Who Can Turn The World Off With Her Smile?

Brief Thoughts on Inception

2012-02-19T15:23:00.000-08:00

Finally watched Christopher Nolan's Inception last night after only, y'know, about two years since it came out. And as my dad said afterward, "Just because a plot gets more and more complicated as it goes along doesn't automatically make it mind-blowing." Have to say I agree.

Not that it wasn't an effective movie. The performances were all quite good, the score was unique and powerful for all its pounding insistency, and yeah, the special effects were amazing--but we've come to the point in moviemaking where I, at least, am not that bowled over by amazing special effects anymore. Compared to the days of stop-animation and the hyper-stylized architecture of expressionism, computers make something like floating around a hotel room and skyscrapers disobeying the laws of physics fairly easy to accomplish.

But it's really that plot that gets me. Man. Frankly, the greatest stories are those with simple foundations, where the twists and turns don't grow from twists and turns already embedded in the storyline. By the time the movie was over, I felt far more exhausted than impressed. Maybe my brain was just too feeble to properly appreciate the profound beauty of it all, or something. But Nolan kept the pace so bullet-fast, which admittedly made the 2 hours and something minutes go by relatively quickly and also captured that skitterish free-falling nature we sometimes have in dreams, but it lacked that opposite feeling we sometimes experience in dreams--something almost primitive and deep, where time doesn't exist at all.

Nolan tries for that eerie sensation in the scenes with Mal and Cobb, but here the quick pace works against him, since we never for one moment feel like the subconscious is stretching out to a blissful 50 years--a period of time that some film-makers like Wim Wenders can indeed capture (not that I'm a huge fan of it when Wenders does it). Instead, the pacing in Inception reduces these flashbacks to nothing more in our imagination than what we see onscreen, which is Leonardo DiCaprio quickly telling Ellen Page about it while some special effects rapidly fill in his and Mal's world for us while he talks.

And Nolan is also a little too much in love with the plot at expense of the characters. Despite the good performances, we're so constantly having the plot explained to us that even Cobb's tragic past with Mal isn't enough to make him or anyone else all that likable or relatable. That might not always be necessary in an action film of this nature, but if making the characters recognizable human beings wasn't Nolan's intention, why add Mal at all? Her scenes certainly tugged at the heart-strings, but never enough to make us forget that Cobb's ensemble is doing some pretty shallow, messed up things to poor Fischer. Thus I ended up dismissing the Cobbs as pretty self-centered, delusional people, even outside Mal's madness. Certainly Nolan was trying to paint them both as flawed, but his attempt to make them redeemable through their great love for each other never really struck home with me.

Maybe that's what the ambiguous, "is it all a dream" ending was for--perhaps Cobb doesn't get off scot-free after duping a grieving man with only the assurance from a robber baron that it was "the right thing to do." And hell, maybe Cobb deserves to be trapped in a phony paradise of his own making. But again, by the end, all the effort I put into pretending I knew what was going on in the ever-expanding, ever-verbose plot sapped me of any interest in his character, or anyone else's.

Was it a bad movie? No, not really. Inception was competently made, acted, and slickly stylish. But its ludicrous self-seriousness never hit me in that internal, nightmarish place where many film-goers long to be hit when watching material like this.

But man, I really did like that score.

Unsung Movie Star Romances

2012-02-13T17:44:00.000-08:00

Ick, Valentine's Day, am I right? Aside from the potential for candy, it's an icky, icky holiday. Love. Gross.

Once again, classic cinema in all its shiny glory makes love and romance so much more appealing than in reality. No saliva or holding back bodily functions for dear life up on the silver screen!

As for real-life movie star love stories, lots has deservedly been said of Gable and Lombard, Olivier and Leigh, Burton and Taylor, Sinatra and Gardner, Newman and Woodward, Harpo and that picture of a horse he carries around in Animal Crackers.

However, there are two great tear-jerk romances in celebrity history that always gut me but don't seem to be talked about that much.

The first is Charles Boyer and Pat Paterson.

It was the classic opposites attract situation, apparently. He was the rising star with a liquid French accent and brooding eyes; she a tiny, piquant B-Movie actress. In private life, he was withdrawn and bookish, she sociable and energetic. "British, self-deprecating, and merry, the vivacious Paterson offered the stick-in-the-mud Boyer a contrast of mood and a stable home environment" is the way Dan Callahan at Bright Lights Film Journal puts it. They met at one of the reserved Boyer's rare appearances at a Hollywood party in the early 1930s, and married a few weeks later in 1934.

Boyer, though known onscreen as that vaguely sinister lover who inspired Pepe Le Pew's amorous antics, became better known among his co-workers as one of those rare monogamous husbands, preferring a quiet night in with his Pat to wild drug orgies with Buddy Ebsen and Margaret Hamilton (neither of those actors actually took part in any drug orgy that I'm aware of. I just thought it would be gross and hilarious to have their names and "drug orgies" in the same sentence).

Boyer and Paterson's relationship was a happy, functioning marriage until a true tragedy struck them in 1965. Their son Michael, who apparently inherited the volatile passionate streak that Boyer projected on camera, took his own life in a game of Russian Roulette after his fiancee left him. The death of their only child predictably shook the heartbroken parents, and though their love for each other never waned as sadly often happens in relationships where children are lost, they never again had that easygoing gaiety that made their marriage so delightful. Callahan quotes one of her friends as saying, "Pat, who was always winking and beaming and laughing, and flashing those pretty teeth. Now years could pass and she wouldn't smile." She became as naturally withdrawn as her husband, and through their mutual tragedy they probably grew even closer.

Then in the late '70s Pat became terminally ill with cancer. Boyer acted the chivalrous cavalier up to the end. He told her doctor never to let her know how seriously she was ill, and never let on himself, joking with her and pampering her on her deathbed. When she passed away in 1978, he quietly and calmly saw to the details of her funeral, contacting the necessary people, all the while genial and collected.

Then two days later he killed himself, overdosing on barbituates.

Many actors will laugh off their screen image, saying something along the lines of, "Everyone wishes they were Cary Grant. I wish I was Cary Grant." But more often than not, you get the impression that if an actor is inspiring and convincing enough in a consistent character type, well, maybe there's some truth there after all. Boyer was no Lothario in the traditional sense depicted in many of his movies, but his devotion to Pat and final desperate act speaks volumes about the rich, deep passion he had.

Less overtly tragic but still deeply sad and bittersweet is the relationship between Peter Cushing and Violet Helene Beck, known as Helen.

Married from 1943 until, again, her death in 1971, theirs was a remarkably beautiful, spiritual love. They met while Cushing was still a struggling actor on the London stage and was called in as a replacement for another actor. Beck, one of the cast members, recalled "a vision...I had never met him, yet I knew, deep in my deepest heart, we had been together before...and when he bent over one of [my hands] to kiss it, a faint and quite delightful waft of tobacco and lavender-water hung upon the air. I knew I would love him for the rest of my days--and beyond." (Remembering Helen)

Cushing, too, later spoke of that eerie sensation of feeling like he'd met her before, and was equally and immediately convinced as she that he loved her, and would always love her. From that moment on they were inseparable. Working his way up the stage ladder to movies, Cushing always had Helen by his side, encouraging and coaching him, helping him memorize lines and prepare for his various characters. "I owe it all to Helen. She was an actress and gave up her career for me. She made me what I am. She gave me a confidence I could never have found on my own" (Planet Paul). But the relationship was not a one-way street. Foreshadowing her fatal illness many years later, Beck was always of fragile health throughout their marriage, and Cushing (like Boyer with Pat) would be right there tending to her cheerfully through numerous bed-ridden days.

But their luck ran out in 1971, when Beck succumbed to emphysema, Peter by her side. So mad with grief was he that he confessed later to running up and down the stairs that night, trying to induce a heart attack. He was stopped from following Boyer's path of suicide only by a letter he found that Helen had written him before she died, telling him to keep on living and assuring him they would meet again when the time was right.

And so Cushing continued. He acted for many years to come, including his infamous role as one of the baddies in Star Wars. But still, until his death in 1994, he never felt complete again, and claimed he truly died with Helen.

Unlike Boyer, Cushing never exactly projected the romantic in his numerous Hammer and horror roles. Yet just like Boyer's passionate streak was obvious onscreen, there was always a delicate gentleness to Cushing's work, a gentleness and tenderness that obviously existed in his own character when you read what he had to say about his beloved wife:

"Since Helen passed on I can't find anything; the heart, quite simply, has gone out of everything. Time is interminable, the loneliness is almost unbearable, and the only thing that keeps me going is the knowledge that my dear Helen and I will be united again some day. To join Helen is my only ambition. You have my permission to publish that...really, you know, dear boy, it's all just killing time. Please say that." (Radio Times 1972, IMDb)

......

Well. Now that I've thoroughly depressed myself (and if I'm lucky, you, dear reader!), why don't we cheer things up with my favorite HAPPY love scene of all time? The movie is The Right Stuff, and the scene where John Glenn's wife Annie refuses to meet with Vice-President Lyndon Johnson on TV after her husband's launch in the spacecraft is cancelled--because she's nervous about her stutter. Johnson, enraged, gets them to "turn up the juice" on Glenn to talk his wife into playing ball. Johnson is head of the space program, after all, and Glenn is a highly patriotic man who looks up to his superiors and follows orders. So this is what he tells his rebellious wife, starting at 22:54--

Both John and Annie Glenn are still alive, by the way! And still married! And in love! And her stutter has improved! See? My blog can be a fun place to hang out!

One More Classic Film Survey Never Hurt Nobody

2012-02-06T14:49:00.000-08:00

Thank Internet for fellow bloggers who pull you out of writer's block with their addictive surveys. This one is brought to you by the lovely Rianna at Frankly, My Dear. I was going to post this before the weekend, but then moving and superbowling and sleeping happened instead. So nothin' like a Monday afternoon meme, amiright?

1. Favorite classic Disney?

Jungle Book counts as classic, right? 1967 isn't pushing it, is it? Art, story, characters, songs--Disney at its best and most frankly fun. I want to join Colonel Hahti's regiment.

Imperialism is fun when it's represented by elephants!

Runners-up are Lady and the Tramp and Sleeping Beauty. Dogs eating spaghetti and dresses changing colors from blue to pink are some of my favorite things.

2. Favorite film from the year 1939?

Man, to be different I really want to put At the Circus, but it's been so long since I've seen that one I can't remember much about it! Wait, was that the one with Lydia the Tattooed Lady?

...Checking YouTube....

Yes, it is!!

Okay, for that song alone I'll say At the Circus. And also because I want to be unique so badly and not say Gone with the Wind even though oh my God I love Vivien so much and Clark Gable can smile at me with his beautiful false teeth anytime and I'll swoon, every time.

3. Favorite Carole Lombard Screwball role?

Twentieth Century. No, wait, My Man Godfrey! D'ohhhh....

She was better in Godfrey, so I'll give that one the nod. Twentieth Century was principally John Barrymore's show, if you ask me--though Lombard was, as always, super swell in that one too. But she was so manically bright in My Man Godfrey that I was pretty sure she was going to explode and start spewing glittery crazy.

There's a reason she and Gracie are my favorite screwball heroines. Although whoever gave her those godawful bangs in Godfrey should have been dunked in that shower instead.

PS. don't you think if she were a few years younger, Amy Poehler would make a smashing Carole in a biopic? Both tiny blondes brimming with energy, and with zany, devilish expressions.

4. Favorite off screen couple? (It’s ok if it ended in divorce.)

I plan to talk about this more in-depth in a V-Day post, but for now I'll give you a sneak peek and say Charles Boyer and Pat Paterson.

Well, either them or Peter Cushing and Helen Beck. I'll talk about both couples on the fourteenth, so I'll save the reasoning for then. I'll just say this: I really like bittersweet love stories tinged with pathos. Because I'm a total creep.

5. Favorite pair of best friends? (i.e: Barbara Stanwyck and Joan Crawford)

Speaking of Cushing, I'll go with his friendship with Christopher Lee. I read somewhere that the last time they saw each other before Cushing passed away they sang a Jimmy Durante song together. Drac and Van Helsing. Singing Durante. Think about it. Love it.

6. Favorite actor with a mustache?

Sam Elliott. Because sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes the bar eats you.

7. Favorite blonde actress?

This one's difficult, and changes a lot. One month it'll be Tuesday Weld, the next Sue Lyon. After that, Elke Sommer. After that, Toby Wing. After that, Marion Marsh.

I think my overall answer is Michelle Pfeiffer, but right now I'll go with the recently departed Jill Haworth, since I discovered her not too long ago. She played one of the most adorable, likable one-time characters I've ever seen in a TV series, that of Cathy in a 1963 episode of the original Outer Limits called "The Sixth Finger". She was earnest, sweet, and uniquely drop-dead gorgeous.

The full episode is on YouTube here, and I'd recommend it to scifi, romance, and quirky British mining townfolk fans. Oh, and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. fans, too. You'll see.

8. Favorite pre-code?

Naughty, gaudy, bawdy, 42nd Street.

Well, look at that. I got a shot of Toby Wing in after all.

9. Which studio would you have liked to join?

Poor neglected Paramount! Get me some Lillian Roth/Thelma Todd roles in Marx Bros classics! (Count me out when you get to the MGM and Kitty Carlisle years. The boys were still funny, but that's about it).

10. Favorite common on screen pairing that SHOULD have gotten married?

Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr! They adored each other and he rubbed her feet!

Ha ha, I've made this look far dirtier than it actually is in context.

I love the stories about their working together for the first time on Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison. Mitchum was allegedly apprehensive about starring with a broad who had such a "Great Prim Lady" reputation, but all that changed on one of the first days of shooting when something went wrong and she cussed out John Huston. He about keeled over laughing.

11. Favorite I Love Lucy episode?

VItameatavegamin is Lucy at her funniest as a comedienne.

12. Out of these actresses which one do you like best: Lucille Ball, Ingrid Bergman, Natalie Wood, Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Greer Garson, or Katharine Hepburn?

Ho dang. Toss up between Kate and Ingrid...I'll go with Ingrid. It's that damn Swedish statuesque aura, it does elevate her so ethereally above us mortal women. And I'm calling it: most beautiful smile ever photographed, ever.

13. Shadowy film noir from the 1940’s or splashy colorful musicals from the 1950’s?

Well, depends. I'll take the worst noir over the worst musical, but the best musical over the best noir. The best musical, of course, being Singin' in the Rain. So just for that, I'll give the nod to musicals, which makes me feel less hardcore and mysterious than the image of myself I've built up in my head.

But whatevs:

14. Actor or actress with the best autograph (photo preferred).

I'm actually going with a writer, one George Bernard Shaw. Why? Because of what's hanging up on my parents' wall.

"I inscribe this volume to Mr. William Henry Crawford whom I do not know at the request of Mr. H. Plunket Woodgate whom I do not know, but who invokes the memory of Jim Penrose whom I remember very well."

G. Bernard Shaw

London

22nd Oct. 1931

This was bequeated to us by my mother's stepgrandma after said stepgrandma died. Apparently either she or my great-grandfather received this from a guy named William Henry Crawford, who knew a guy named H. Plunket Woodgate, who knew a guy named Jim Penrose, who knew a guy named George Bernard Shaw. So obviously, when Woodgate saw Shaw in a restaurant or something one day, he felt evoking the name of Penrose would yield positive results for one Mr. Crawford in the volume which is now lost somewhere in time--which did indeed yield positive results, since Shaw gave him the above autograph, summing up everything.

And now it's on our wall.

15. A baby (or childhood, or teenage) photo of either your favorite actress or actor (or both, if you’d like.)

Vivling.

Vertigoes

2012-01-22T14:04:00.000-08:00

***SOME SPOILERS FOR VERTIGO, OBSESSION, AND THE ARTIST, HOPEFULLY NOTHING TOO MAJOR***

Because yesterday I saw The Artist and Rachel's blog brought to my attention the Month of Vertigo blogathon going on at The Lady Eve's Reel Life, I've been thinking recently about mediums inspired by Hitchcock's trippy 1958 movie.

Most cinephiles already know Vertigo's plot, and could probably recite it backwards. We follow the deteriorating life and sanity of a once steady, sardonic detective (James Stewart in his greatest performance) who becomes crippled by vertigo and his guilt-induced obsession with a tortured femme named Madeleine. Madeleine, of course, is hardly anything more than a hallucinatory dream, first consumed by the conviction she is becoming her dead, mad ancestor Carlotta Valdez, then instead is replaced by the less mysterious and brassier Judy Barton, who merely acts out Madeleine's mannerisms and looks, in order to please the increasingly lizard-eyed, desperate Stewart.

No, I'm not going to re-type that summary backwards just to prove my point.

Vertigo's reputation might be doing better now than when it was first released some fifty-four years ago, but it's still a polarizing film. You can either be like me, and love it with the giddy abandon of a girl who always loves with a giddy abandon any stylish, well-acted film about high-flown love, obsession, and madness. Or you could be like my brother-in-law, and recall Vertigo as that overrated Hitchcock movie where James Stewart follows a car around for two hours.

Whether you dismiss Vertigo as overblown and draggy or embrace it for its ambience and impeccably executed melodrama, there's no denying the atmosphere, the music, the themes of Vertigo--driven so mad by lost love you become crazed with the need to recreate it--have inspired many. The first most direct homage came in 1976, with Brian DePalma's Obsession.

The movie drew a lot of angry criticism when it was released, most notably from the man himself, Alfred Hitchcock, who considered DePalma a cheap imitator. Many critics and filmgoers already labeled DePalma as such before Obsession even came out, so when the film was released they took it as confirmation of their opinions. The negative press and convoluted plot sunk the movie's chance of success.

Like many DePalma films, the movie may have started out with a similar Hitchcock vibe, but takes a more violent, kinkier turn--no small feat, considering Hitchcock's penchant for both. Cliff Robertson's Michael Courtland is a successful, happily married man, until his wife (Genevieve Bujold) and young daughter are kidnapped for ransom. Because he's manipulated by the police and his business partner (John Lithgow), he bungles the ransom and both wife and daughter end up murdered, incinerated in a car crash. Fast-forward many years later to Italy, where the broken and numb Courtland is on a business trip, and just happens to see a woman who looks exactly like his beloved lost wife....

The exact minutiae of the plot of course differ from Vertigo, which follows a shamed detective's love affair with a woman who he thinks is married to his friend, but the essential themes are the same: lost love, guilt, doubles, reincarnation maybe?, reveals, confessions, deceit, badda boom. The big plot twist at the end has even more...unsettling implications than Vertigo's, and maybe where DePalma slipped up was in not realizing this to the twist's full potential, and he glosses over the obvious ickiness. You might as well play up the ick-factor if you're going for it.

And yes, DePalma may have tried too hard copying the atmosphere of Vertigo, such as the dream-like cinematography by the renowned Vilmos Zsigmond, which includes replicating the infamous circling shot of the embracing couple at the movie's end. Yet this stealing of tricks does make the movie memorable, even if the stodgy characterizations and stylized shots keep the audience at a distance.

But the biggest coup for DePalma was securing Vertigo's original composer Bernard Herrmann to write Obsession's score. Herrmann and Hitchcock had apparently suffered a falling out at this point, so one can only imagine the glee Herrmann took creating Obsession's magnetic, delicately gorgeous score, whereas poor Hitch had to resort to such incongruous and brash compositions as the one Ron Goodwin wrote for 1972's awful Frenzy.

Vertigo's score may have been more powerful, sweeping, and tragic, and it will always rank as one of my favorite film scores of all time, but Obsession's music is more intricate, more subtle, more eerily beautiful. Both scores capture that terrifying feeling of love and humanity frozen by trauma, only whereas Vertigo's music throws you tumbling headfirst down that rabbit hole of tragedy, Obsession's teases you, rocks you back-and-forth gently as the madness simmers beneath the chords.

Because Bernard Herrmann is possibly the greatest movie composer of all time and Vertigo's score is a principal ingredient in why it's so memorable, there's no surprise that when people imitate Vertigo, often they imitate through music. Therefore, it's no coincidence some rock groups have taken to Vertigo's messy and dramatic storyline, maybe pulled in by Herrmann's hypnotic soundtrack.

