and wittiest of all comedy westerns and well worth seeking out.

200 Motels

(1971)
Directed by Tony Palmer and Frank Zappa
Starring Ringo Starr, Theodore Bikel, Frank Zappa, Mark Volman, Howard Kaylan, Keith Moon (as a nun), Martin Lickert, Janet Ferguson, Lucy Offerall, and various members and groupies of the Mothers of Invention.
IMDB Entry

OK.  The film is a mess.  But what a mess!

I became a fan of Frank Zappa in the early 70s, when I go a copy of We're Only In It For the Money. I liked humorous music, and loved Zappa's anarchistic take on American life.  So I went out and paid more than I should for Freak Out and then started picking up albums by Zappa and the Mothers as I could find them. 

But Zappa and the Mothers (the "of Invention" was added by the record company) were more than just a comedy group.  Zappa was a very talented and ambitious composer, often looking toward modern classical music as inspiration.  He was also a keen social observer.  The more you look into his work, the more you realize he was something greater than just a rock songwriter.

And when I heard they were doing a movie, I was there.

This was when Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan were with the group.  Volman and Kaylan were original members of the Turtles, one of the original feel-good rock groups (ironic note:  on Freak Out!, Zappa derisively quoted a music executive who wanted to make the Mothers as big as the Turtles).  They brought a sensibility to the Mothers that was even wackier and more risqué than ever before.

The movie was made on video.  Nowadays, this isn't unusual, but back in 1971 it was.  Tony Palmer, a British TV director, directed the film's visuals, and he relied on the techniques of cutting edge video artists of the time -- Nam June Paik, William Wegman (yes, the dog guy -- his video work in the 60s is where he started), Ed Emshwiller. This allowed for some great (and cheap) psychedelic effects -- colors wrapping around people, ultra sharp visuals, chroma keys, animated segments (see below) etc.  It was perfect for the psychedelic era.

Zappa himself directed the actors -- though the term "directing" should be used very loosely.  Only Theodore Bickel was really a professional actor (and seemed completely bewildered by everything going on). Ringo Starr, of course, had an acting career, but the rest of the cast were just members and groupies of the band.  Some had even less experience:  Martin Lickert was Ringo Starr's chauffer, a last-minute replacement for a musician who quit the group.  He got the part when Zappa said that it would go to the next person who came into the room; it was Lickert, who was getting a pack of cigarettes for Ringo (he actually acquitted himself well). 

The story is supposedly how life was on the road for the Mothers, with Lickert being tempted by Bikel (as the devil) to leave the group, but it's too free-form to even being to summarize (though this site tries and manages quite well).  It was recorded live -- no lipsyching -- with all-original music by Zappa.  There are plenty of in-jokes and self-referential humor (at one point, the members of the band want to help Lickert before Zappa finds out and makes him do it in the movie).

The movie is not for everyone; its base audience is hard-core Frank Zappa fans.  But visually it's amazing, and there is enough plot and good music (though, admitted, Zappa's music is often an acquired taste) to entertain anyone, especially if, like me, you love weirdness for its own sake.

The Stunt Man

(1980)
Directed by Richard Rush
Written by Lawrence B. Marcus (screenplay), Richard Rush (adaptation), Paul Brodeur (novel)
Starring  Peter O'Toole, Steve Railsback, Barbara Hershey, Alan Garfield, Charles Bail
IMDB Entry

As you might guess, I love movies, so I'm a sucker for movies about moviemaking.  And by far and away the best is The Stunt Man.

How good?  Well, the first time I saw it, they showed two reels out of order.  It made the entire plot more than a tad confusing, but I still loved it.  (It wasn't until I was leaving the theater that I swapped the sections of the film in my mind to get the plot straight.)

The Stunt Man is the story of the filming of a World War I epic, being directed by Eli Cross (Peter O'Toole).  Cross is a madman artist, someone who is not beneath playing games with actors, stuntmen, and passers-by in order to get the effects he wants.  It's hard to see on the image, but the poster for the film depicts O'Toole as a film director with a devil's tail, which is quite appropriate.  Cross does have a bit of satanic madness to him.

Cameron (Steve Railsback) is a Vietnam vet with a past who unknowingly stumbles upon the set, and accidentally causes the death of a stuntman during a stunt.  Cross dragoons him into replacing the dead man in a stunt that requires he crash a car into water, and takes Cameron under his wing, telling him about filmmaking with the immortal line, "If God could do the tricks that we can do he'd be a happy man!"  But can Cross be trusted?

Cameron is never sure.  One of my favorite moments in the film is when he's being briefed about his stunt. Chuck Barton (Charles Bail) is telling him that, as the car sinks, Cameron will need to take a hit from the air tank under the car seat.  Cameron reaches for it, but it's not there.  "Don't worry," said Barton.  "It will be there."  But will it?

This is one of Peter O'Toole's best roles.  His Eli Cross is a fascinating, larger-than-life bravura character who dominates the film and whose presence enlivens every scene. Railsback plays what could be a cliché -- a Vietnam vet scarred by war -- and makes him a very sympathetic and likeable character.  Charles Bail (a stuntman himself) is also very good as the head stuntman who tries to show Cameron the rudiments of the trade.  And Barbara Hershey is memorable as the star of the film and love interest.