Therefore, one of the best, trippiest songs to come out of the early '90s was "Carlotta Valdez," by one of the best, trippiest bands from the early '90s, Harvey Danger. Since like Vertigo Harvey Danger's songs are often melodramatic, brilliant, and eerie with cheeky knowing humor, the band is a perfect modern counterpart for the style and flair you get from Hitchcock's best. They get Vertigo's insanity and dark humor, and so they're ideal for commemorating the mysterious Carlotta.

More intense and perhaps more grating to the ear (though I still find the song appealing for all its gravelly punkishness) is the 1997 music video to Faith No More's "Last Cup of Sorrow." This might be my favorite music video ever. The ringing bells throughout the song remind me even of Franz Waxman's haunting score for Bride of Frankenstein, and the creepy tune goes well with this skewed visual retelling of Vertigo. Filling in for Novak is the stony-faced, radiant Jennifer Jason Leigh, and various members of the band play other key roles gone a little wrong and wickedly funny. See the hilarious stand-in for the nun at the end of the video, the stand-in for Carlotta in the dream sequence, and Leigh's punk-rock take on Bettie Page--a good homage draws from many different sources, after all.

And last but not least is the current controversy surrounding The Artist--a controversy, I think, created entirely by Kim Novak, apparently suffering from temporary Norma Desmond Syndrome. First of all, let me discuss a little what I thought of The Artist, a beautiful, fun movie that lived up to its hype, though not without its minor flaws. I felt like a little more character background was needed, such as finding out where Berenice Bejo's Peppy Miller came from, and I would have liked going more in-depth into the relationship between James Cromwell's touching chauffeur Clifton and Jean Dujardin's George Valentin, and Valentin's relationship with Uggie the dog. I know you're supposed to show and not tell (particularly in this movie), but a wee bit more backstory might have helped anchor it more. I also think the film lost its center a bit in focusing so much on the abasement and misery of Valentin once he has his fall from grace, that that section could have been tighter. And perhaps they shouldn't have dyed Penelope Ann Miller and Missi Pyle's hair platinum blonde and given them similar characters, because I was constantly getting them confused. Also, Malcolm McDowell? Totally wasted, I am afraid.

But as I said, these are minor nitpicks (sorry, Malcolm). The worst I was afraid of was that The Artist would be too "cute," which it certainly was in parts, but you forgave the movie because of the nonchalant yet rambunctious tone. And there were more than enough serious moments to counterbalance and contrast to the cute. The dream sequence where Valentin grows hysterical in his dressing room because of all the cascading sounds was chillingly brilliant, though I almost would have preferred it as not a dream, but as a surreal, stand-alone episode foreshadowing Valentin's future. Yet this moment has such a perfectly nightmarish tone that you experience Valentin's hysteria right there with him. And I enjoyed the subtle little nods to movies like Citizen Kane, such as when Valentin's standing backlighted against a projector, much like Kane's intrepid reporter, and we get the full view of Peppy's room full of Valentin's auctioned belongings, echoing the endless storeroom of Charles Foster Kane's abandoned objects at the end of that masterpiece.

You couldn't ask for more effective leads. I am now madly, irretrievably in love with Jean Dujardin, who looks like Gene Kelly and has his sparkle, but with an imposing, strong presence all his own. Berenice Bejo has a beautiful face created for the sole purpose of smiling, and is likably scrappy from the word go. To pull off this material, you need leads capable of personable comedy and realistic tragedy. Dujardin and Bejo excel at both.

So I really don't give a rat's ass if Kim Novak clutched her pearls in despair or that her monocle popped right out into her wine-glass because The Artist's composer Ludovic Bource quite legally bought the rights to Herrmann's Vertigo score for only one key scene where the music flowed perfectly with the tense action on-screen (culminating with the best use of the title card "BANG!" in cinematic history). But remind me, Kim. What do you think about it all?

""I want to report a rape. I feel as if my body -- or, at least my body of work -- has been violated by the movie, The Artist."

Uh-huh. Your body of work? Honey, you were great, but you replaced Vera Miles, fergawdssake. Obviously given Hitchcock's cavalier attitude toward his cattl--actors, I doubt he or anyone else connected with the movie would consider Vertigo Kim Novak's masterpiece. This isn't to belittle Novak's presence and chilling beauty, which is indeed part of what makes Vertigo such a classic--they really don't make faces, bodies, or presence like that anymore.

But not only does such an attitude show unearned pomposity on Novak's part, but I really don't see why we should let her "rape" comment slide just because she's a classic actress from Hollywood's Golden Age. After all, look at how Johnny Depp was attacked because of his comment in Vanity Fair, where he said constant paparazzi scrutiny feels, well, like rape. Both dumb comments, but Depp was absolutely crucified by the press and was subsequently contrite, whereas Novak hasn't even apologized and her rep is even defending Novak's use of the word. Uncool. Thankfully, I think we're past the point of cutting her slack based only on the unhealthy worship we attach to the surviving stars of yesteryear, letting them get away with insensitivity and ignorance.

Still, that more than half a century later Vertigo is causing artistic unrest is beyond neato. Love it or hate it, there's no denying that the peculiar tale met Hitchcock and Herrmann's unique showmanship and energy in exactly the right way to make it a timeless, unique piece that will continue to haunt and inspire many other mediums for many other years.

Amy Irving: The Most Honorable Horror Heroine of the '70s

2012-01-04T20:55:00.000-08:00

Some actors you have an unreasoning love for, and you can usually trace that love back to a handful of great characters they played. In the case of Amy Irving, it comes down to two for me: Sue Snell in Carrie (1976) and Gillian Bellaver in The Fury (1978). Both are Brian DePalma films, and both her characters are wholesome but troubled teens trying to do the right thing--failing miserably in most cases, but trying valiantly nonetheless. Oh, and both feature at their core innocent teens struggling with sinister telekinetic powers.

(I also love Amy Irving's voice work here and as Miss Kitty in Fievel Goes West. Lord, she's fabulous.)

Sue Snell is a great character. Saying she's Carrie's moral compass is too trite and broad, when instead she stands for anyone with a conscience seeing her greatest nightmare of guilt come true: the girl she hurt in the beginning destroys everyone but her, Sue. Therefore, Sue is left with the biggest case of undeserved survivor's guilt in history.

It troubled me at first when I'd read online all the discussion theorizing that Sue was actually out to get Carrie throughout the movie, and was in on popular bitch-troll Kris's plan to pour pig's blood all over the hapless Carrie from the beginning. Some believe DePalma left Sue's motives deliberately ambiguous.

Well, no, he didn't. The truth is Sue's a good girl at her core who did a bad thing at the beginning and is trying to make up for it. Thus she makes the Cinderella plans for Carrie, that despite all her efforts go awry in the worst way.

Like I said, I couldn't at first understand peoples' unwillingness to accept this, as if DePalma must have meant something more, when really, nothing to me could have been clearer that Sue's desire to atone. But having thought about Sue awhile, I think I understand the audience's problem with her. What the girls do to Carrie in the beginning is so monstrous--they display that total lack of human compassion most commonly found in swarms of teenage girls, a pack mentality of exposing and taunting a girl during her first period, naked in the shower, in circumstances where a human being couldn't be more vulnerable--that maybe audiences didn't want to accept Sue could be better than that deep down.

Because if so, then that means other people who view themselves better than that behavior could slip into that pack mentality as well, and that's an ugly truth to face.

That's why I love Sue Snell so much, along with Amy Irving's performance. Irving makes Sue so fresh and real and likable that we feel her guilt right to the bone. We aren't let off the hook. She refuses to disappear into bland nonchalance like the other girls, or externalize some animalistic hatred into even more traumatizing action, like Kris. Real rounded characters are such a rarity in the horror genre--and I'm sure many would say in most DePalma films--that Irving's Sue is almost devastating. That last scene in particular had me gulping in horror not only because of one of the most shocking "AAAUGH!" moments in movies, but because I was afraid what this moment meant for Sue--I really, really cared about her. Not just in that primal way we always fear for the human figure in peril during horror films, but because Sue was a real person to me. A real person I liked.

The Fury has more of the standard action thriller trappings than the teen-wonderland-nightmare zone that was Carrie, so once again we rely on Irving's presence to remind us of the human center in this tale. Less well-known than Carrie, The Fury nonetheless has the same theme of the trapped teenagers with super brain powers. The movie follows two interconnected stories: Kirk Douglas, straight out of the American Handbook for the Capable Action Hero, plays Peter Sandza, a retired agent out to rescue his telekinetic teenage son Robin from a corrupt agency run by John Cassavetes out to exploit Robin's powers. Meanwhile, teenager Gillian Bellaver struggles to come to grips with her own powers similar to Robin's--only to find herself caught between Peter's honorable efforts to use Gillian's psychic connection with Robin to find him and Cassavetes's scheming designs to replace the increasingly unstable Robin with her.

For my money, Irving's Gillian is more relatable than Carrie. This is no black mark against Carrie, or Sissy Spacek's superlative portrayal. But Carrie is such an ethereally pathetic and withdrawn creature, so washed out yet mystical as to seem wraith-like, that the horror we experience on her behalf is the horror we preserve for the Lillian Gishes of the world: creatures whose delicacy and fragility are what make us protective, not because we're necessarily like them.

Gillian is probably a lot prettier and more charming than us, but in a grounded way that like Sue still makes us feel like we know her and like her--like we could be her, if we were only so lucky to be that pretty and likable. Lots of "likes" there, but what are you gonna do? Here's another one: like Carrie, Gillian has problems connecting with her schoolmates and communicating with her mother, but she's not a social pariah and she handles herself well--plus, her mother's an uptight businesswoman who does love her despite her brittleness, unlike the outlandish nutjob Carrie's mother is. So when this movie's bitch-troll Cheryl mocks Gillian's power, Gillian's slowly slipping mask of social friendliness into miserable humiliation is all the more uncomfortable. Irving is absolutely excellent in this scene. She acts like a normal girl her age would act, crumbling away from the situation: "hey, c'mon, the joke's not funny anymore. I mean, I don't even know what I'm thinking most of the time, ha ha. No, please, lay off." She's so realistically vulnerable it hurts.

And we're not quite granted that evil but nonetheless satisfying sensation of retribution and release that comes in Carrie's prom scene of destruction. We almost do: a sneaky look of brutal triumph crosses Gillian's face when she says Cheryl's only so cruel because she's knocked up. But Gillian doesn't maintain Carrie's stoic violent streak for long: she's immediately contrite, and when Cheryl grabs her wrist demanding Gillian explain herself, Gillian pleads in wide-eyed quiet terror for Cheryl to release her because she knows, she senses what happens next --Cheryl's nose pours out blood like a geyser from touching the psychically volatile Gillian.

We almost feel great about this, except for that Gillian most certainly does not. She hates hurting people. That's what drives her, and that's her character's tragedy.

Again, it's easy for a character to repeatedly say and demonstrate they don't want to hurt others, but it's another thing entirely for a character to really make us see and feel that. Gillian does, Irving does. She's a very beautiful girl, and her wide, striking blue-gray eyes reveal a harrowed soul who wants what normal teenagers want, but more than that wants to keep the people around her safe. Her grounded acting and attitude puts us in her shoes, but her beauty--almost like a fairytale princess variation on the girl next door--and an indefinable charming air elevate her to the status of the angelic heroine worth fighting for and worth rooting for--again, not so much as to make us barf or detach from the story, thanks to the realism Irving brings to Gillian.

However, also like Sue, Irving's Gillian is not perfect. But unfortunately unlike Carrie, the viewer gets the impression anything imperfect about Gillian is not purposeful. She is made at times too hysterical, too "oh my god, oh my god," and although it's certainly not her fault that Robin's final attack tortures her psyche, her screaming from behind the hedge does bust her and Peter's cover. That makes us cringe somewhat--we'd like her to be a little bit stronger. After all, the fact she's a pawn, a prize to be won by both Cassavetes and Douglas, does make her a rather passive figure throughout a good chunk of the movie.

This, along with the film's erratic tone (jumping from action thriller to suspenseful fantasy horror moment to moment), keeps The Fury from being the classic Carrie was. Still, there are other great performances that make the movie a lot of twisted fun: Carrie Snodgress as the likably kooky nurse who hooks up with Peter and helps him free Gillian has a wonderfully spacey and bright quality, and Cassavetes turns the smarm all the way up to 11. And Douglas does a hell of a job, though again, he's such the untouchably skilled action hero and American tough guy that while we admire and root for him, he doesn't tear us apart like Irving does.

Amy Irving is sort of the '70s equivalent of Frances Dee to me: talented, beautiful, and sympathetic, but somehow--either in spite of or because of her understated qualities--she's never been a household name. Her apparently messy divorce with Stephen Spielberg probably didn't help, either. However, she's a steady worker, and has always been more devoted to the stage, anyways. She's unique because even though most stage actors transitioning to the screen usually take a few pictures before they establish a suitably less hammy rhythm when compared to what they were used to expressing onstage, Irving inhabits the underplayed, unflappably humane heroine expertly in her early roles.

Despite what I said above about The Fury's flaws, anything passive about Gillian disappears at the end. During the ridiculously campy yet delicious finale, where Gillian uses what I assume are the combined powers of Robin's unleashed fury and her own, I felt another kind of tingling horror altogether: oh, god, does this mean Gillian's been corrupted and driven mad like Robin? She triumphs, but at what cost? Again, thanks to Irving, we're not given the easy out of pondering this without any emotional involvement. Just as we feared for Sue's physical safety at the end of Carrie, we're more concerned about Gillian's soul at the end of The Fury.

That takes a good heroine and a good actress. Especially in a horror film, where character usually takes a backseat to gore and suspense.

Movie Meme for You and Me but mostly...Me

2011-12-28T16:19:00.000-08:00

"Shut up and deal."

The ever-delightful Rachel at Girl With the White Parasol has grown ever-deservedly more popular, reaching the enviable 50-follower mark. She's been tremendously supportive of my own blog and I'm thrilled she's been getting more blogosphere love lately! To celebrate, she's started a New Year's Movie Meme, which I'm...gonna do, basically.

And here it is!

1. What is your all-time favorite Grace Kelly costume?

I hate to be what's called on the fancy-pants internets a "sheep", since I'm sure many are going to pick this one, but you really can't beat the first number she wears in Rear Window.

Scan compliments of Doctor Macro

This Edith Head piece is not only my favorite Grace Kelly dress or favorite movie dress ever, but my favorite dress, period. I would wear that thing every which way: to the movies, a fancy restaurant, eating cheetos in bed....

And this is why I can't have nice things.

2. What classic film would you nominate for a remake?

I've expressed my disappointment in the 1967 version and speculated about what a '40s cast would have been like here, but I also wouldn't mind a modern take on Far From the Madding Crowd. Whether made at Merchant-Ivory or Miramax, whatever, if in the right hands it could be great (does Merchant-Ivory still make films? God, I suck at film buffing sometimes). So long as Colin Firth plays Boldwood, I'm down.

I really don't know who could play Bathsheba, though. I'm not seeing Gemma Arterton. I love Catherine Zeta-Jones, but you need someone more naive. Who's a striking brunette Brit in her early twenties who could do it these days?

3. Name your favorite femme fatale.

At first I was vacillating back and forth between Gene and Veronica, but Lauren Bacall's autobiography is basically what started me on the genre. So Baby gets it.

Again, compliments of Doctor Macro. I love this site. Love.

Although technically, does she really count as a "femme fatale?" I mean, she's got the smoky noir vibe down natch, but she's almost always revealed to be the palsy dame with a heart of gold. Still, you can't beat her style. And I will always refuse to believe she's about five years younger than I am in that picture.

4. Name the best movie with the word "heaven" in its title.

Even though I haven't seen it the whole way through yet (my life is riddled with half-finished books and movies, the fate that befalls those with attention spans of gnats), but I'll still give the nod to the forebodingly euphoric Heavenly Creatures from 1994.

Just in case Titanic makes you forget Kate Winslet can act, or Lord of the Rings makes you forget Peter Jackson can direct anything but blockbuster epics, see this. Disturbing, erotic, touching, beautiful, and terrifying.

Plus, it introduced me to Mario Lanza's "Donkey Serenade."

That's it, I'm watching the rest of this movie tonight. It's on Instant View, and there's no freaking excuse.

5. Describe the worst performance by a child actor that you’ve ever seen (since Laura gave me the idea).

Durr hee, kindly Rachel refers to my post, yup! The absolute worst? Well, I almost put Kenny from Gamera, but on reflection, that might have more to do with the awful Sandy Frank dubbing than anything else ("Gamera has a good haht!). And also, people don't mean to be obnoxious, it's just that they're all screwed up inside.

So I'll go instead with the twerpy, dimply, monstrous little shrub from the otherwise fascinating 1932 pre-code flick Three on a Match: Buster Phelps as Robert Kirkwood, Jr.

There's nothing that wasn't wretched about him: his constipated little voice screeching away, the urpy expressions, and if you're gonna cast Warren William in your movie, play up his stiff coldness, don't try to make him act like a loving father--not to this imp from hell. I saw this movie after reading FlickChick's apt write-up over at A Person in the Dark. She warned me of Phelps. Wise woman.

But hey, at least an evil Humphrey Bogart gets to menace him a little. Heh heh.

6. Who gets your vote for most tragic movie monster?

I've said it once, and I'll say it again: The Mummy. He's got the lost love, the tortured burying alive scene (which in the Hammer version involved getting his tongue cut out), and then walking around decaying and repulsive to the very vision of the woman he done got tortured for. If those aren't the makings of an epic blues song, what is?

"When you lose your lover you also lose your heart, and my dear, that's when your teardrops will start...."

Also very close in the running were both Andre Delambre and Seth Brundle from the two versions of The Fly now that I've see both, the ever bumbling, well-meaning Frankenstein Monster, and King Kong.

Poor little guys. Just because they're different!

7. What is the one Western that you would recommend to anybody?

Gah! Westerns. Um. John Ford's 1960 Sergeant Rutledge, I guess. Not because it's a good movie (which it isn't), but Ford combines a lot of interesting elements that you might not expect from a Western: race issues, sexual obsession, a murder mystery, courtroom drama. None of those are particularly well done, what with Woody Strode's titular African-American sergeant used more as a silently suffering symbol than an active presence in the movie, and Billie Burke's tone-deaf comedic performance. But fascinating, nonetheless.

8. Who is your ideal movie-viewing partner?

Someone with my dad's infectious laugh and knowledge of movie trivia, my mom's empathy for characters, my squeamishness (so they don't make fun of me), and someone with a calming aura if scenes get too tense.

9. Has a film ever made you want to change your life? If so, what was the film?

Toni Morrison books have, but I don't know about any particular movies--maybe if I ever saw the film version of Morrison's Beloved, that'd be it.

(Okay, I might have secretly toyed with the secret idea of becoming an FBI agent after watching Silence of the Lambs when I was younger. But deep down, I knew I'd never be able to do a pull-up, much less shoot a maniac wearing women's skin in a pitch-black basement).

10. Think of one performer that you truly love. Now think of one scene/movie/performance of theirs that is too uncomfortable for you to watch.

When Groucho is forced to be genuinely kind to Kitty Carlisle in A Night at the Opera. You know the scene in her cabin where she's crying and he gives her the note from Allan Jones and she actually...hugs him? I plug my ears and turn away every time.

Speaking of which....

11. On the flip side, think of one really good scene/performance/movie from a performer that you truly loathe.

The smarmy Allan Jones does a good job of disappearing into his beard and being funny with the rest of the lads when they arrive in America in A Night at the Opera, so bully for him, I guess.

That one scene is almost enough to redeem that close-up of his face singing "Alone" on the dock. Granted, he's not as funny as Harpo with the glass of water. But he doesn't embarrass himself, I guess is what I'm saying.

12. And finally, since it will be New Year's soon, do you have any movie or blogging-related resolutions for 2012?

Just watch more movies. I've been crazy busy this year, and too exhausted to fully commit to watching all the flicks I should. And the more exposed I am to fabulous blogs such as Rachel's, I realize how far behind I am on a lot of classics.

I haven't seen National Velvet yet! What's wrong with me?!

P.S. I don't know how to change the font in blogger, so that's why when I copy and pasted Rachel's questions over, sometimes my font jumps to her style and then back to mine. Um, sorry for the disorientedness. Blame Blogger for confusing the weak-minded. Yeah, not my fault AT ALL.

P.P.S. Never mind. I totally figured it out. I'm on top of things.

P.P.P.S. Happy New Year.

The Fly, 1958

2011-12-20T21:51:00.000-08:00

I sort of loved this movie. It had its flaws, but was overall unexpectedly touching, even heartbreaking. Directed by Kurt Neumann in 1958, the movie was a huge hit, and spawned sequels and the famous remake in 1986 directed by David Cronenberg.

As for this version, I'll first focus on the things I liked, then look at--no, you can't make me say it, you can't oh stop please don't make me nuuhhhhhh--the flies in the ointment. I feel so dirty....

Things I loved:

Vincent Price as the doomed man-fly's brother, Francois Delambre. Similar to his role in The Last Man On Earth, Price for all his distinctly and charmingly supercilious tones and elegance plays an honest, desperate man with a believable warmth that grounds the movie. As much as I've always loved him, and given my predilection toward haughty sophisticates, I've never quite crushed on Vincent (possibly because he's been parodied ad nauseum), but this is the closest I've come to getting all infatuated with our dear Vince. There's something about these haughty sophisticates playing well against type that gets at me. It's very much why Gordon Zellaby in Village of the Damned remains my favorite George Sanders role.

Even if you're banking on a gimmick like a giant man-fly, your movie's ever only as likable as your characters. Which leads me to the next part of the movie I liked: the man-fly's wife Helene, played by the lovely and capable Patricia Owens.

Though brand me a skeptic if you must, I don't think she's a natural redhead.

What's a refreshing surprise, particularly for this genre, is that the majority of the screentime goes to Helene. We see the events through her eyes, her flashback. After an extended period in the present at the beginning of the movie, we witness what drove her to (durr, SPOILER) kill her husband with a gigantic metal press...dealy...thing (you know, that thing? It's metal and crushes things? You know, the thing!).

Owens as Helene is not only likable, but sidesteps most of the usual tropes of the helpless heroine. Her lines are good and she has more sense than her husband the man-fly (okay, okay, his name is Andre and he's played by David Hedison who for some reason goes by Al Hedison in this). She's not afraid to frankly state she's nervous about her husband's new-fangled transporting invention, and that her darling might just be playing God a touch--though with the most benevolent intentions, of course.

She's got a head on her shoulders and up until the end where she does that usual screaming and fainting business, she controls her emotions enough to try saving her husband, while still showing believable fear and franticness.

What's especially moving about her character is another thing I loved about this movie: because Helene and Andre are established as a good, caring couple, without acting too sappy or trite, it makes his transformation and isolation in his lab all the more heartbreaking. I didn't expect to tear up at the end. But I did.

I was about undone at this scene, where he's losing his marbles to primitive fly instincts and scribbles furiously on the blackboard to his wife that he wants her to destroy him, but he can't resist one final message that I'm not ashamed to admit guts me:

Oh, man. And with his big ol' Dr. Strangelove fly-claw hidden away in his pocket so she doesn't have to see it...this shit is sad.

So, let's get our mind off it by nitpicking a few of the things that bugged me (this pun was unintentional and you can't prove otherwise don't judge me tools).

Remember how in my last post about child actors, I was all, "nothing's worse than watching an erudite, sophisticated man forced to succumb to the charms of a decidedly charmless child?" Yeah, well I got a huge dose of it here with Vincent Price acting the mushy uncle to little Charles Herbert's odious son of Mr. and Mrs. Man-Fly, Philippe. Luckily he's not in too many scenes, but he's far from endearing, and the ickiest wholesome lines are reserved for him. He basically ruins the ending of the movie, where he says, "Gee! I want to be an explorer just like my father!" Total cheesecake. Fitting for an Andy Hardy flick, not for scifi horror, thank you. However, it helps a little that when I looked up the plotline for the sequel, he does indeed follow his father's footsteps and becomes Man-Fly, Jr. Excellent.

Boy, I'm a bit of a curmudgeonly shit, aren't I? But the kid's just so blah. And the most American boy you could find, too, when the setting is in France.

Which leads to another thing that kind of got to me. The French setting. I mean, kudos, I guess, to sticking to author George Langelaan's original setting, but was it really necessary? I didn't notice the setting particularly effecting the events, which it doesn't have to, but it's still a little jarring. Because frankly, the kid's not the only one who seems so American--Owens, Hedison, and just the general vibe of the movie is very American.

And about that vibe: it's another thing that got to me. The whole direction and feel to the movie is very 1950s suburban Americana, and on one level it works in that the bland normality maybe hit home for Eisenhower American audiences that even nice, ordinary people like themselves can have terrible accidents like Andre. However, as much as I admired Owens' acting, the cheerful tone Neumann stuck to made her reactions at times unbelievable. Take that ending: she's been cleared of an insanity and murder charge, which is great and all, but as someone points out on the message board at IMDb, she's just so damn perky. The husband you adored is dead! You had to kill him! It was awful! You had to do it twice! His head! It was that of a fly's! You should be more traumatized, you doofus! I mean, thank you for not being a cringing damsel, but still! Show more of that emotional fragility from the really well done scene where you're trying to capture the fly with his head on it (seriously, that was a great sequence--very suspenseful and taut).

As for the big reveal where we see the fly head attached to the human body...well, let me put it this way. I've carped before about how there's too much CGI these days and not enough old-fashioned Jack Pierce makeup and so forth (probably haven't ranted too much about that here, but I have outloud in real life, where I also exist sometimes). But frankly, I wish I could take some of the improved special effects from today into the Way-Back Machine and improve the head, make it more realistic. I know I shouldn't demand too much from a low budget scifi film from the '50s, but I think they could have done better. The head really doesn't look like anything you couldn't get from a Halloween store, even back then.

I feel like the scene where she first sees his feeler is creepier. And by "feeler" I mean his fly-tentacle-claw, not anything double-intendre-y, you creeps.

HOWEVER. They more than made up for that disappointing effect with the infamous "Help me! Heeeelllp meee" scene. True, the itty-bitty chipmunk voice was borderline ridiculous, but there's nothing not disturbing and traumatic about these images:

HAPPY HOLIDAYS, EVERYONE!!!!

Child actors that don't make me want to gauge my eyes out

2011-12-10T13:23:00.000-08:00

My generous brother-in-law recently got the bright idea of splitting the cost of a really fancy HD TeeVee* with us and storing it at our house, an early Christmas present for all of us. So what's the first thing we watch with our magical new flatscreen, to take in the breathless realism of the images it can show us? The obvious thing to watch, of course: a Jurassic Park marathon!

I've only seen the first and second one on the TeeVee so far, and it's been years since I'd watched either one or the third movie. Some of my objective observations after all these years are: dinosaurs are great. I like dinosaurs, particularly the big ones that go "rawr". Laura Dern and Julianne Moore as the female leads in both films are so affable and bubbly I want to punch them. Sam Neill is hot. Despite the cuddly, contrite, Santa Claus vibe he gives off, John Hammond may just be cinema's greatest monster. You could almost forgive him his hubris in the first one because he acts a little sad and broken at the end, but then he jovially sends off four other people to Site B in the second movie, where one member gets torn in half by two T-Rexes. Does Hammond show any remorse for that? No. He just wears that damn shit-eating grin and monologues sappily about "life finding a way" at the end, reinstated as head of his company. Puh.

Other observations: Jeff Goldblum is very, very hot. Samuel L. Jackson is a badass no matter how paltry his role, or how awful his catchphrase "Hold onto your butt" is. He can smoke a damn cigarette in the office if he wants to, fuck you for throwing a shit-fit about it, it was only 1993. The T-Rexes remind me of my obsessive compulsive overweight German Shepherd mix. That searing glare the T-Rexes are famous for in the movies? Just like Milo when he's trying to get you to throw the toy throw the toy throw the toy.

Nothing will ever make me not like the first movie, and nothing will ever make me not ogle Goldblum in the second movie. However, the biggest observation I took away from both movies was how very, intensely much I hated the children. Hated. Did I look away when Samuel L. Jackson's arm fell on Laura Dern? No (I could also point out the veiled racism in a few of the first movie's scenes, but maybe that's for another post). Did I look away when that dude was ripped in half, or Peter Stormare (also pretty hot) almost got his lip ripped off by that Compy in the second? I kinda wanted to, but no.

Did I look away when Lex and Tim cuddle up to Neill's composed, James Mason-of-the-Outdoors Dr. Grant up in that tree, or when Goldblum's Ian Malcolm tells his daughter she's his inspiration? Hell yes I did.

The child characters bring out contrived, forced emotions from the adult actors, making the audience feel uncomfortable on their behalf--particularly when they're as curmudgeonly and British as Grant or as coolly intellectual and snarky as Malcolm. But because their characters are so dry and intelligent, we're supposed to find it endearing that their soft spots end up being shrill, whiny, do-nothing-but-endanger-everyone children. But it's not endearing. It's sugary despair, is what it is.

Not only are the child characters poorly written as needy stereotypes, they're poorly acted for the most part, too. Some of the blame might lie with the director, since I'm sure Spielberg had his eye mostly on this new-fangled CGI business than concerning himself with getting good performances out of the kids. Hayley Mills lookalike Ariana Richards as Lex fares the best even if she is shrill and monotonous, probably coming across all right because she was in her teens at that point. But Joseph Mazzello as Tim and Vanessa Lee Chester as Kelly in the sequel are hopeless--particularly Chester, whose character wasn't even in the second book, and so feels shoved in and out of place. And going by our count, Tim should have died at least three times. Yeah, yeah, realistically all the characters should have died at various points, but Tim was freaking zapped by a high-voltage electric fence. (Is he an undead gremlin boy? That could explain a lot about his insipid personality).

But then again, this shuddering disapproval is my usual reaction to children in movies. It's not because I don't like children in general. In reality they just make me awkward and nervous--I can't relate to them at all, though I too like dinosaurs. It's just that if children are in movies, it's almost always so they can serve as symbols of innocence (barring the ghostly little creepers in straight-up horror movies). And symbols of innocence almost always come off as phony and saccharine, no matter in what medium or in what form. Not to mention, children generally don't act very well.

HOWEVER. There are some that can. So to get in the holiday spirit or something (or whatever), here's a list of child actors that I actually admire.

Martin Stephens

Probably the best child actor I've ever seen, giving a lot of seasoned adults a run for their money. What's excellent about Village of the Damned and The Innocents is that both films exploit the problems people like me have with children-- not being able to relate to them, the inaccurate image of gleeful innocence the movies peddle of them--and make those qualities a terrifying cover of something far more sinister.

Particularly unsettling and preternaturally precocious is Stephens's performance as Miles in 1961's Innocents, one of the most beautiful and atmospheric horror films ever made, evocative of David Lynch's later works. It's a tour-de-force perfomance for the 12-year-old Stephens, an assured, confident display that subtly captures the corruption just simmering away beneath that bland, proper face.

Pamela Franklin

Admittedly I've only seen her as the second sibling Flora in The Innocents, and while she's not called upon to be as intense or nuanced as Stephens, hers is still a very delicate, unsettling performance in its own right. Who can forget her pert, pretty charm contrasted to her mesmerized stares into the distance and her haunting humming? Memorable.

Brigitte Fossey and Georges Poujouly in Jeux Interdits (Forbidden Games, 1952)

The most genuinely heartbreaking movie I've ever seen, with steady, unaffected performances from the young leads. The frank, touching, and at many times darkly comic tale concerns the somewhat morbid but still pure-intentioned coping methods of two children thrown together during the devastation of Germany's oncoming occupation of France during World War II--coping mechanisms that include swiping crosses from the church's graveyard to decorate their own graveyard for dead animals they find.

Fossey is about as adorable a child can be without making you projectile vomit, her angelic mannerisms acceptable because of their artless quality. Poujouly, as the poor, rustic farm boy who takes her in, has the unsentimental gravity to complement her dreamy spaciness, yet his fierce love and protectiveness of her is apparent, and will tear you apart at the end. Fossey turned into a lovely adult with a reasonably active career, but frustratingly Poujouly, despite making many films after, never seems to have made a name for himself, and died ten years ago (oh man, on my birthday, that sucks).

The movie is on Netflix Instant View, so I highly recommend it if you have an account and can cope with your tears.

Bobb'e J. Thompson

I was forced against my will to go see 2008's Role Models at the theater, but was pleasantly surprised at its lack of meanheartedness. Thompson as the raunchy, volatile Ronnie was a lot of fun and had a great delivery. I'm pleased he also plays Tracy's oft-neglected son Tracy, Jr. on 30 Rock, another good showcase for an intelligent, unsentimental kid to strut his acting skills. Too bad his presence constantly thwarts Tracy's efforts to tell an amazing stripper story, and that little Tracy, Jr. might just be trying to Menendez his father in order to inherit that porn video game money.

Chloe Moretz

Shamefully I must admit the fact that I have as yet to see her in a whole movie, just having seen bits and parts of her scenes in Kickass and Let Me In. I do plan to see the much lauded Hugo sometime soon. But speaking of 30 Rock, the episode she was in last season was my first complete Moretz experience, and she did not disappoint. I was amazed to find out she really was only fourteen. She has a brilliant comic timing, and loads of presence. And she has good taste in projects, projects that will help propel her into adult success, since few movies she's done really have CHILDREN'S FILM written in big block letters all over them. I look forward to her interpretation of Carolyn in Dark Shadows, since if anyone can pull off a younger version of Carolyn, it should be Moretz.

This isn't a complete list, but it's sort of redundant to point out stellar kid actors like Dakota Fanning or Jodie Foster in her Taxi Driver days. Just wanted to remind myself that not all cinematic moppets are twee and dimply. They can also be murderous vampires, malicious aliens, or possibly possessed. So there continues to be hope for this world. A happy holiday season to us all!

P.S. I'm working a seasonal position at the mall that's heating up in a big way as Christmas is nearing, so that's why I haven't been very active lately, and I might not be again until after the holidays. I'll still try to update as much as I can and comment on the many delightful blogs I follow, but if you hear scarce word from me, have a safe and good time eating holiday food and all that jazz!

* "TeeVee" to be pronounced in this case like Tom Servo does here at 0:40.

Look at me, I'm not Frances Dee

2011-11-26T17:50:00.000-08:00

A lot of stuff has been going on lately, the worst of which was having MY FREAKING PURSE STOLEN YESTERDAY AT THE MALL--CURSE YOU, BLACK FRIDAY, AND ALL THAT GOES WITH YOU! I DIDN'T EVEN WANT TO BE THERE, IF IT WASN'T FOR WORK!

Anyway, because of this I haven't been very active here as of late, and is also why I missed celebrating my blog's one year anniversary yesterday. So that explains the lack of pomp and fanfare you'd normally expect (I was planning elephants. Lots of 'em). But on a serious note, thank you to all the people who have supported this little corner of the interwebs! You know who you are! All a'yous.

So instead of blah-blahing about meself (I know, I'm disappointed too), here's a tribute to Frances Dee on what would have been her....102nd birthday? Really, calculator? Wow.

When most people discuss the pantheon of great stars from the '30s and '40s, they refer to the Harlows, Gables, Hepburns, Crawfords, Davises, Lombards, Coopers, Hayworths, etc. Compared to to the actors in this intimidating list, Dee is relatively obscure, despite her steady, active presence in many of those decades' most provoking films.

Part of the reason she's maybe not as well remembered as some of her contemporaries is that we have her unfortunate Good Girl image to contend with, due to roles like Meg in Little Women, Sally in Of Human Bondage (pictured above), and Amelia in Becky Sharp. She was a welcome, understated presence that complemented the powerhouse trio of Kate Heburn, Bette Davis, and Miriam Hopkins in those films. But unfortunately, "good girl" actors are often shrugged at and passed over these days when analyzing the hardboiled dames that were more popular in that era.

But really this label is an injustice to Dee. She could do so much more. In fact, her career was incredibly versatile for someone as under the radar as she. And she played versatility well, always natural, seldom (if ever) hamming it up. She was lascivious and intense as the masochistic heiress in Blood Money, a mostly forgotten 1932 thriller. She once corrected a friend who called her character a prostitute, saying, "I played a masochistic nymphomaniacal kleptomaniac, not a prostitute."

She was a hysterical but sympathetic young fiancee to a man cowed by his mother in the freudian Silver Cord, which starred her future husband Joel McCrea. She played the grounded, thankless, and sane role of the Jane Eyre-esque nurse in the Val Lewton-produced cult classic I Walked With a Zombie (highly underrated flick). (Turns out George Sanders' brother was also dreamy). And she turned that good girl image right on its head by playing the prim lead in 1934's Finishing School. She starts out prudish and saintly, only to let loose, get pregnant, and--shock of all shocks--escapes punishment and marries her man! A rare treat for this time period, and she imbues her character with a realistic depth. No hand-wringing, thank God. This movie was also another example of her playing well opposite a feisty femme, this time Ginger Rogers. Dee's likable, laid-back vibe meshed well with a lot of the energetic fireball actresses of the '30s.

And let's not forget that Dee was a hauntingly beautiful woman. Her looks, combined with her quiet but still palpable talent, won her fans from a few perceptive critics, such as James Agee and Pauline Kael (lessee, have I mentioned her before?). Agee called Dee "one of the very few women in movies who really had a face...and always used this translucent face with delicate and exciting talent." And Kael singled out Dee's small but memorable turn as Frederic March's beloved wife in the underrated war drama So Ends Our Night. Kael recalled that a close-up of her face in one heartbreaking sequence was "so beautiful...that her image stays with one, like Garbo's at the end of Queen Christina."

Her face was long, oval, and delicately proportioned, with large deep eyes, wide, well-shaped lips, and a thin nose; maybe her ethereal looks were too aristocratically classic for people craving scrappy little blondes like Harlow and Lombard. Her beauty could be a handicap in other ways, too. For a while she was a front-runner for Melanie in Gone With The Wind, and you can tell from her other performances that she (like de Havilland) could have captured the sweetness of Melanie without becoming saccharine or saucer-eyed. However, in the end David O. Selznick decided that her beauty would have detracted even from the divinely gorgeous Vivien Leigh. And of course, because Leigh came along (not to mention several other fiery candidates) her dream of playing Scarlett came to naught, as well.

But despite career set-backs, unfair good girl stigmas, and slight overshadowing from a more famous spouse, Dee remains beloved in the hearts of a few but fervent film buffs. She has a lovely website at Remembering Frances Dee, with several heart-stoppingly beautiful stills and an interview or two with one of her sons.

Did I mention my favorite role of hers? That of Mirabel Miller in the absolutely forgotten comedy The Gay Deception, from 1935. Speaking of her versatility, Dee had the makings of a great screwball comedienne, to stand alongside Carole, Jean, Myrna, Irene, and the rest. She rises far above her material, which is somewhat too cute and tried, about a cheeky foreign prince (Francis Lederer) masquerading as a bellhop in New York, courting a poor naive girl (Dee) who decides to blow her lottery earnings at the fanciest hotel in the big city. Dee inhabits the role of Mirabel, making her a soft, adorable bundle of nerves and frantic hope. Her delivery is spaced out and delightful, her short mass of brown hair windblown as she skitters about at full speed on her wiry frame, burdened by furs and silks. Never has an actress used her big burning eyes to better use than Dee when reacting to Lederer's antics or planning her own.

Here's a scene that showcases Dee's gentle harebrained ability, which shines out from the otherwise mediocre script.

A lass worth remembering, I think.