And though I rarely notice such things, the score by Dominic Frontiere is superb.  For years, whenever a movie found itself without a completed score for the theatrical trailer, there was a good chance they'd take music from The Stunt Man.

This was a labor of love by director Richard Rush.  He worked on the script, but it took him 9 years to get it filmed, and, as an insult, the studio refused to release it for another two years.  Finally, bullied by Rush, who evidently had it screened for one week in his native Seattle to great reviews and business, it was released. It picked up three Oscar nominations and a Golden Globe.

It was the pinnacle of Rush's career, alas.  It was 14 years before his next movie, The Color of Night, which was not so well received. But The Stunt Man is essential viewing for anyone who wants to see movies about moviemaking, or anyone who loves the great offbeat performances that Peter O'Toole can give so effortlessly.

Wish You Were Here (TV)

(1973)
Created by Steven Bawo.
Starring Lew Schneider
IMDB Entry

For awhile in the late 80s and early 90s, the networks experimented with premiering new TV series for limited runs in the summer, with the hope that they might catch on under the lesser competition.  Some did (Northern Exposure, The Seinfeld Chronicles), but most came and went without attracting the slightest notice (Remember Arresting Behavior?  I didn't think so.)

Wish You Were Here was one of these. I started watching because if its pedigree:  Robert Altman was the producer.  I love Altman's work, and, figured it might have some of the quirkiness that I like so much.  I was not disappointed (in researching this, I've discovered that it was a different Robert Altman).

Lew Schneider starred as Donny Cogswell, who has just gotten a new video camera.  And as he takes it to work, he tapes himself being fired from his job as a stockbroker.  So he decides to just pack everything in and go off to Europe. Each week, he sends home a tape of his adventures.

The structure of the show is set from the first episode:  someone receives the videotape and plays it.  We see what Donny is doing, and the reaction of the viewer.  For instance, in the premiere, it is his ex-girlfriend watching, along with her new boyfriend, who she tells not to be jealous (though by the end, he has reason to -- she seems to have second thoughts about dumping Donny).

Another fine episode is when Donny visits his grandfather's home village in the Balkans, only to spit upon when he mentions his name.  His grandfather and the family watch stoically as he tries to get to the bottom of the contempt, knowing the answer, but keeping it secret.

Schneider is terrific as Donny. He was compared to Tom Hanks, and has a nice easygoing charm, which is helpful since he is the only recurring character. He acts infrequently, and seems to have spent more time producing, being listed as a co-producer of Everybody Loves Raymond.  (He was a lot less goofy looking back in 1990, but I guess working on Raymond does that to you.)  I would like to have seen him in other roles.

Part of the reason for the videotaping was to save costs.  The European scenes were all on location, but with a single cameraman and no need for lighting or makeup, it could be done very cheaply on location. 

The show ran six episodes. Some are uneven (one was a particularly bad Casablanca spoof).  I could also see problems with a long run; how many people can Donny send videos to?  But the show definitely was well worth seeing.

Targets

(1968)
Directed by Peter Bogdanovich
Written by Peter Bogdanovich (story and screenoplay), Polly Platt (story)
Starring Boris Karloff, Tim O'Kelly, Nancy Hsueh, Peter Bogdonovich, and, if you look closely, Jack Nicholson

Peter Bogdanovich flashed across the film director's sky like a meteor.  He started out as a movie critic, probably the only one in the US who went from writing reviews about films to actually shooting them.  In the late 60s, he flashed across moviegoers' consciousness with The Last Picture Shore, What Up Doc?,and Paper Moon.  Then came his notorious flop, At Long Last Love, and he was quickly forgotten.  Sure he's done some good films since then, but he was reduced to the type of filmmaker that gets some good reviews and is forgotten by the public.

Targets was his first film (not counting Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Woman, where he got hired to direct for Roger Corman and didn't use his real name).  It was also one of Boris Karloff's final films (his last US screen appearance).  As I have mentioned before, I'm a fan of Karloff, and this is certainly one of his best  and most atypical roles.

Karloff plays . . . well, himself.  Byron Orlok is an old time horror movie actor making a promotional appearance at a drive-in for his latest horror film (the film-within-the-film took footage from The Tingler, and Nicholson can be seen in the clips).  He is growing tired of being typecast, but also feels he's a dinosaur:  that his type of horror is no longer relevant.

And, it isn't.  Tim O'Kelly plays Bobby, who picks up a rifle and kills his family.  No reason is given for Bobby's rampage, though there are hints that his family life is devoid of any warmth. 

After he kills the family, Bobby makes himself a sniper's nest overlooking a busy highway and uses the cars for target practice.  And, eventually, he finds himself at the drive-in, behind the screen, shooting at the audience.

Bogdanovich wrote the screenplay, with Bobby obviously inspired by Charles "Texas Tower" Whitman.  He also played the part of Sammy Michaels, the director of the film within the film.  It was shot on a very tight budget; the only way he could afford Karloff was because Karloff owed two days of work to Corman and was willing to do a little more because he liked the script..

The film was certainly of its time and created a bit of a stir (it was first released a month after Martin Luther King was killed, and got general release a few months after Robert Kennedy was assassinated, though it was filmed a year earlier).  It still remains a chilling portrayal of a killer, and a fascinating homage to Karloff's entire career.  What's even better is that the two elements are integrated perfectly into a film well worth seeking out.