What the world needs now is Buster, sweet Buster

2011-11-18T21:41:00.000-08:00

My dad--who as always deserves mighty props for introducing Buster Keaton to me at a wee, impressionable age--recently posted this video on Twitter, with the following caption: "Sweet video of the greatest man of the 20th century. Sorry, Gandhi."

Oh god, that smile!

This video really gets to me because, as the maker of this video, theinnerlight87, says, "Many videos have been made documenting the stunts and acrobatic work of Buster Keaton - and rightly so - but we wanted to show Buster's expressive abilities, emotional depth, and prove the nickname "Stoneface" was not necessarily the most accurate."

Contemporary music set to classic footage can often give one the crankies, but with Buster it's possible to get away with it, because to me he has such a--and boy will this sound cliched--timeless quality about him. Like theinnerlight points out, he's more expressive than people realize. But he's expressive in a more modern way than you'd expect, subtle and underplayed (no handwringing or wide open eyes, like the silent star stereotype). Take the scene at 1:20, for me the single funniest shot in The General. Unfortunately you don't get what he's reacting to in this video, either one of the cars exploding or going off the rails, I can't remember which. He's completely living up to his Stoneface image, except for the blinking eyes. No double-takes, no spit-takes. Brilliant.

But hey, his stunts were great, too. So here's another video compilation, this time emphasizing his acropatics. It's set to an assortment of Radiohead songs. Pretty weird and random, but it becomes strangely touching as a tribute to Buster should be, even if it's highlighting his stunts instead of his acting:

hoverground

Another example of why if the tune is right and the images right, meshing music from a later time doesn't jar when making a tribute to someone like Buster on YouTube.

Pauline and Louise and Dorothy and Ronee

2011-11-13T21:24:00.000-08:00

Pauline Kael is my favorite critic, and Louise Brooks is up there as my favorite silent actress. I know neither are perfect; hell, the more I read Brian Kellow's biography, I learn just how much Kael could be an imperfect critic and human being (though I get the feeling Kellow's outlook on Kael is slightly biased toward the negative, at least where Kael as a person is concerned--and as she'd attest for herself, her personality is very much tied to her reviews).

However, there's no denying the impact they've both had on my own novice take on film criticism. I regularly consult Kael's 5001 Nights at the Movies and For Keeps looking for film recommendations or to help me ground my scattered musings about movies I've already seen. And the first time I read Brooks' Lulu in Hollywood, I about wigged out discovering how damnedly intelligent the femme Spock-haired flapper was, and the depths she could find in film and filmmaking that many professional critics either don't see or don't care to get into. Kael covers the sociology and rhythmic beat of movies, Brooks the insight into what went into them, having been there herself, knowing instinctively how it was done even after she left the scene. They both, to steal Kael's phrase, go "deeper" into movies than fellow critics following an already outlined school of thought. They both threw objectivity shamelessly out the window, bringing the full force of their personalities to their writing.

So how cool is it for me that it turns out Kael and Brooks were mutual fans of one another?

Once Kael finally, finally gets her start in the '60s, when she was well into her forties, and releases her book Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Kellow mentions as almost an aside that, oh, all along Kael's been corresponding with Ms. Brooks after an attempt to get her to speak at Berkeley. So Kael sends Brooks a copy of her book. The reply? Brooks proclaims her "the best film critic since Agee." Moreover, she also gives Kael what I believe the very best compliment you could give a woman of intellect:

"Your picture on the dust cover made me think of Dorothy Parker when she was young in a moment of happiness."

I'd say I'm about halfway through Kellow's book now, and decided to celebrate by finally watching Nashville (1975). Kael's review of the film, similar to her review of Last Tango in Paris, could be viewed as either one of her biggest achievements or her biggest folly. Her detractors take issue with the fact she released the review before the finished product could be screened for other critics, giving her an unfair advantage, and before director Robert Altman had made the final edit, all because she was over-eager to promote her protege Altman. Others laud her for her fervent enthusiasm, her unabashed championing for an unconventional film, proof of how seriously she believed in her preferred artform. She calls Nashville "an orgy without excess...you don't get drunk on images, you're not overpowered--you get elated."

It's annoying as hell to parrot another critic when you're trying--even in your wee little blog--to write some criticism of the piece yourself, but I'm still trying to work out what I thought of Nashville, and how I feel it stacks up to Kael's epic review. I liked the movie, that much I know. But at least after my first viewing--keep in mind that unlike Kael, I often need to see a movie more than once, because I can't always trust my initial responses--the only time I felt that elation she wrote of was when Ronee Blakley was singing, smiling, and breaking down as the vulnerable, otherworldly Loretta Lynn figure Barbara Jean.

Blakley might be my new favorite film personality--and this was from 36 years ago. And I really don't know what else to call her besides a personality, since she's an actress, singer, songwriter, and screenwriter in this one movie alone. Her low, full voice, combined with those burning eyes and that ecstatic, tragic smile, brings a unique magic to the movie; a believable magic, that soothes everyone around her even in her weaker, uglier moments.

So why isn't she as well known as Garland or Streisand, other personalities whose voices and acting are equal in their emotional throttling? Because unlike Streisand's characters or Garland herself, Blakley doesn't hide Barbara Jean's vulnerability and tottering mind, she soaks in it. Kael writes that "she's radiant, yet so breakable that it's hard to believe she has the strength to perform." This is true of Garland's later performances, but we could try desperately to convince ourselves otherwise, because Garland was trying to convince us otherwise, but we don't have that safety net with Barbara Jean. Kael goes on to describe Blakley's posture as "tipping to one side like the Japanese ladies carved in ivory." She's unreal and ethereal, yet her voice is so boomingly alive that it might have unnerved audiences too much. Yet I frankly adore her all the more for it.

Halloweenie

2011-10-31T11:44:00.000-07:00

Seeing as the 28th was coincidentally both the Friday before Halloween and my 24th birthday, my generous sister took her husband, friend, and yours truly to Jazzbones, a nifty little nightclub that had a wonderful band doing a tribute to Thriller, the lead singer dressed as Mario from the Mario Brothers.

So, of course, there were costumes.

Remember awhile back when I was all, I'm going as this guy/gal?

Well, here you are:

"Oh, miiighty warrior of great fighting stock! Might I enquire to ask, what's up, Doc?"

As my sister says, just replace the dingy couch with a fat white horse, and it'd be perfect. Sadly, I decided at the last minute it would probably be abusive to dye my morbidly obese dog white, so I had to just go with the couch here.

Unfortunately, I had no noble Siegfried/Elmer Fudd to be my date, but I made do anyways. Here are some more shots, because I know you're dying to get the whole effect. Note that as awesome as my companions' costumes were (Sister as Amber Dempsey, Bro-in-Law as Dr. Nick Riviera, and Friend as Awesome Dead Chick), I'm unsure how comfortable they'd be with me plastering their pictures all over my blog, so I'll just crop to show my cross-dressing wabbit self:

I was right all along. Me as a blonde? Pretty terrifying.

This trippy shot of me at JB was taken after I inbibed in a little too much giggle juice, and decided it would be super sexy and Gildaish to pull off my Bugs glove with my teeth and hold it saucily over my head. Total win, right?

"Gahhhhh I'm a shuu...shu...shupershtarrrr!!!11!"

Sorry for the graininess and bluriness in a few of the pics, I hope that doesn't ruin your Halloween in any way, shape, or form. The costume components, so you can know for your own future Bugs/Brunhilde ensemble, are as follows: long gray/brown t-shirt, pink miniskirt, spangly gold bikini to serve as one's armor, pink eyeshadow, bunny slippers (that look like actual bunny feet), long, braidable blonde wig, viking helmet, and a kind father willing to make cardboard orange wings for you. Duct tape is also key. And at the end of the night? Nobody born after 1957 or who isn't a cartoon geek will know who the hell you are. And isn't that what Halloween is all about?

"Oh, Bwunhilde, you'we so wuvwey."

"Yes, I know it. I can't help it."

Happy Last Day of October, starshines.

Re-Reading Dracula: Was Mina Murray Harker Always This Kickass?

2011-10-27T14:17:00.000-07:00

Because I don't remember being as impressed by her in middle school, the first time I read Dracula.

It's not that her character isn't problematic. She is, certainly. Mina is obviously a literary example of "The Cult of Domesticity," a campaign started by Queen Vee herself to make women feel special and empowered that they were so able to be protected and sheltered by the menfolk, while still finding time to do the darning. In the early sections with Lucy, Mina makes snide little remarks about the New Woman.

Some of the "New Women" writers will some day start an idea that men and women should be allowed to see each other asleep before proposing or accepting. But I suppose the "New Woman" won't condescend in future to accept. She will do the proposing herself. And a nice job she will make of it too!

The copy I picked up at the library is apparently from the Young Adult section, and has some "Questions for Discussion" in the back. One of them is "How are Mina Harker and Lucy Westenra similar? How are they different? Can you see how they are friends? Do you relate to either one of them?"

Well, let's break this down. How are they similar? Well, in their sections together at least, they are the same character--virtuous, noble, beautiful, well-mannered, beloved, proper. How are they different? Lucy's rich, Mina's middle-class. Lucy doesn't work, Mina's a schoolteacher, thus she's probably a bit more educated. Oh, and Lucy sleepwalks.

All these are characteristics that differ only in the sense a brunette is different from a blonde; all surface.

So can I see how they are friends? Obviously, yes. They're the same person, after all. Do I relate to either of them? At this stage in the story, not very.

It's a sad, sorry road to go down to tear down female representations in this book; let's face it, save for Van Helsing, the male characters are all the same, too. Yes, even Quincey Morris, for all his American slang, is just like the others: virtuous, noble, brave. No one has a temper. No one cracks silly jokes. But you're missing the point attacking the story on this level, since it's all part of the allegory jazz Stoker was going for: virtue, though maybe not as exotic or enticing as the evil Dracula represents, wins every time and should win. Whether or not that makes you barf, it's how most stories end, even if they're not as black and white about it as Stoker.

Yet somehow, once Lucy dies and the characters team up to hunt down Count D, Mina is able to break through her revered angel role to take action that most heroines of her ilk would swoon at. She's still nauseatingly revered, but at least she earns it big-time. More than anything, she slowly reveals some god-damn depth.

Mina is incredibly intelligent and crafty. Who comes up with the idea to hypnotize her once Dracula does that voodoo he does so well on her, the hypnotic sessions thus enabling everyone to know where he's headed? Not Van Helsing. She does. She takes that very trauma and victimization Dracula wielded on her and turns the tables on him. That's frankly badass.

And who knows the train schedules by heart, so they can beat Dracula to his final destination? Mina. Yeah, she memorized it originally so she could faithfully trail her man, but she uses that knowledge for a higher purpose once the fight commences. Who organizes all the notes and transcribes everything into one fluid report? Muh-Muh-Mina. And who joins the gang in toting a gun and pointing it at the Count's purveyors at the end, standing in the bitter cold, Dracula's mark on her forehead? Wilhelmina.

That's all pretty revolutionary for a female character in 1897. So what happened to her character once women's rights got more into gear in the 20th and 21st century? No guns, no organizing search parties. She becomes instead Dracula's romantic interest, his mistress. What the hell?

Dammit, Coppola! And everyone else!

Frankly, I'd rather see her priggish and uptight, and remain that way. That may play right into her role as the Angel of the House, but at least she doesn't also become Angel of the House and Poster Child for Undead Erotica. In other words, modern interpretations such as Coppola's make her a victim not only of Dracula, but of the Madonna/Whore complex. This isn't sexual liberation here, since many times she's still hypnotized and manipulated by Dracula's power.

Stoker's Mina is far more effective, because she shows sympathy for Dracula without lusting for him. After displaying her wicked intelligence and hot secretarial skills, she then turns around and makes what I find a genuinely moving speech to the men, regardless of the Little Eva Syndrome that surrounds her character.

I know that you must fight. That you must destroy even as you destroyed the false Lucy so that the true Lucy might live hereafter. But it is not a work of hate. That poor soul who has wrought all this misery is the saddest case of all. Just think what will be his joy when he, too, is destroyed in his worser part that his better part may have spiritual immortality. You must be pitiful to him, too, though it may not hold your hands from his destruction.

And at the bloody end, as she's poised with gun pointed at the gypsies, as she watches her husband brutally destroy Dracula:

I shall be glad as long as I live that even in that moment of final dissolution, there was in [Dracula's] face a look of peace, such as I never could have imagined might have rested there before.

To me, that impartial empathy for the Count speaks worlds more about her character, and makes her far more endearing, than any romance with him would have. And believe me, this is coming from someone who usually eats shit like that up. Yet this empathy never weakens her resolve, either.

Just as much as the shotgun and the leadership skills, I think her ability to understand there's a trapped soul within Dracula is Mina's most shocking and refreshing trait in this genre. Someone as deliberately malicious as Dracula is not supposed to earn any sympathy--not from a late Victorian audience, and certainly not from the leading lady. A well-meaning Quasimodo, yes; not a lecherous Claude Frollo. As for contemporary audiences, we've disappointedly proven that though we're more accepting of that kind of sympathy now, the lady can only feel it if she's also sexually attracted to the villain in question.

Mina's not a perfect representation of a female with stamina and brains, not by a long-shot. She still considers herself subservient to the strong menfolk for defending her, and her everyday interactions aren't what you'd call dynamic. But frankly--and hopefully this isn't equatable to turning a blind eye to racism in early Hollywood--she's the best you could ask for at the turn of the twentieth century, so far as literature of this type goes (remember, even the feminist Ann Veronica of H.G. Wells' book by the same name isn't all that much better).

So, graphic novelphiles, should I read League of Extraordinary Gentlemen? I love the idea of Mina leading the League, especially if it's mostly by her wits instead of any superpower. However, I find it too much an easy way out having Jonathan dump her and all that; in the original novel, he's completely devoted to her. Still, props to Alan Moore for recognizing Mina's potential. Plus, y'know, Invisible Man and Dr. Jeckyll/Mr. Hyde. That's cool, right?

The Bride, 1985

2011-10-22T13:20:00.000-07:00

We all know what major holiday is coming up in a few days, don't we? That's right, New Zealand's Labor Day!! So I encourage everyone to cuddle up on the 24th and watch both seasons of Flight of the Conchords in celebration.

Aside from that, Halloween's also almost here, so here's a review of The Bride, starring Sting and Jennifer Beals.

Given my profile picture and the fact I've written about it a few times, you probably won't have a difficult time inferring that I really, really like 1935's The Bride of Frankenstein. I was young when I first saw it, I'm guessing around the time I entered middle school, if not a little before. Like any wistful kid not paying attention in math, I'd concoct all sorts of kickass sequels in my mind, where the Bride isn't actually dead, and would win moodily handsome Colin Clive's heart away from stuffy old Elizabeth, after Eliza Doolittle sessions where Bridie learns the ways of civilization, only to conquer the sexist mores of the day, and whatnot. Oh, and she'd stick it to the Monster for trying to kill her, but not be too mean to him, since, hey, he's the Monster and everyone loves the Monster.

Sadly, this Sting-starring version takes my muddled sixth grade delusions of feminist grandeur and actually makes a pretty weak movie out of them.

The Bride's billed as a "remake" of the 1935 movie, but really it is a sequel, following what would happen if Frankenstein had escaped with his female creation, and if the Monster had escaped, too (unbeknownst to Frankenstein or anyone else). A promising premise, but totally ruined by the script and the performances. Sting's fairly monotone, and although it's nice to see a shout-out to Peter Cushing's evil, randy take on the character, Sting's final attack on Eva (what he so deems Jennifer Beals' Bride) smacks of a bodice-ripper, harlequin romance mentality that annoys rather than scares.

Jennifer Beals, though quite beautiful, with about the most stunning dark peepers I ever did see, isn't what you'd call a master thespian, either. With Women's Lit heavy lines like, "You didn't create me! You didn't create me!" and "Not even if you murder me and raise me up a thousand times, you cannot have me," she comes across whiny and petulant rather that strong and mature. The movie begins with her creation (with wasted cameos from Quentin Crisp as a Praetorius figure and Timothy Spall as a Dwight Frye-esque assistant), and these scenes sadly have Beals' best moments when she first wakes up, disoriented and confused.

Luckily she doesn't try imitating Elsa Lanchester's chilling and superb sharp, birdlike gestures and expressions. Instead, Beals is softer, more tenderly afraid, and you really get a sense of her vulnerability as those big sad eyes take in lightning for the first time and the strange people around her. She's touching where Lanchester was stylish and memorable, and while Lanchester's performance is certainly better for a horror/camp film, and thus I like it better, Beals still does well here. However, there are more than enough cringe-worthy moments for both she and Sting to prove their amateurish acting chops, such as the memorably awful "I eat chicken!" scene where Frankenstein teaches Eva how to talk.

Fortunately and unfortunately, whatever ham-handed feminist message could have been derived is pushed to the sidelines for the part the movie really cares about: the friendship between the Monster (played by Clancy Brown, called "Viktor" in the movie, just like the original Frankenstein of the novel--whatever symbolism that has is beyond my patience to figure out) and the dwarf he saves from a crowd of bullying children, Rinaldo (David Rappaport). The two team up and become a success as a trapeze act in a traveling circus (??).

Rappaport is a charming actor, and these scenes aren't poorly done, but the tone is totally off from what you'd want in a Frankenstein movie, no matter how "peace, love, and understanding" the message is. For one thing: too cutesy. For another, they take the whole "Monster is just a misunderstood gentle giant" trope way, way too far. This only works if there's something about the Monster in his carriage and looks that are genuinely menacing and unique; that way, the contrast between his outward appearance of monstrous power and his inner character of childlike naivete is more surprising and poignant.

Brown, however, does not look threatening in the least, just like a big, tall, lumbering dude, so his scenes with Rinaldo have more of a Lenny and George vibe than something out of a horror film. That very well could have been the filmmaker's intention, but it just doesn't work. For one thing, it's insulting to people with real disabilities. The director basically explains away the Monster--the Frankenstein Monster, mind you-- as a developmentally slow individual, so the secret message is, "and that's why he's so scary. But just look deep down inside, and he's a real cuddle-bug, totally non-threatening and dog-like! Look, it's so touchingly amusing he cares so much about Rinaldo that he's cast in their circus routine as the mother to Rinaldo's baby!" True, the scenes in the circus aren't supposed to be PC, as we're supposed to feel superior to the gawking crowd. However, at the same time we're expected to laugh right along with that audience at the hi-jinx of the crafty Rinaldo and the infantilized Viktor, and at what strange companions they make. Icky.

Plus, the rough street life Viktor leads and his affection for Rinaldo make Eva's plight pretty paltry in comparison. After all, she's pretty, intelligent, and rich under the guidance of Frankenstein, a well-to-do Victorian/1700s (who knows) girl who feels vaguely stifled by a patriarchal society. That isn't nearly as sympathetic as a reviled, gentle, slow man trying to make ends meet with his equally reviled and gentle (though lovably sassy!) companion in a circus (where Rinaldo meets a sad fate for ridiculously non-sensical reasons.)

And like Viktor, Eva's character is muted, watered down from an unearthly creation to that aforementioned stifled, intelligent, Victorian lady stereotype. There are admittedly a few nice call-backs to her beginnings as a creature with primitive instincts; at her first party, she growls and roars in terror at a cat, telling Frankenstein later, "You never told me about cats! I thought it was a tiny lion." That's probably the best line.

Viktor and Rinaldo's scenes might have passed for an after school special about understanding people who are different, so I found myself much preferring the comparatively few scenes about the titular bride, shoddy as they may be. They're the only ones that try for that old-school horror feel, even if they're not expertly done outside some good eerie lighting; lightning storms and Sting staring blankly--er, intensely--at his obsession Eva while she sleeps replace an honest building of mood and suspense. Still, at least they're trying for something similar to the original franchise's ambience; Rinaldo and Viktor's scenes are condescending and trite without any bite.

The rest of the cast is wasted, too. Cary Elwes is markedly uncharming (poor Westley!) as a cocky suitor of Eva's, and Geraldine Page of all awesome people has a bit part as Frankenstein's housekeeper. And why kill off Quentin Crisp? Just so Frankenstein could be alone in his secret? That's not a wholly bad idea, actually. But then there's the inexplicable weird presence of Frankenstein's one friend Clerval (Anthony Higgins), who only serves as exposition for the audience, as Sting murmurs uninterested mad scientist-babble to him about his plans for Eva. Turns out this Frankenstein's not quite as cold-hearted and evil as Curshing's Dr. F, since this one begins with the noble, if not paradoxical, intention of creating a woman with a will and intellect as free-spirited and equal to any man's of that period.

So at what point does he start to lust over Eva and become possessive of her instead? Because it seems like the majority of screentime is spent on Viktor and Rinaldo, we never have enough character development in the Bride scenes, so we never understand Frankenstein's mood swings and violent actions. Perhaps it's because Rappaport is such a natural, warm actor that director Franc Roddam shifted more focus on him once he realized how dull Sting and Beals were. However, that only works to weaken the premise, since the movie is still called The Bride, not Viktor and Rinaldo's Feel-Good Self-Esteem Power Hour.

The ending is rushed and confused, with a sappy montage running over the credits. Rinaldo's image is superimposed over the screen, as his voice-over repeats his words from earlier in the film, reminding us that dreams are worth pursuing. Garrrgrrrrh.

The movie's watchable, if for nothing more than the typical mid-'80s costumes and make-up; check out Eva's ballgown and perm. But it's not much else. Outside of Rappaport, no performance has any--no, I refuse to say "sting". Uhhhh...spark! No spark, so theres's nothing to lift the limp script into high camp. Everything's too sedate and gentle, when even the gawky sixth grader in me knows that's wrong. The Bride and the Monster deserve a tale much more exciting and gruesome than "safe".

Top 10 30 Rock Episodes, ranked in order of appearance because I can't decide which ones are better than others

2011-10-20T15:05:00.000-07:00

Ho, hum. Another Thursday, another night without 30 Rock. All because someone (Tina Fey) is apparently more responsible and caring than her TV counterpart, and would rather look after her relatively newborn baby. And they say children are our future. A future without Liz Lemon sleep eating cigarettes is no future I want to be a part of.

Anyways, here's my list of my completely subjective top ten 30 Rock episodes, to tide we viewers over until the real thing comes back...IN FLIPPING JANUARY. WHYYY?

1. "Tracy Does Conan," S1E7

30 Rock had the whole hilariously offbeat thang going from the start, but its manic, hysterical edge gelled for the first time in this episode. Tracy does Conan, but first has to come down from "bugging out" on pills prescribed for him by one Dr. Leo Spaceman. Yes, this episode definitely would have garnered a place on the list by one fact alone: Dr. Spaceman's first episode.

"My, I'm certainly opening up to you, young lady!"

But the rest of the episode more than earns its place here, too. Tracy's antics reach comic heights of heaven, the best moment a relatively quiet one in this farce: Grizz gently rocks a shirtless Tracy back and forth in his arms as Liz talks on the phone with the deliciously smarmy and snake-oily Spaceman.

Scratch that, here's the best moment:

Conan is a great actor in this, by the way, very natural. I love the quick interplay between him and Liz, calling back to a few episodes previous where Liz implied a past romance between them. "Let's not do this, Elizabeth." And the ending is a classic, too, when Tracy's finally pushed onstage to tape the show. "Pants on! Pants on!" It really subverts the old comic trope that, hey, everything will work out in the end. Pff, who do you think Liz is, Gidget?

"AAAGH! Past Pete has come to kill Future Pete!"

2. "Episode 210," S2E10

Sometimes one scene is enough to earn an episode a place of honor on some creepy fanatical blog list. Here we have two scenes, each Liz-centric. First, her review with the co-op board, where she's bucking for her dream studio. It plays as a blind date from hell, with Liz dooming herself with each awkward word she says and with each questionable moment from her credit history revealed, until the board members can only stare at her in shock and pity.

"I love your apartment. Love!"
"Umm...there's...something coming out of your nose."

Then, continuing the date motif, you have a dejected Liz in her apartment at night, calling and leaving messages for the board over and over again with increasing pathetic loathing, and increasing drunkenness.

"I'm fine, because I know who I am. I feel sorry for you, co-op board."

We also have Kenneth's addiction to coffee. At first it didn't work for me. "Hopped up Kenneth" doesn't turn out as funny as everyday cheerful immortal Kenneth, but it soon evolved into the wonderfully weird "Midnight Train to Georgia" musical number. Who doesn't want to hear Edie Falco harmonize with Alec Baldwin?

"And I don't know why I lied, I guess I'm just nervous. But no, I did not read The Lovely Bones."

3. "MILF Island," S2E11

There's such a wonderful 12 Angry Men vibe in this episode, with all the writers sweating and cramped in Jack's waiting room, turning suspicious about who insulted Jack to a tabloid writer. None is more on the witch hunt than righteous Liz Lemon, until we find out....

I think "MILF" is also a good showcase for just how stone-cold bitchy Liz is when cornered. Like when Kenneth takes the fall:

"What do you have to say to Kenneth, Lemon?"
"...You disgust me."

4. "Succession," S2E13

"Succession" has to be one of the most beautifully structured episodes in the history of ever. First, there's the underlying Amadeus theme--who else but the good folks at 30 Rock would think to link the searing, jealous complexity of Salieri and Mozart with Tracy's genius for creating porn video games, and Frank seething that Tracy was able to surmount the uncanny valley paradox?

Then you have appearances from Rip Torn, Will Arnett, and Dr. Spaceman's greatest entrance ever, as seen in the picture above: gratuitous cloak billowing behind him while Mozart swells in the background, as he stops at the candy machine. One of his best lines, too, when Torn fails to revive:

"Hello, 911? Diabetes repair, I guess." Shrug.

And then here's Liz, falling sway to the possiblity of CEO-dom, going, "Hey, nerds. Guess who has two thumbs, speaks limited French, and hasn't cried once today? This moi."

5. "Sandwich Day," S2E14

The best scenes are again Liz-centric.

And we mustn't forget the climactic scene at the airport, where her desire to make things right with Floyd conflicts with her desire to not abandon the delicious teamster's sandwich Jenna, Kenneth, Frank, Tracy, and Lutz won for her in a hilariously depraved drinking contest. I'd post the video of Liz's ultimate decision, but it's better seen with the whole episode's events behind it...and I can't find it on YouTube.

"I can do it! I can have it all!"

6. "Believe in the Stars," S3E2

Oprah in one of the best celebrity TV guest stints ever, mostly due to how a drugged up Liz reacts to her ("I'ma call you back. I'm snitting nexta Borpo"), and Liz's horrified realization at the end about who this Oprah really was. Fey talked about working with Oprah in her autobiography Bossy Pants (hilarious, go get it). This was around the time of the big Fey-as-Palin boom, where she was running back and forth to SNL's set and 30 Rock's fake airplane set, all the while planning her daughter's birthday party. Oprah--Oprah, mind you--was all, "Really? You're doing all that?" If the episode hadn't aired two seasons earlier, I'd have pegged the hectic pace of Tracy Does Conan deriving inspiration from the backstage shenanigans Fey experienced here.

Speaking of Tracy, this episode has possibly the best Tracy-Jenna subplot yet: their horrifyingly un-PC decision to masquerade as the other's race and gender.

"God, this is worse than the time you wore shorts to work!"

7. "Gavin Volure," S3E4

This episode doesn't get as much attention as it deserves, what with Steve Martin in an appearance to rival--possibly surpass--Oprah's. Martin brings his A-game to the corrupt fake agoraphobe of the title, returning to his roots as a gigantically spaced-out, pompous asshole. No Father of the Bride, Cheaper By the Dozen crapola here. His climactic scene is one of the best of the series:

"I've lost everything! I've lost my money! I've lost Liz! That...paint is drying weird!"
"Gavin Volure! Everyone wanted to be Gavin Volure! Well, Gavin Volure is going to juuuump!"

Tracy again gets another great subplot, a happily unsentimental journey through his paranoia that his young sons are going to kill him for his vast wealth.

"Daddy's home! Don't Menendez me!"
"And I want you to know, that if anything ever happens to me, you and your brother are going to jail."

8. "Dealbreakers Talk Show #0001," S4E7

If forced at gunpoint to decide which episode I'd put in the number one slot based on my preference alone, I'd first stand agog at just how far blog-followers are willing to go for an accurate idea of the blogger's taste, and then I'd choose this episode.

There's plenty of brilliance here (Will Arnett returns! Dr. Spaceman!), but again, it boils down to a key scene: Liz, after having her confidence burst into itty-bitty bits by a nervous, competitive Jack, tries to shoot the promos for her upcoming talk show. It goes disastrously, with Pete desperately throwing suggestions at her that she then turns into grotesque charades of human movements, like a malfunctioning sassy robot.

"Wave your hand! Wave like a human being!"
"Blow us a kiss! With your hand!"
"Give us some cleavage. No, no. Never mind." The way Scott Adsit and Alec Baldwin move back at the same time here is ingenious timing. Has there ever been a more courageous comedienne than Tina Fey, willing to let men react to her that way?

Oh, man, and then there's Liz standing behind the HD camera. Yup, no other braver comedienne. Same with Adsit, Baldwin, and McBrayer--or should I say, shirtless old man, young Alec Baldwin, and muppet?

That whole scene made me laugh harder than I think I ever have at any time, maybe tied only with Allie Brosh's Cake post at Hyperbole and a Half.

Gollum, mouth-crying Liz Lemon is pretty swell, too. Almost made me think twice about getting surgery on my own eyes.

9. "Verna," S4E12

I hate to keep going for episodes where it's just the one scene that sticks out, but come on. Any moment where Liz thinks she is triumphant and then has her dreams quickly deflated is a golden moment. She and Frank, temporary roomies, have sworn to kick their vices: Frank his cigarettes, Liz her junk food. Although Liz has been suffering, Frank seems easygoing as always, and so Liz leaves out his old carton of cigarettes and sets up a camera during the night. Noticing that two cigarettes are missing, Liz brings in the tape to show all the writers, little realizing she suffers from a "little understood parasomnia disorder."

(Pssst, over here at Hulu: http://www.hulu.com/watch/125953/30-rock-jaccuse)

Jan Hooks does a wonderful, uncomfortably raunchy job as the titular Verna, Jenna's trashy mother, but really, can anything or anyone in an episode top a Lemon-Amorous Mail Lady duet of "Don't Go To Bed With a Frown in Your Pocket?"

Oh, and my new personal slogan: "You didn't believe in me. But I believed in myself. Just like the last scene of all movies."

10. "Queen of Jordan," S5E17

I've never seen a more apt send-up of anything--including politics, romances, war dramas--than 30 Rock's go at reality television here. Filmed as an episode of Angie Jordan's reality show Queen of Jordan, they get all the cliches, while still staying true--somehow--to 30 Rock's tone. I attribute this to the actors, who by now are so comfortable with their characters they seem, well, just like themselves even when the structure, music, and direction is totally different.

And I love that the writer (billed as "Tracey Wigfield" in quotes) remembers the insane details Angie outlined in "Mrs. Donaghy" quite a few epsiodes back when the concept for Queen of Jordan was born, featuring white divorced lady (Randi), Angie's meth addicted nephew, and of course, D'Fwan.

"....D'Fwan forgot his catchphrase."

Baldwin also has some of his finest moments, as he more and more deeply publicly humiliates himself with a series of accidents and mis-quotes.

"That was the chair, because I only pass gas once a year for an hour atop a mountain in Switzerland."

I also get a kick out of Liz getting billed as "Another Person." And Pete? "Powerless, bald."

*******

So, there they are. You're welcome. Which ones was I a fool, a heartless fool, to leave out? There are so, so many.

"I'm a star, I'm on top, somebody bring me some haaaaaam!"

(By the way, you should probably strike while the internet is hot on the Youtube and Hulu clips. We all know how eager both sites are to take stuff down that people like).

Myra and Kitty in Waterloo Bridge, 1940

2011-10-18T21:12:00.000-07:00

*Minor Spoilers*

I'd been fiddling with the idea of entering a post in the Dueling Divas Marathon I saw advertised on Rachel's page at Girl with the White Parasol, and I might still do that. However, when I tried thinking of famous catty broads, my treacherous brain kept thinking of great female friendships instead (I was going to put "great film female friendships," but who wants to encounter that much alliteration this time in the evening, or whenever you're reading this?). Well, I thought of one friendship in particular, at any rate--that of ballerinas turned fallen women Kitty and Myra in 1940's Waterloo Bridge, as portrayed by Virginia Field and Vivien Leigh, respectively.

This film is the Gone with the Wind of China, apparently, with subtitled versions used in universities for students studying English. As for contemporary America, this movie certainly isn't as well known as Casablanca or any of the other great wartime tear-jerkers. Part of that could be Robert Taylor as male lead Roy Cronin; though he does a competent, charming job as the Scottish (?) Captain who wins Myra's heart, maybe he's too charming, too nice, too perfect, too much the distant, idealized, do-nothing hero, with no enticing conflict to generate as much interest as, say, moody and cynical Rick Blaine.

Plus, let's face it, the plot is Camille'd in a big way, more sentimentalized than the grittier 1931 version directed by James Whale. Sweet, innocent ballerina+Presumed dead fiance=A LIFE OF SHAME ON THE STREETS IF YOU KNOW WHAT I'M SAYIN'. But then, oh then, she finds out her presumption was maybe premature....

The movie is emotionally manipulative, and after awhile you want to shoot poor, harmless Tchaikovsky for ever having written Swan Lake, or the producers for thinking "Auld Lang Syne" wouldn't make a monotonous love score, given the way both tunes are used ad nauseam whenever Leigh gets misty.

Yet somehow the movie works, and is legitimately touching for all its manufactured syrup. Part of that may be due to the fantastic cinematography, and Mervyn LeRoy's comparatively quiet directing and the screenplay that doesn't hit you over the head with any sugary sweetness, and has some surprisingly sharp lines. Plus, you've got imperious coldness in the form of Maria Ouspenskaya as brittle ballet mistress Madame Kirowa, blustering stuffiness with C. Aubrey Smith as the duke, and Lucile Watson as a multi-layered Lady Margaret Cronin, the protective mother of Taylor.

But mostly, I think the movie works based on the sincere performances of Leigh and Field, and the friendship their two characters share.

This was purportedly Leigh's favorite film, and it's certainly her most sensitive, realized performance outside of Blanche. Myra is more grounded in reality than any character she's ever played, even with the stereotypical weepy-sad-prostitute shit she has to muck through. Coming right after Scarlett, a performance that you could argue bordered on the broad for all its immense awesomeness (which rightly fit the source material), Myra was truly the window into just what Leigh could do with a role--inhabit it completely. Was there ever an actress with a more expressive face? A face that could pull you into what she was feeling with a minimum of any actual facial contortions? There was an undeniable energy radiating from her face, that shone through even when perfectly still, filling you with what she felt.

Myra is a character that so easily could have been saucer-eyed and sticky, were it not for Leigh's ability to truly humanize her. Myra is totally affectless, completely guileless, and thus we more than just stomach her. We love her.

Then there's Virginia Field. Dear, undeservedly forgotten Virginia Field. This blonde stunner was just as tart and breezy and likable as Ginger, Una, and Blondell, with a saucy cockney twist and legs that went on forever. Yet she's able to get at deeper, more emotional places, that might have made you cringe if you saw one of those aforementioned ballsy dames try for them. Her Kitty is someone you'd want in your corner. Kitty is a former showgirl who finds herself in an uptight ballet company due to the war (another example of Hollywood's skewered take on reality--so a showgirl can pass herself off as a ballerina, eh? And getting into a ballet company is a last resort choice for her?). This cocky, streetwise dame, despite all logical odds, becomes inseparable pals with the shy, virginal Myra. And she'd do anything for Myra, anything: pretend a note sent to Myra that disrupts Madame's lecture is actually for her, then get fired for standing up for Myra, and ultimately, become a prostitute in order to support the ailing Myra, stricken after reading that Roy's been killed overseas.

Is Kitty almost too much the idealized friend, as Roy is the idealized man? If so, we don't notice it as much or feel half as manipulated, since Field as Kitty is so brass and raw that she doesn't come off as a caricature of maternal, wisecracking camaraderie, but instead she's the real thing. Of course, sadly, she's unable to shield Myra from her way of living for long.

Waterloo Bridge is undeniably packaged as a sweeping romance, from its swelling score and candlelight, to its distraught, separated lovers. Myra and Roy's relationship is indeed effective. Leigh and Taylor do have lovely chemistry together, for all his shiny over-perfection. But nothing beats the sister-chemistry between timid Myra and boisterous Kitty, and theirs are the most electric scenes. Kitty undeniably gets the best lines, and delivers them with zip. The energy rises whenever she's onscreen. And Myra is so touchingly charming that we want her to have a defender like Kitty; honestly, Roy is steeped way too much in his fantasy land of invincible happiness that we wonder how anything not rose-colored could ever get through to him.

Sandwiched into this tragic love story and war drama is a buddy picture. Without it, maybe we would have thrown up our hands in disgust at the swoony couple and hokey, tired plotline; as it is, Kitty and Myra's struggles and courage remind us that hard things happen to real friends, too, not just film lovers.

Instead of ending on a the film's sad note, let's go with Myra and Kitty at their happiest, earlier in the movie. Here's my favorite scene, both for the movie and for showcasing Myra and Kitty's friendship. Roy has reappeared after Myra thought he'd gone back to war, and she sees him through the window. Myra was never giddier, and Kitty never more excited for and amused by her pal, as she helps her get ready to meet him.

Scene starts at 10:00--

Were it not for the Hayes policy that fallen women must fall all the way down flat on their faces no matter how pure at heart, how delightful would a Myra & Kitty Wartime Fun Hour serial have been? What's that? Now I'm the hokey one? Rude.

Dark Shadows Obsessors Time! Reboot Sketches By George Caltsoudas

2011-10-12T18:57:00.000-07:00

Browsing deviantart, as one does, I happily stumbled across artist George Caltsoudas’ beautiful, stylized re-imaginings for a dream project “first chapter comic adaptation of 1960s TV Series, Dark Shadows.”

I was hooked even before reading that.

I thought other DS fans, and fans of richly detailed ‘60s/Old School Gothic décor in general, should find his designs and sketches of much interest. His look has a Tim Burton-y feel, but with an haute couture, retro sensibility all his own, that makes his work more original and evocative of the past than what I’ve seen from Burton lately (y’know, spirals and stripes. I still consider myself a Burton fan, but c'mon!).

And even though Caltsoudas' style is distinctly his own, he obviously has the Dark Shadows feel down pat; he sprinkles throughout some of the flubs from the series, and heightens the “Greek tragedy” aura of the Collins’ mythos. His Barnabas is a smooth combination of Frid and Depp, without detracting from either actor. Yet he doesn’t pull away from bringing in dazzling new additions of his own, such as my beloved, awful Buzz getting an extended role in this reboot, and Angelique/Cassandra coming into events in an even more ghoulish, disturbing way (because of Buzz). (Hee, Buzz!). Really makes me wish this was going into the movie!

Oh, and further bonus for a wee little vintage freak like me? He lists one Elena Nathanail as inspiration for his Victoria’s look. I’d never heard of Miss Nathanail before, but I looked her up, and I like her style! I’d also never heard of 1969 sister act Wendy and Bonnie either, which he says is the soundtrack he hears when he thinks of Victoria. And after I listened to their album Genesis on YouTube? Uh, yeah. Completely. I'm in love. Frankly, I’ve decided Danny Elfman should incorporate bits and pieces of their songs whenever Victoria shows up in the new movie.

Anywho, glorious work, Mr. Caltsoudas! Do let us know whenever you add anything more to your portfolio! Fellow Dark Shadows creeps, be sure to check out his gallery!

Hopefully Brief Writer's Block Ahoy!

2011-10-09T21:23:00.000-07:00

Even though I have more free time on my hands than in the past few weeks, I find myself suffering from a wee bit of writer's block (hence my witty title). I've got a few ideas for blog posts, but nothing yet has gripped me in its iron claws of...writing...good...things...for the internet.

But until I get back into the swing of things, here's a frightening peek into my hope chest of terror:

What if, say, Marilyn Monroe had survived into the early to mid-'80s? You know what could have happened? A Tim Burton/Brian de Palma/Dario Argento/Whoever Weird-directed remake of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, co-starring a wheelechair-bound Audrey Hepburn.

Now that I've thrown that into your lives, you can't stop thinking about it, can you?

You're welcome.

(What should I write about?)

Here's the basis for my Halloween costume, at any rate. So far I've spent waaaaay more money than I logically should have on the costume components, considering my sickly, gasping-for-breath-like-a-flailing-fish bank account:

Elke Sommer: Another in the long line of '60s blondes I pretended to be when I was little and even now a little bit

2011-10-06T17:18:00.000-07:00

Doctor Macro

Actor, singer, dancer, and painter Elke Sommer bewitched my idolization-prone brain at an early age, when I first saw 1964's A Shot in the Dark on VHS. Yup, that far back, har dee har, VHS's are lame and obsolete.

In this superior sequel to the immensely popular Pink Panther from a year before, Sommer was not only drop dead gorgeous, but she also got the joke of her wide-eyed, damsel-in-distress character, making her an endearing parody without mocking. Despite her ingenue status, her wrongly accused Maria is obviously more together than Sellers' Daffy Duck meets Pepe Le Pew Inspector Clouseau, yet she never acts exasperated or jaded when in the company of her clumsy protector.

This may sound heretical, but I think Sommers both prettier and more charming than, say, Brigitte Bardot or Britt Ekland. She has the kittenish poutiness that made Bardot famous, along with the Germanic appeal and shizamwowza bod of Ekland, yet in either less generic extremes or with softer charm. Or, frankly, I'm just forever beguiled by her dainty Maria, as we tend to immortalize the favorites from our youth.

You know what you guys really want? Another kitchy video, of Sommer showing off what I assume are her own pipes in this cheese-tastic, groovylacious song "Oh I Love You" from 1965. The title's the only English part. I wish I looked this tantalizing in emerald green.

The related videos look...disturbing at best. Stop tainting the goofy but clean childhood memories I have associated with this nice lady, internet!

Lolita Fantome

2011-09-18T20:35:00.000-07:00

Here's a fun, light, lovely video put together by MonsieurLunatique of clips from Kubrick's Lolita set to music by Stereo Total. Just some footage of one of my favorite movies with one of my favorite bands. C'est tout.

Actors with Great Voices

2011-09-14T16:24:00.000-07:00

Sometimes there are actors out there whose primary charms--their gravitas, charisma, carriage, what have you--are personified by their voices. That doesn't mean their voices have to be their only talent, only that it's an important ingredient in an already wonderful actor-y stew. Here are some of my faves in the vocal dee-partment:

Christopher Lee
I think I've gone over this one, haven't I? Let's just allow his King Haggard to speak for himself.

Ronald Colman
He possesses the quintessential uppercrust British accent, all sexy and suave. Here's a link to his appearances on the Jack Benny radio program, where he's the perfect Wilson to Benny's Dennis.
http://theoldtimeradioshow.com/jack-benny-and-ronald-coleman/

George Sanders
Combines Colman's aristocratic suavity with Lee's commanding basso profund...ity? Anyways, hot. Could anyone else voice a tiger so realistically (and strangely sexily? Don't judge me I'm not a furry!!)?

Maximilian Schell
The Grim Reaper in vocal form. Absolutely chilling, yet engrossing.

I've never seen this, but it looks super depressing. You're welcome!

Leonard Nimoy
No, I'm not going to post "Bilbo Baggins!" Just this weirdness:

George Takei's voice ain't bad, either, and can be really funny, too.

He's also very fun to imitate. Go ahead, give it a shot!

Dan Castellaneta (I've come to terms with the fact I'll never be able to spell his surname without looking it up first)

Of course everyone in The Simpons cast has an amazing set o'pipes, but Castellaneta (yup, had to look) gets the most props because his natural voice sounds nothing like Homer's--in fact, the exact opposite: sorta high-pitched, actually.

Margaret Sullavan
"Strange, fey, mysterious--like a voice singing in the snow."
--Louise Brooks

Lauren Bacall
There's something very comforting and down-to-earth about her husky voice. There's a scene in The Big Sleep where tension is high, and Bogie is alone in his office, and we're all a little scared for him. Then he calls Baby on the phone and we hear her say "Hello?" And suddenly the world's a better, sultrier place.

This isn't the scene, but it's still a classic, and still has to do with a phone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwXc4N_10rA&feature=related

Gracie Allen
"The moment I heard her voice I figured she had to be a dancer. She sounded like the bird who had been thrown out of the nest for singing off-key. In fact, it turned out to be a perfect voice. It had no lows, so it projected beautifully in a theater. Gracie never had to yell to be heard, her voice just cut through everything else. And years later, when she started singing on the radio, it turned out she had a lovely singing voice. Like Gracie herself, her voice was unforgettable."
--George Burns

Tuesday Weld
And just like this actress, Tuesday's voice was bubbly, garrulous, and slightly deranged. Adorable.

It might not have translated the best to singing, but I still can't help but dig her shot at a single in 1960. Still got plenty of personality:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSeCHLPp0zs

Stuck in your head yet? Excellent.

Kathryn Leigh Scott
Having played the bulk of the female leads, such as Maggie Evans, Josette, and all of Josette's various incarnations, Scott was arguably the most charming actress on Dark Shadows. I think her cheerful, lively voice has a lot to do with that. It's very versatile, too.

This video's pretty long and contains one of them sweeping, dramatic, climactic spoiler moments. Hey, look, it's in the title! Sorry, but anyone who knows anything about Dark Shadows should already know about this twist. In case you don't want to watch the whole thing you can just listen a few seconds, and you can hear her disembodied voice...or is it really hers?!

Michelle Pfeiffer
Similar to Bacall, Pfeiffer's got the pefect wry, femme fatale vibe going on with her voice. But where she lacks Bacall's comforting tones, she makes up for it in quirkiness and electricity. And like Weld, Pfeiffer loses none of her cheek when she belts one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIsETmNtNTs

Arleen Sorkin
Modern day Lina Lamont, only not as grating and with an extra dash of insanity.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp6wLXj4-5A

Tara Strong
She's basically in every cartoon show ever. Her voice is probably less distinctive than Sorkin's, but I'd argue she's more versatile because of it. In fact, she can even do a pretty mean Harley herself, as evidenced in this trailer for the upcoming Arkham City video game.

Vid is super loud, sorry.

And of course, while we're on the subject, Mark Hamill. You already heard his Joker above, but...heck, why not another dose?

So, who am I forgetting? There are many. I've left out obvious contenders like James Earl Jones, Orson Welles, and Sean Connery. But who else?

Note to the internet: seriously, guys, why you gotta disable so much embedding code? Can't we all be friends?

Marilyn Monroe in Don't Bother to Knock, 1952

2011-09-13T22:12:00.000-07:00

The thing about Marilyn Monroe is she's not like anyone else. She's not like you, and she's not like me. She's not a regular person.

She couldn't get away with playing one, either. Whether or not that inability to take on "straight roles"--i.e., regular people--contributed to her personal tragedy, it also enhanced her ability to play parts sympathetically that another actress might have made shallow or unlikable--Lorelei, Sugar Kane, my personal favorite Pola Debevoise, and others in her light comedies. A lot has been said about her time with Strasberg, and how that intense training might have hurt her career rather than helped it. I can see where those arguments are coming from. The key to Method Acting is pulling out the raw, human element at the center of the performance. And that is the opposite of Marilyn's talent: the talent of creating a real, relatable character out of mannerisms and motivations entirely devoid and innocent of ordinary Earthling trappings.

This quality really has little to do with her actual looks. She's extraordinarily pretty, yes, with a body I'd personally kill for. But there are plenty of extraordinarily pretty, curvaceous blonde actresses out there: Anita Ekberg, Diana Dors, Mamie Van Doren, Kim Basinger, and these days, someone like Scarlett Johansson. And you know what? I might even argue that on a sheer physical level, some of those actresses are even prettier than Marilyn. What separates Marilyn as an icon is what everyone else has already talked to death: her spaced out, otherworldly vulnerability--the ultimate childwoman.

What makes her Nell Forbes in Roy Ward Baker's Don't Bother to Knock so incredible is how she subverts that innocent yet sexy childwoman image, that at first so tantalizes Richard Widmark's Jed Towers, into something terrifying.

I once said about Vivien Leigh that she didn't so much act roles as she did throw herself at them. Marilyn is acting here, but she's bringing something out of herself that while present in other roles, has an edge here that spooks you. Nell is popularly known as her "psychotic babysitter" role, but she makes her much deeper than that. Of course, Daniel Taradash's screenplay has much to do with that, as well; according to what I've read about Charlotte Armstrong's original novel, the Nell in that story (with the surname Munro that they had to change once Marilyn was cast) is far less sympathetic, without the tragic-lost-love past they give Nell here.

They probably added this backstory once they saw what Marilyn was doing with the role. This was her eighteenth movie, and Fox had figured that since she had already proven herself unusually sexy in movies like All About Eve and The Ashphalt Jungle, they might as well make a cursory attempt to prove she could act a little. She must have unnerved even them with the final product.

You don't see the wheels turning in her Nell. She appears like a luminous vision across the courtyard to the jilted Widmark, recently dumped by Ann Bancroft (luminous in her own right, in this her film debut). Nell, recently released from a mental institution into the care of her jittery elevator attendant uncle Elisha Cook, has secured a brief babysitting position, thanks to her uncle's insinuating ways around the luxuriant hotel where he works. When Jed sees her in the window, highlighted by dim lamps, she's attired herself in the wife's negligee, a midnight-colored affair, and she's also wearing star-like earrings and bracelets. She's sashaying back and forth in front of a mirror, waving the negligee around like a mermaid gracefully flapping her tail. She seems the ultimate night-time dream of a woman perfect for forgetting your woes in.

What Jed quickly finds out is that Nell is really a nightmare version of a man's ideal one-night stand. Her stardust and hare-brained, loopy charm, Marilyn's chief charms in her future projects, is the chief signal something's wrong here. We can tell from the start. The instant we see her wander into the hotel's lobby, we immediately interpret her dazed otherworldliness as broken-hearted derangement, not the airs of a kooky, lovable ditz, the type she popularized in her comedies. Her interactions with her uncle in the elevator (and does anyone else get the feeling Cook's character ain't quite right, either? Dude, seriously, back off the guests!) increase the feeling she's just barely able to keep her feet on this planet, her head in this hemisphere. By the time she's left alone with the little girl, we know that somehow, some way, the little girl will be horribly effected by the off-balance big child in charge of her. And yet we also know that on some level, anything Nell does to the child won't be out of malice, but out of frustration that the child is not playing along in her own skewered, emotionally stunted take on reality.

And that strange innocence is far more terrifying than if she were a frank sociopath. She may be the closest equivalent to a female Norman Bates I've yet seen in a movie.

Jed, presented as one of those hard-boiled, jaded heavies always hanging out in Noirs, can't handle her because of this. If she were your standard femme fatale, along the lines of your Jane Greers, Linda Darnells, Gene Tierneys, and Lauren Bacalls, he could set her straight right away. But all his hardest, most biting lines fail him, because Nell is actually hurt by them. She's technically a femme fatale--her sex appeal lures the hero into dangerous, violent entanglements--but she isn't at the same time, because she's delusional, tender, and frightened. She just wants her lover back. Yet she ties up a little girl and tries to push her out the window. He can't reconcile this. Unlike your Sam Spades and Phillip Marlowes who had to rely on their brutal wits to win the day, Jed has no alternative but to empathize before the conclusion--really empathize.

That Nell succeeds, through her insanity, in creating a good man out of Jed is what keeps her from becoming a villain in the true sense of the word. The movie is a strange blend of Noir cliches--all the business with the shades, Bancroft's tedious songs in the inexplicably Western themed nightclub, the tacked on sentimentality--but combines them with innovative, risky touches, like revealing the self-inflicted scars on Nell's wrists and upping the tension by filming in real time.

But really, again, the most innovative part of the whole movie is the alien-like Marilyn. She doesn't play fragile, she is fragile. That may sound dunder-headedly simple, since of course Marilyn is known for her sincerity. But the impact of seeing such broken, teetering fragility, actually seeing it, without feeling like it's just being played out for you, is shaking to witness. There are cringe-worthy moments, where you can't bear to hear her baby voice moon ecstatically over her lost airforce pilot (just how healthy and mature was her love for him? Surely her childish instability wasn't created overnight by his death but by systematic abuse and natural impulses). But these moments are cringe-worthy for all the right reasons--you don't think you'd be able to listen to someone saying that in real life, either. It's too pathetic and heartbreaking.

I've yet to see Niagara, but I've often heard it criticized for spinning Marilyn's unique charm too negatively in that villainous role, which this movie skillfully avoids by allowing Marilyn to interpret Nell on her own terms, with her own vulnerability. Does such wistful madness make her performance more difficult to watch, knowing the ultimate end the movie's star came to? Yes, in a way. But on the other hand, you're almost affirmed on Marilyn's behalf, watching her in such a triumphant performance, knowing that without any outside prodding, Marilyn was capable of using her own natural self not only to charm, but to genuinely move and disturb.

Framed Awesomeness

2011-09-11T14:08:00.000-07:00

He's thinking deep thoughts.

Just yesterday I received by mail this fabulous, commissioned portrait of Sir Christopher "Ol' Red Eyes" Lee from one multi-talented bloggette extraordinaire who goes by the handle of Vulnavia Morbius over at Krell Laboratories. Yes, I got a little frame for it. Wouldn't you?

Very, very impressive. Like my dad (an artist in his own right) said, Lee must be a hard subject to capture, since he's got such regular, handsome features. You're welcome for the tough assignment, Vulnavia, and thank you for the tremendous outcome! I'll be keeping an eye out for your Etsy account whenever you get it started!

*****

Similar to my outlook on the Japanese earthquake, I don't think my nutty little movie/cartoon/TV/miscellaneous mumbo-jumbo and argle bargle blog is the appropriate space to commemorate say, oh, I don't know, the tenth anniversary of September 11th. My heart goes out to everyone effected that day, needless to say. Let's memorialize the people, not the horrible event, how 'bouts?

Nitpicking Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd, 2007

2011-08-31T14:35:00.000-07:00

**Lots of bitching and minor spoilers to follow. You done been warned!**

I don't think you could call me a musical geek. Save for my delight in Busby Berkeley spectacles and Gene Kelly-era shenanigans, along with a middle school obsession with Phantom of the Opera (it was, like, so deep!), a lot of modern Broadway stuff leaves me cold and uncomfortable. Especially these days, when they try to cover up the cheese with laughable self-seriousness. Basically, once the 1960s got fully under way, the genre lost a lot of its zing.

Sweeney Todd is an exception, though. True, when handled incorrectly it can be just as ridiculously self-serious as any musical out today (a point I'm about to explore with the movie), but when it's done right, you really see what Stephen Sondheim was going for.

When I was young I took singing lessons, and I remember that when I first sang "Green Finch and Linnet Bird," I thought, hm. Pretty song. What's it from? Oh, Sweeney Todd. That musical about cannibals. Wait, whaaaa?

So, I looked it up and kind of fell in love with it.

Macabre comedy (Macabredy?) is key to this Grand Guignol piece of ridiculousness, otherwise you lose the whole spirit of it. For all that I've read a great deal of criticism about it, perhaps my favorite performance I've seen of Sweeney is the DVD of the 1982 tour starring George Hearn and Angela Lansbury as Todd and Mrs. Lovett. The cast in general is loopy and overblown, which is exactly how you can get away with singing such melodramatic material. So much of the dialogue is tongue-in-cheek, mocking yet at the same time celebrating the Penny Dreadfuls Sondheim and playwright Christopher Bond took inspiration from.

The most deplorable part of Burton's film treatment is the lack of dark humor, which you think would be a natural for him.

Let's break down my issues with this movie:

1. The casting. What breaks my heart about movie musicals these days is that seasoned Broadway actors are so seldom given the chance to show off on the big screen anymore. Because musicals are considered a kiss of death to Hollywood producers nowadays, apparently the only way a director can get their film off the ground is to cast big names. This. Sucks. Sorry, everyone, but Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter? They cannot sing. Depp can do a passable "David Bowie With Slight Laryngitis" imitation, but that's it. I mean, I know Lansbury doesn't have the most conventionally gorgeous pipes herself, but at least her voice has character and power. Bonham Carter's does not.

Which leads to my biggest problem: Bonham Carter. Or more correctly....

2. Bonham Carter's characterization, and the characterizations in general. Hers is lacking in power and humor. Most people love Bonham Carter, but I must admit she's not one of my favorites, usually. In my mind she tries too hard in most of her roles to play the moody, cryptic type, and she just ends up coming across stiff and lackluster. She was pretty badass in Fight Club, I will admit, mostly because I think her Marla is almost a parody of that type of role, and she reveals a little more vulnerability by the end, along with Ed Norton. Basically, Fight Club finally gives her a chance to breathe in one of her roles. She was all right as Queen Elizabeth in The King's Speech, but quite frankly, that part didn't require any heavy lifting on her part, outside of being King Charles' loving support system.

But her Mrs. Lovett is just pitiful in my opinion. Yet I can't really blame her. I was all ready to when I first saw the movie, but after doing my research, apparently Burton himself told her to scale down the spunky comedy in her interpretation. @#:AHDFDDWew?!??! Look, I know one of the chief concerns a director has when transferring a musical to the screen is cutting down the broadness of the piece, since on the big screen, that can be overwhelming and corny. But at the same time, I think anyone going into a movie musical has the ability to adjust expectations from "This is a slice of life piece of realism" to "Oh, hey, the characters are going to sing. Probably not going to be the most realistic thing I've ever seen, but what the heck, probably worth a chuckle."

And if Burton was truly concerned about cutting down the wackiness (though at his best that was Burton's chief charm!), he could have at least let Bonham Carter break loose, because heaven knows Depp is dreary enough. Not a hint of melodramatic humor at all in his Sweeney, just puh-puh-poker faced and grim, with an inappropriate level of serious intensity. You know what? That's fine, so long as Mrs. Lovett makes up for it with her zaniness. Someone way back on my beloved IMDb boards put it well, that Mrs. Lovett should be the Kurt Weill-bawdy-bar singer to Todd's morose Wagnerian anti-hero. This contrast works not only in lifting the movie's tone, but also demonstrates what's great about their dynamic: for all Lovett's misplaced infatuation, she just doesn't get Todd. They both have the creepy bloodlust, true, and they unite beautifully for A Little Priest, but that's all they share. Not the basis for a good relationship, and why Mrs. Lovett is so hilarious is because she totally thinks it is.

So of course for the gloomy fangirls who want to be Helena Bonham Carter, Burton and screenwriter John Logan take her "love" seriously. Pleugh. Not only is Bonham Carter far too conventionally attractive for the role, but her sad eyes watching Depp's Todd with sincere yearning, untouched by madness, kills any dark comedy of the situation right there. It's not even tragicomic. Not even tragic. Just annoying and unnecessary, since we already have a serious love story in Todd's feelings for his lost Lucy. In the original musical, Sondheim makes it clear that not even Johanna and Anthony, the two ingenues, are to be taken so seriously.

And here we are at another example of Burton missing the mark: Johanna and Anthony. Okay, okay, if you want to make Todd and Lovett parched and steeped in darkness, at least give us some light comedy in the form of those two adolescent space cadets, Todd's blonde daughter and that Dudley Do-Right of a sailor. True, Betsy Joslyn in the 1982 DVD definitely went too far making Johanna a caricature, since every musical needs a balance between parody and sincerity (even though often that's a pretty pukey combination). Cris Groenendaal was just about perfect.

So what does Burton do? Makes them even flatter than his Todd and Lovett, since, hey, Jayne Wisener (Johanna) and Jamie Campbell Bower (Anthony) aren't Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, so get the f$&k out of the shot, will you? This is his biggest disservice, the way he pushes aside these two young and obviously talented newcomers in order to squeeze in more scenes of Depp and Bonham Carter brooding. And the youngsters are not very well directed when they are onscreen. I admit that Wisener, though in possession of a well trained voice, just might not be much of an actress. However, you think Burton could have gotten a better expression out of her face than the total blank slate she wears when she thinks she's about to be murdered in one of the last scenes.

Johanna gets the biggest shaft of all. Even her triumphant moment in Fogg's Asylum, when she unknowingly does her papa proud by shooting Fogg when Anthony wimps out, is taken away from her in the film.

3. And let's talk about the songs that are cut. The bulk of them are Johanna and Anthony's. "Green Finch" loses most of its verses, "Ah, Miss" is taken out, and the worst crime of all is the loss of the "Kiss Me" duets. Those encapsulate the dumb teenager aspect of their dynamic that's very sweet at the same time. A lot of supporters of the film will go, "Well, no one really cares about Johanna and Anthony anyways, so big loss!" Yeah, their characters are ridiculous and queasy, but they're supposed to be. They provide a happy ending to the musical, and Johanna is a driving motivation to a lot of the characters. It's important the two are done right, and they most emphatically are not done right here. They're sapped of any energy or interest.

Theirs aren't the only songs to be butchered. First of all, we're missing The Ballads, because God Forbid a musical movie have some of the framing device of an actual musical. People have talked to death about the folly in cutting them, so what I'll focus on is how strange it is Burton takes out the songs but keeps in the theme. You can't have your cake and eat it too, Burton! Makes no sense! "Ladies in their Sensitivities" likewise makes no sense, because the whole part where the Beadle actually sings those words is taken out, seeing as Timothy Spall (though his oily creepiness is great) probably couldn't sing the notes needed. Man, think how rad someone like Nathan Lane would have been in the role. Oh, well! Nathan Lane wasn't in Sleepy Hollow, now was he?

"God, That's Good!" suffers a similar fate. Why? Because the lyrics "God, That's Good" are sung by the chorus of customers, and, well, Burton didn't want to film a chorus of singers. Well. Okie-doke, then. Why bother, really? All this musical nonsense is so tiring, after awhile. Hey, let's get a shot of Depp glowering into the camera! More! More!

"By the way, I was being sarcastic!"
"Well, duh."

And despite all these cuts, Mrs. Lovett's filler song "Wait" is left in untouched. Hm.

So, I've harped on and on about what I didn't like in the movie, so was there anything I did? Sure.

1. The flashback sequences. We're actually given a color palette that isn't grayish blue! There's a nice, eerie nightmare feeling to them, where everything's a bit off in the bright color scheme, that better captures the original musical's atmosphere. And I like seeing more of the young Lucy, since her limited presence is one of the disadvantages of the stage.

All the fangirls hate Lucy, none more so than the Burton fangirls who, like I mentioned above, want to be Helena Bonham Carter and want to make out with Johnny Depp. And on top of all that, Lucy's a blonde! Cardinal sin to our Hot Topic youth! The intense detestation of her character is mind-boggling. Yeah, I can get behind pettily hating the pretty blonde meself, since there are few characters I loathe more than Leila Kalomi in the This Side of Paradise episode of Star Trek. But I tend to be a stinker, and almost unconsciously gravitate toward whoever's the underdog in the public eye. These days, it's the fresh-faced ingenue. The public doesn't have time for the type anymore. They're clingy, useless, blah blah blah. So of course, I've been digging that type more than, say, recent characters like Bonham Carter's interpretation of Lovett. Let's face it, characters like her are honestly just as clingy and pining as the worst ingenue, but they get away with it in this more sassy and cynical day and age because they do it with, well, sass and cynicism.

But damn, Lucy mother-effing suffers. More than anyone else in the musical, in my opinion. She's not some twit who wanders in and steals Todd away from Lovett. She was married to him, had a kid, and then her husband was taken away and she was gang-raped and driven to suicide (well, let's be fair, according to Mrs. Lovett). Look, I love Mrs. Lovett as a hilariously demented sidekick. Not as a serious love interest, heck no. And I've read some seriously appalling comments about how "Lucy is just as bad as Judge Turpin, because she poisons herself instead of looking after Johanna." Ohhh boy, does that make my head spin. First of all, that is not as bad as gang-rape, any way you slice it. And no, I don't condone suicide, but I'd challenge any of us to think straight after going through what she did. My guess is she probably convinced herself in her unhinged mind that Johanna would be better off without her. Probably didn't predict Judge Turpin would swoop down and adopt 'er!

Anyways, I've been sidetracked. Uhhh...the flashback sequences! Yes! Quite good. Laura Michelle Kelly, though perhaps not as classically beautiful as one would have liked in a Lucy, exudes a genuine warmth that makes her likable. We feel the injustice she suffers, and I can't see how anyone wouldn't sympathize with her throughout. In a few short, silent scenes, she's memorable.

2. The "By the Sea" sequence is well done, if it wasn't for Bonham Carter's weak voice spoiling the boisterous mood. But the outlandishly skewered settings and costumes are brilliant, one of the few scenes that illustrates Mrs. Lovett's funtime insanity.

3. As always, Colleen Atwell does well in the costuming department, though Mrs. Lovett's dresses sometimes veer too much toward the aforementioned Hot Topic demographic.

4. Alan Rickman as Judge Turpin. Man can do very little wrong. The film could have used more of him, though I understand why they cut the second "Johanna" song. After all, so do a lot of the stage productions. Sacha Baron Cohen surprisingly did quite right by his singing, though strangely, I was surprised how restrained his Pirelli was. I like the sinister undertone, but still feel like he could have been even funnier.

5. Changing Toby from a Faulknerian Man-Child (as The Onion would say) into a little boy. Ed Sanders has an angelic voice that, quite frankly, totally outsings Bonham Carter in "Not While I'm Around." Making him a little boy is easier to understand than having him as a grown man, because it's never quite explained if he really is even impaired, though he certainly acts childish. Then again, he's very silver-tongued in "Pirelli's Miracle Elixir." What is his story, anyhow? Actually, the same goes for a child Toby, too: why would Pirelli hire a small boy to sing about losing and growing hair? Toby's just kind of a weird, unrealized character.

Well, look at that! Five things I liked, versus the three above I didn't! Um, that still doesn't mean I like the movie more than I disliked it. No, I still was mostly disappointed.

Look. Let me defend myself, o fanatical Burton worshipers. I like Burton at his best: Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands (can't watch without crying), the brilliant Ed Wood, and my very beloved Nightmare Before Christmas. But as you see, all four of those have an insane comic intensity, which is totally lacking in Sweeney Todd. Sweeney Todd just feels HEAVY. Not as in, "She's so....(guitar solo)....HEAVAAAAAAY!", but as in, "ugh, I'm exhausted by all this dreary-ass, miserable stuff that's happening, kill me now" heaviness.

And I know a film adaptation is of course going to be different from a staged musical. That's good. Why see a filmed play when you can just see a play? There are ways these days. Films open up the action, make it seem more immediate. But really? I don't see any reason to mess with the tone too much. Scale it down from someone standing with jazz hands in a spot light, but keep the comedy and the energy, super please.

And sooooo many people have harped on and on about how Sondheim was totally there during the casting process, and totally gave the thumbs-up for Bonham Carter and Depp. Eh, well, whatever. Who knows what really went on. Maybe he saw Bonham Carter before Burton told her to tone down her Lovett, back when she was trying to make the mad baker likable and kooky. Either way, though, I don't know what makes everyone automatically assume Sondheim's a casting expert.Yeah, he wrote the libretto and the music, but he stepped back and let Harold Prince direct and do the casting for the original London and (unless I'm wrong) Broadway version. I figure Sondheim recognized his limitations. After all, Truman Capote wanted Marilyn Monroe for Holly Golightly, not Audrey Hepburn. I read the book, and I do not see Monroe at all in his descriptions of Holly. Hepburn, yes (actually, more than either of them, I see Tuesday Weld. But I think it's been established by now what a lunatic fan of hers I am). When a director is showing you his girlfriend and his best friend, and it's only a screentest out of context, you might just be unconsciously driven to give them the okay before you really know how they'll do in the long-run. Maybe he was thrilled by their finished performances, who knows. But I wasn't. So there, blogosphere! What's it to ya?

I've tried looking at the movie from fresh eyes, like someone who didn't know the musical. Maybe I'd have been more impressed. But something about Depp's rigidity and Bonham Carter's droopiness, not to mention their lousy singing, just kept the whole thing from being any fun. And as you can tell by now, I like my macabre fun (dude I totally saw 1968's Dracula Has Risen From The Grave last night and it was sooooo good!). A musical, whether it be onstage or on film, should at least be fun.

All this makes me slightly nervous about the upcoming Dark Shadows movie, but I'm cheered by the fact that Seth Grahame-Smith--author of Pride & Prejudice & Zombies and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter--is penning the tale, not John Logan. Now I'm only fretting it will be too tongue-in-cheek. Oh dear, oh dear, sniff! Then I remember Michelle Pfeiffer, Eva Green, Chloe Moretz, and Jackie Earle Haley are in it (with cameos from the original cast and maybe even Christopher Lee!), and I feel better about the world. Burton needs a sturdy screenplay and an equally sturdy cast to come off. He's no Hitchcock who could make a great film even with John Gavin as the steady.

I would like to conclude by saying I've never felt more like the Comic Book Guy than I do having written this...shall I say....snippy?....griping?...review. "Worst. Movie Adaptation of a Victorian Cannibal Musical. Ever."

Speaking of The Simpsons...PREPARE TO BE TRAUMATIZED

2011-08-28T13:54:00.000-07:00

Apropos my Mindy Simmons post a few weeks back, I figured why not pay further tribute to The Simpsons by celebrating with this little bijou? A realistic rendering of Mr. Burns rising out of a nuclear tower from the waist up, like some kind of radioactive centaur!

Shot taken from this guy's blog

IT TASTES LIKE BURNING!

All...all I was looking for was a picture of Will There Ever Be A Rainbow, Mr. Burns's autobiography. Why did this have to happen?

Anyways, sharing the visual torture. The torture that's also secretly delightful. To wash your eyes out so you'll still like me, here's the cover I was talking about:

Taken from this tumblr

"Hello, my name is Mr...Snrub. Yes, that will do."

See? Much better.

Light In The Piazza (1962)--SPOILERS!, As Always

2011-08-27T15:09:00.000-07:00

I first became acquainted with Light in the Piazza’s story in college, when a professor had us read When Madeline Was Young by Jane Hamilton. Hamilton wrote in her introduction that she was inspired by Elizabeth Spencer’s original story, and both share at their center not so much a disabled woman's struggles, but a family member who must adjust expectations and perceptions to make life adaptable for the brain-damaged girl.

Later I gained a passing knowledge of the musical, though I have as yet to read the book. However, seeing as I’m me and I like moving pictures of the older variety, I was happy enough recently when I was finally the given the chance to watch the 1962 movie starring Olivia de Havilland and Yvette Mimieux as the mother and the girl, respectively.

I’ve already given away the key plot point that we figure out only about ten minutes in, when Meg Johnson (de Havilland) informs her daughter's tutor Miss Hawtree (Isabel Dean in a thankless role that exists only for exposition) that the beautiful Clara (Mimieux) suffered an accident as a child and therefore has the mental age of a child of ten (that’s what de Havilland tells us, anyways, but Clara’s behavior seems younger than ten to me. Then again, I don’t know kids good).

Clara and her understandably protective mother are on vacation in Florence, Italy. There they encounter Fabrizio Naccarelli, a young Italian man played by a very young and Warren Beattyish George Hamilton—and keep encountering him, as he has his sights set on the lovely, charmingly childlike Clara. Whether because of the language barrier or cultural differences, neither Fabrizio nor his extended family recognizes Clara’s impairment, seeing only an angelically simple girl.

Meanwhile, Meg’s anxiety and indecisiveness about the proper way to handle this grows and grows.

For such a tense situation, there is surprisingly little pay-off sometimes. Situations are set-up but just sort of peter out without the proper reactions you expect. For example, when she first meets Fabrizio's family, Clara acts a little too excited about the Nacarrellis' dog, then chases after it when it leaves the room. The family somehow doesn't find this odd but instead "delightful," especially since she's then charmingly enchanted by a painting of Baby Jesus. They then laugh off her request for a baby brother from her mother, and apparently ignore the straight face Clara wears when she asks this. If director Guy Green was aiming for the realism of unfulfilled tension—the sort of tension that builds and builds without ever exploding, just always simmering beneath the surface—I think he partly went around it the wrong way. He shifted too much of the focus that should have gone to this bubbling suspense on making almost a travelogue for Italy, including numerous loving shots of Florence's landscape.

A former cinematographer who famously collaborated with David Lean on Great Expectations, Green comes across as perfunctorily devoting too much of the story’s time surveying the Italian sunsets and festivals, not to mention all that nauseatingly glorious technicolor everywhere. He introduces potentially colorful characters who never go anywhere. Fabrizio’s overweight cousin, playboy brother, flashy sister-in-law are explicitly introduced and then just sit there without contributing anything meaningful. At least in the musical, there’s the explosive scene at the wedding rehearsal where Clara goes beserk chastising the sister-in-law for getting too friendly with Fabrizio in order to make her husband jealous. Overall, the movie just seems too long, and that it could have ended several times before it finally does. A lot of this is due to scenes packed in merely to remind us, Hey! We're in Italy! Look at Italy! Glimmering water! Gorgeous statues! Hilarious but romantic side characters! Italy!

Let it be said, though, that the scenes Green shoots that do capture that tension are pretty great. The one that stands out in my mind is a manic coach ride Meg takes on a whim while sorting out her thoughts. The coachman is far too fast for the genteel Meg, and the horses rattle down crowded, narrow Florence streets, and the camerawork perfectly captures that sickly feeling of a ride that keeps going faster and faster, while you have no control to stop it. This tension is likewise painted on de Havilland’s face: at first, she tries desperately to hold on to some semblance of brave dignity, tight-lipped and stoic. Nevertheless, a pale fear casts over her face, until she sharply demands to be let out.

For a movie like this, that tends to lose its focus, actors are key to grounding it. I wouldn’t call de Havilland’s performance remarkable or anything, but her subtlety does get at you. She’s no flashy Southern matron straight from the pages of Steel Magnolias—Thank God. At times she borders on coming across too cold, but we as an audience sense the love and anxiety that enforces this stiffness. After all, through most of the movie she’s determined to get rid of Fabrizio, without hopefully having to reveal why. So she gives him the cold shoulder at every opportunity, while never being anything less than polite. Yet the propriety and reservations change drastically when Clara’s father enters the picture.

Played by Barry Sullivan, Noel Johnson, Meg’s husband and Clara’s father, is perhaps the most unfair representation in the movie. In fact, the two older male characters are pretty much given the shaft—Rossano Brazzi’s Signor Naccarelli is a sensual enigma, and while he’s given the most screentime along with de Havilland and Mimieux, we’re never quite sure where he’s coming from. He talks a lot, but his benign, slightly sleazy expressions seem to negate everything he says, so it’s hard to get a grip on his motives in pushing the relationship between his son and Clara. Meg pretty much bribes him with Clara's dowry, yet she points out to Noel that the Naccarellis are wealthy themselves. What's his deal?

But returning to Noel, if he had been played more sensitively or directed more sensitively, perhaps we’d feel more genuinely conflicted about whose side to take: his or Meg’s. Because really, Noel’s arguments often make sense. What will happen to Clara when her parents die? He says he’s done his research into the establishment she’d go to, and that it’s a good place where they can visit her every day. A combination of independent and assisted living might be more ideal, but was that really a viable option back then? And Meg truly is unrealistic—and vaguely bigoted—when she asserts that Clara will never have anything more to do as a wealthy Italian wife than to sit still and look pretty. “The grandmothers really take care of the children.” All right, so what happens when Clara’s a grandmother?

Like I said, many of Noel’s arguments make sense, but we’re not allowed to sympathize with him. Why? Because it’s very clear that he’s not motivated out of pure concern for Clara, but because the toll raising her has taken on Meg makes it difficult for him to have sex with his wife. How base of him, how uncaring! He’s short with both wife and daughter. He's just plain unlikable.

Frankly, he’s a stereotype of the small-minded rich American businessman, and that’s disappointing in a movie that tries to bring together so many varying cultures in harmony: American, Italian, disabled. This portion of the film is a let-down.

Yet there’s no denying that Noel’s decision to place Clara in an institution is the deciding factor in Meg’s life, bringing about a huge shift in her character. After spending the first half of the movie doing everything she can think of to keep them apart, she now decides she’ll stop at nothing to get Clara safely married to Fabrizio.

I argue that this bold move does not indicate Meg growing stronger as a character, but that she’s instead finally snapped, and convinced herself to believe in a delusion. Because even though her love for her daughter is pure and genuine, this is still an incredibly selfish act from the standpoint of the unknowing Naccarellis', and from Clara’s standpoint, too. Meg isn’t going to look after Clara anymore, Fabrizio is. She’s essentially dumped Clara on him and his family, just as Noel wanted to dump her in an institution. Different gilded cage but with the same bars for the hapless Clara, with the addition of domestic responsibility: just how much does Clara know about the birds and the bees? Does she know what to expect on her wedding night? Does she have the wherewithal to stand pregnancy? Especially in a household where English is not the first language--and for her mother-in-law, not one of her languages at all? Such questions require more than a mother’s faith, particularly if that mother is no longer in charge.

The movie doesn’t falter leaving these questions open-ended; it’s good that there’s controversy. It’s a tough subject. We want Clara to be happy, but will she be for long, or Fabrizio? The tone for all this does seem a bit off, though. The cheery bright colors and de Havilland’s Christian Dior outfits, along with the broad comedy from the Naccarellis, aren’t the only parts that jar with the angsty material. In the last scene, as Clara and Fabrizio make their way to the car after the wedding, Clara stoops down and eats one of the flower petals the guests threw at their feet. A quick look of apprehension crosses Meg’s face, but dissipates as Fabrizio leans down to eat one, too. While this is a heartwarming scene in a way, it does feel a little bit like a cheat: see, these two kids get each other! Don’t worry your pretty little early ‘60s noggins about Clara’s future.

However, hokey as that scene may seem, it does lead to the last line, when Meg smiles eerily and says emphatically, “I’ve done the right thing.” De Havilland’s delivery lets the audience know that she’s not done right in a moral sense, but for her peace of mind. Meg just might be losing it; why else does she lackadaisically let Signor Naccarelli kiss her, then act like a sultry coquette who withdraws her favors the next moment? She’s testing the waters of her freedom, but her freedom from what? She’ll always love Clara, so it’s not at all that she wants to get rid of her. No, she wants to get rid of the obligation to play by society’s rules that have been laid out for her daughter, and for herself. She wants that “normal” daughter, but because she can’t, she’ll get that daughter a “normal” life, even if that means turning her back on her own typical role, that of the completely faithful wife and controlling mother.

Clara’s marriage isn’t so much about securing Clara’s future as it is about Meg letting loose in her own. This is ironic, seeing as Meg's freedom means trapping Clara in that same world of conservative marriage, where this carefree, childlike girl will be expected to eventually fall in line as the wise mother figure. Meg does not maliciously place Clara in this position; this mother's simply so far gone in her delusion of a happy life for Clara she bowls over such details. De Havilland’s cool performance covers a clever and buzzing mind that slowly loses itself in her character's great love for her daughter, and she gracefully gets across the quiet tragedy of this situation when the direction fails to.

Other than de Havilland, the only standout performance I can think of is Mimieux as Clara. Her portrayal probably doesn't rank up there with all the Leonard DiCaprios in What’s Eating Gilbert Grapes, the pantheon of realistic renderings of intellectually disabled characters. However, she does do wonders. As always, I go more for unique spark and style over realism that's dolorous for the sake of "honesty," and Mimieux's giddy charm makes it clear why she’s had so many gentleman callers, and why Fabrizio would be so taken with her. To accomplish that, it really can’t be too obvious she’s disabled. Her best scene is when she and her parents are dining in an outside cafe in Rome, and her parents push her to leave the country without seeing Fabrizio again. She turns hysterical, and for one of the few times in the movie, Noel and Meg work in unison out of mutual concern, getting her to a taxi. Mimieux makes the shift to Clara’s hyperventilating and babbling a realistic transition that feels true to the character. The image of her frantic shaking and yelling at the table stays with you.

It’s one of the few times we see the ugly side of Clara’s impairment, and it’s a good choice to make it so brief; we see throughout that Clara is charming in her innocence, and at times we feel almost a condescension to her character from the filmmakers, that she’s no more than a pretty little doll that can't grow up (Meg says that’s the one consolation she takes from her daughter’s condition). However, this scene reminds us that this bright Florence fairytale will have to end sometime, that Fabrizio’s steady hands on her temples might not always calm Clara. For now, he eats the flower with her, but will he always? That dark edge of hysteria in Clara exists in Meg, too, and also behind the glittering cinematography and fashionable setting.

If I Could Be One Fictional Character, I'd Be Mindy Simmons

2011-08-16T13:49:00.000-07:00

Keep in mind this was The Simpsons at its best, Season Five's The Last Temptation of Homer. Season Five was a solid time for the series, before the creative team stretched themselves too hard trying to match the more random, manic, and less character-driven formulas that might work for such shows as South Park and occasionally Family Guy, but a recipe that often falls flat on The Simpsons. Yet conversely, the show had also been around long enough to produce episodes more confident and sophisticated than some of the very early Season One shows that, despite many golden moments of their own, had yet to really establish that classic Simpsons rhythm. Most fans agree Seasons 3-6 were probably the series at its absolute best.

It is in this perfect era we meet Mindy Simmons. She's some kind of engineer who's been brought in to put the Affirmative in the nuclear power plant's fledgling Action. Homer is immediately drawn to her, and she to him (no, this is not why I idolize her: even with my established quirky taste in men, I draw the line at Homey).

Why The Simpsons remains such a cultural milestone long after its run its course and is now not...very...shall I say...good, is because of the way the writers handle this dilemma. Obviously, Homer can't really err from Marge. That would take things too far. So equally obviously, Mindy can't be a permanent character. She's a one-off. So it would be easy to make her a one-dimensional floozy, good for a couple cheap laughs on account of that flooziness.

Yet what the writers do instead, which is what helps make Mindy such a fantastic character despite her one-episode appearance, is make her just as conflicted as Homer, and just as ultimately kind-hearted, too. She doesn't want to be a homewrecker. However, as I believe showrunner Al Jean said in this episode's commentary, "these two characters just can't control their libidos around each other." In a hilarious sequence in the plant's tiny elevator, she and Homer are smashed nose-to-nose in the cramped space of the box. Instead of smirking and flirting, Mindy unknowingly imitates Homer, whispering to herself with eyes closed, "Think unsexy thoughts, think unsexy thoughts." Then she smiles the same awkward, loopy grin as Homer.

Now we get to the real, mean and dirty reason I wish I could be just like her: she makes being the female equivalent of Homer attractive and charming. Like Homer, she loves hogging down donuts like a pig ("I dunno. Pigs tend to chew. I'd say he eats more like a duck"--sorry, wrong episode, but still a classic line). She enjoys sneaking in a nap before lunch. She gets excited about the prospect of free shower curtains in a hotel room. She yells "get bent" at someone criticizing their nuclear panel at a convention. She makes that same beloved gargling noise in the back of her throat when she thinks about the words "double glaze".

She is Homer, as a foxy redhead.

Does that mean she also has his lack of intelligence? Well, that's difficult to gauge. We never really see her working at her job, though Smithers mentions as an afterthought that she has some sort of relevant degree. She's probably more competent than Homer, but we can't know that for certain: after all, Homer works at the plant. Competence is apparently not high on Burns's list of desired qualities for employees (competence might foster independent thinking).

If Mindy is as stupid as Homer, would that make me want to be her any less? Well... "Short answer 'yes' with an 'if', long answer 'no', with a 'but'." Yeah, I'd like to emulate somebody intelligent, wouldn't we all? Least that's what my ego dictates. However, there is that small, petty, corpulent little gal called my id, who dances around in a devil costume shaking maracas, singing, "I am evil Laura! I am evil Laura!" This primitive imp wouldn't mind getting away with all that Homer gets away with, while possessing little to no intelligence. What man or woman wouldn't, at their evil, primitive core? And what man or woman wouldn't want to get away with all that Homer gets away with while being ridiculously attractive, unlike the real Homer?

So, Mindy is basically a win-win character. She's not only wish-fulfillment for fanboys, but for fangirls, too. And that's the sort of all-encompassing thinking The Simpsons writers at their best were terrific at.

Oh, but have I mentioned the absolute best reason Mindy's amazing? She has the piggish habits of Homer, has a good heart, is a smokin' hot babe, and she has the voice of Michelle Pfeiffer. Yowza.

Let's break this down:

This

Plus This

Equals This!

Admit it. We all want to be Mindy Simmons.

P.S. If you can get a copy of the DVD for The Last Temptation of Homer, listen to the commentary. Al Jean had it bad for Pfeiffer, and it's adorable to hear. Apparently, according to Jean, she's super, super gorgeous. One disappointing fact, though: that gargling sound? Broccoli and water. She didn't want to eat sweets. The hell? I love you dearly, Michelle, but I'd still rather be Mindy if that's what it takes to look like you and not her.

Obligatory Hot Guy Post, Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Embrace My Creepy Taste in Men

2011-08-13T19:07:00.000-07:00

Cuz seriously, my taste in men often veers towards the creepy (by which I mean secretly awesome).

Now, I'm fully aware of the buzz circulating the blogosphere: "hey, Laura, what gives? I get the movie thing, the comics thing, the occasional sad attempts at appearing literary, but excuse me? I have no frame of reference here if you don't provide a picture post of the men you find most desirable. Come on."

All right, you've shamed me.

I'll start with my most current obsession, Christopher Lee:

Sadly, this shot is taken from possibly his absolute worst Dracula film, Dracula A.D. 1972

Tall, imperious, and oh my fluttering femininity, that basso profundo voice. For all his outward appearance of being an upright, dignified, typical British gent, there's something always eerily animalistic about him that makes him more dangerously sexy than what "dignified gentleman" sometimes signifies.

And did I mention he has a sexy voice?

Interesting bit of trivia: according to IMDb, my other favorite suave British gent, George Sanders, was slated to play Lee's role of Mycroft in Billy Wilder's 1970 The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. However, he backed out (I think this was only a year before he committed suicide, so he was probably less than stable, which might have contributed to this decision). Therefore, at the last minute Lee dutifully filled in, still sexy despite the bald cap. Oh, when my romantic idols almost collide!

Speaking of Sanders....

George Sanders!

Again with the whole suave and British, subtly dangerous thing. Oh, and the deep voice. Guess that's a thing of mine.

Leonard Nimoy

See?

Spock and Christine Chapel, hottest pairing ever and I don't care what any of you haters say shut up shut up

Nimoy's hottest when he's playing Monsieur Spock, hands down. But that's not to say I don't find him sexy in anything else. He was very alluring as the evil doctor in that Columbo episode, after all.

Speaking of whom....

Peter Falk

Let's face it, Columbo was a badass. So was Peter Falk. I admittedly feel even a tad creepier than usual including him in my slideshow of hot guys, seeing as he's so recently passed away. But it must be said: for all the bumbling, everyday man stuff Falk went for in his performances, there was an underlying craftiness and confidence there that's impossible to ignore, and which I find incredibly attractive.

Anthony Hopkins

Nuthin' like romanticizing serial killers, huh? He and Falk at least break my tradition of tall dudes with deep voices. At the end of the day I suppose I like men who are intense and distinctive. You don't get no more intense or distinctive than Sir Anthony.

(I had to double check to make sure he was really knighted. I was afraid I might have just assumed it cuz, y'know, it's Anthony Hopkins).

Hugh Laurie

Aaaaaand we're back to the tall guys. Still British, too! However, as dearly as I love Bertie Wooster and find him adorable as can be, I only truly find Laurie irresistible when in the guise of the cantankerous, borderline homicidal American Dr. House. And when he's unshaven.

Al Pacino

I can't say he did much for me in the first Godfather; too earnest and young, I guess, for my corrupted tastes. Once Godfather II came along, though...well. And I swear, this man has only gotten more attractive with age. It's that intensity again, guys. That intensity.

James Cagney

HA! Neither tall nor British! But man, look at that style. And that sizing-up glance. 'Nuff said.

Jon Stewart

...And sometimes? I just like the funny.

So long story short, talent and personality are what really get me. Some of these men you might not call conventionally attractive, but they gots loads of presence. They're all unique, intelligent performers, who bring something different and a little off to the plate. I like that.

I seldom like a pretty face alone; really, pretty faces annoy the hell out of me without some personality twist just festering behind that face. Meanwhile, I'm often attracted to men many would deem maybe even ugly, so long as they have, well, whatever the guys I just listed have. Simple as that.

Here are some honorable mentions:

Clark Gable, Johnny Depp once the first Pirates movie came out, Ricardo Montalban, Michael Fassbender (more George Sanders trivia!: Tarantino told Fassbender to channel Sanders in Inglourious Basterds! And that's why I'm mostly a Tarantino supporter), at one point in my adolescence every single Beatle (but mostly George), Ronald Colman, Colin Firth, Boris Karloff, John Karlen, Jane Eyre-era Orson Welles, Warner Baxter, Marlon Brando post-Waterfront to the mid-60s, Sidney Poitier, Maximillian Schell, Willem Dafoe, Lon Chaney Sr. (mostly out of makeup), and a cavalcade of other talented, intense guys I'm forgetting.

Your picks? Or if you're so inclined, favorite laaaaadies? C'mon, being shallow and creepy is fun! Join the game! Compile your own list on your own blog! Or heck, get the community involved! Post a bulletin at your local supermarket, or your local church! It's fun and easy to do! Hot guys!

P.S. Need further proof of Christopher Lee's deadly sexiness? Here's a creeptastically sexy video compilation of his Dracula set to Queen's Death On Two Legs for you. Creeptastic. Sexy.

Embedding's disabled, but here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyVJ3KiQ6Q8

You're welcome, world!

The Liebster Award? For Little Floppy-Headed Me?

2011-08-10T14:51:00.000-07:00

'Tis a day for blushing and "aw-shucks!"ing: two incredibly gifted and generous bloggers--Rachel at The Girl with the White Parasol and Meredith at Movie Montage, to be exact--have nominated Yours Humbly for the Liebster Award. Liebster is German for beloved, and the recipients are encouraged to link back to the sites that nominated them originally (done!) and nominate five of their own beloved blogs to showcase (I'm gettin' to it, hold on, crikey!). Now, I'm full aware a fleeting English speaking eye might read "Lobster" award instead of "Liebster." I will concede that. But while I would have been just as pleased to have received a Lobster Award, I consider it overall far more heartwarming winning an award that deems my li'l website beloved instead of buttery and delicious.

Now, picking five other blogs unfortunately precludes the lovely Rachel and Meredith in my case, since they were my nominators. This makes me sad. I'd love to give them awards. Rachel always finds the most fascinating films to write about, offering just as fascinating, wonderfully-written commentary and original, thought-provoking interpretations (not to mention a Citizen Kane blog-name for the win!). Meredith tackles my favorite topics--screwball comedy, femme fatales, and a mix of awesome old/new movies--with great verve and a helluva lotta wit (her url is voteforgracie! So cool!).

However, I still have a whole treasure trove of other excellent blogs to nominate! Didn't make it too easy, actually, in cutting down my choices to five. But here are some fantastic sites you should all give a looksie:

Krell Laboratories It was love at first read when I saw her name was Vulnavia Morbius. Another example of my penchant for really witty writers, Vulnavia also doesn't shirk in areas of social commentary in her film analyses, particularly on gendered politics. Krell Laboratories is a fascinating, intelligent blog.

Carfax Abbey Continuing my burgeoning love of all things old-school horror/gothic, my next award goes to the brilliant Matthew Conian at Carfax Abbey. He's an incredibly well-read writer who knows his stuff, and writes damn well about it. Not to mention he gives some much-needed love to the criminally underappreciated Hammer Horror franchise, which many writers, both professional and otherwise (including my beloved Pauline Kael), so often choose to ignore. "Hammer Horror, Hammer Horror, won't leave me alone! The first time in my life, I leave the lights on to ease my soul" (honorary nomination if you pick up on that reference!).

Germans Like Heavy Make-Up Ms.Zebra writes enthusiastically and addictively about vintage flicks, and once her posts hook you, you're in for the long-haul. She'll turn you on to so many great films and stars your head, most likely, will explode. But it's the good kind of explosion, the kind that clears the sinuses!

Sales on Film This blog is a recent find of mine, discovered during the great Viv and Larry Blog-a-Thon of '11. Boy, I'm glad I did. Her write-ups are detailed, in-depth, and basically all around extraordinary. Plus, she ain't messing around: she's got a BA in film from University of California, Irvine! Not bad.

Classic Film and TV Cafe Very versatile blog, devoting one post to the greatest classic Star Trek episodes, the next to Disney movies, and the next to the best gangster films of the early '30s. Eclectic, classy, and most importantly, fun.

Congrats, you wacky kids! If this award stuff ain't yo thang, no biggie. No need to nominate anyone or mention the award on your blog or nuthin'. But have fun if you do, and good luck limiting your nominees to five!

Thank you again to Rachel and Meredith, not only for the nominations, but for the kind words and kickass blogs. This is a gala day for me--but "a gal a day is enough for me. I don't think I could handle any more."

Myrna Loy: Gutsy Dame, On Screen and Off

2011-08-02T13:15:00.000-07:00

Beautiful scan compliments of Doctor Macro

Following quotes compliment of IMDb:

[Challenging MGM bosses in the 1930s] "Why does every black person in the movies have to play a servant? How about a black person walking up the steps of a courthouse carrying a briefcase?"

[Speaking in the late 1960s] "I admire some of the people on the screen today, but most of them look like everybody else. In our day we had individuality. Pictures were more sophisticated. All this nudity is too excessive and it is getting very boring. It will be a shame if it upsets people so much that it brings on the need for censorship. I hate censorship. In the cinema there's no mystery. No privacy. And no sex, either. Most of the sex I've seen on the screen looks like an expression of hostility towards sex."

[Referring to her "perfect wife" typecasting] "Some perfect wife I am. I've been married four times, divorced four times, have no children, and can't boil an egg."

And reminder that today would have been Loy's 106th birthday is compliments of Self-Styled Siren's far more thorough tribute here.

It's wonderful when you can admire actors for their talent alone. Frankly, a lot of the time that's all you can admire them for. Usually that should be enough: you watch them for their ability to play people not themselves, after all. But when you can also admire their intellect, compassion, courage, and wit? Well, why not savor that a little?

Myrna Loy is the actress I most admire for both talent and personality. Have a happy, Myrna! Don't let anyone make you boil eggs in whatever heavenly, sophisticated dimension you're inhabiting!

Going Sane, 1994

2011-07-27T20:42:00.000-07:00

Inspired by Jokers-Circus's brilliant post on the same subject here. My scans in this post aren't as nice, sorry.

So, comic books and me: we have but a passing acquaintance. I like the idea of most superheroes, and in fact actively love a select few of them. But for some reason, there are only a handful of comic books (fine, fine, graphic novels, you nerds) that I love in the same way.

Going Sane is one of them.

Written by J.M. DeMatteis with art by Joe Staton and Steve Mitchell, Going Sane is a Batman tale centered around The Joker, and explores the question as to whether or not, if Batman dies, The Joker would die with him, simply from lack of that stalwart opposing force.

Joker is a fascinating creature, and one that draws an ol' timey film nerd like me to him automatically. Look at his character's history: inspired by Conrad Veidt's Gwynplaine in the 1928 version of Victor Hugo's The Man Who Laughs, Joker combines the horror of grand guignol silent films with the psychotic spark of the Marx Brothers. Despite the dark, dark, very dark and edgy evolution of his character--growing more and more twisted and manic with each new generation, from crippling Barbara Gordon to Heath Ledger's darkest film take--old-fashioned comedy is what shapes and defines Joker. The Chaplins, Keatons, and Lloyds of years past are the eternal backdrop to his crimes, his framing device. Batman, of course, is the audience.

So when the audience is gone?

You get Joseph Kerr, mild-mannered amnesiac, who must take pills in order to control his "skin condition."

Of course many comics, including The Dark Knight, have toyed with the age-old idea of Joker and Batman serving as two sides to the same coin, unable to exist without the other. But DeMatteis was the first to literally spell this theory out on paper, stating loud and clear that The Joker would have no point, no purpose without the dude in the cape n' cowl. Creating a whole story arc around this could have come across as too obvious, almost to the point of ruining the argument. However, DeMatteis brings in a shocking new side to the argument, an idea that many would shy away from even today: what if The Joker is only evil because of Batman? When Batman dies, would Joker's evil die? Leaving behind...a good man?

On the surface, according to this book, the answer appears to be yes. But once you go a little bit deeper...it's, um, deeper than that.

In his recent review of the last Harry Potter movie in The New Yorker, David Denby wonders if children will "understand Rowling's suggestion that none of us are purely good or purely evil." It's obvious DeMatteis understands, and illustrates just how this dichotomy is not only personified by the good Batman and the evil Joker, but by The Joker and Joseph Kerr: one body, two different personalities fighting for dominance.

Once Joker morphs into Joseph Kerr (which includes an operation to un-bleach his white skin), we start seeing the world through innocent Joseph's eyes. And because I'm an icky girl, this leads to my favorite part, my favorite romance I've read in a graphic novel: the reformed Joker's tender, understanding relationship with his equally mild-mannered neighbor Rebecca Brown.

Their dynamic is especially appealing to classic film bloggers like myself, because if it wasn't 1994, the pair would totally be blogging their little hearts out about Fred and Ginger and Fibber McGee and Molly. They're quiet characters who create a fantasy world inhabited by Jack Benny's gang, George and Gracie, Baby Snooks, and all the radio serial classics. DeMatteis remembers that comedy is always Joker's backdrop, no matter what incarnation or what level his insanity--and the fact that classic comedy is what Joker/Joseph takes shelter in illustrates how just outside contemporary society the man is. With Joker, his idealization of classics symbolizes his inability to relate to those around him save for violence. With Joseph, the inability to relate period.

But then he meets Rebecca. He now has someone to share this with. We learn little about Rebecca's background, except that she's 35, is on speaking terms with her mother, and has little experience with men. She makes little allusions throughout that maybe she, this introverted woman bordering on middle age, has likewise done things she's not proud of. At one point, referring to the love Joseph has brought to her life, she says in her narrative box, "In six weeks he'd transformed my entire life. Brought me more happiness than I'd ever dreamed was possible. More happiness, certainly, than I ever deserved." Later, once they're engaged, she says the rain pouring down is like "God's just washing away everything that's come before--so that tomorrow morning when I say 'I do'--it'll be a beautiful new beginning for both of us."

Is she simply modest, one of those self-effacing religious types who spurns joy as an undeserving treat? Or does Rebecca Brown have her own smirking hellbeast, locked away more securely than Joseph's? Is that why she's so drawn to him? Is this where their deep connection stems from outside of their love of Tommy Dorsey and screwball comedy? Is this why she's so deeply troubled about his "episodes"--is she scared not because she doesn't understand, but because she understands all too well the struggle to keep back the bile?

We don't know, and if that was DeMatteis's intention, he doesn't call undo attention to it. Still, with the little information we have, we get to know Rebecca far better than the usual one-off love interest. He truly cares about developing this character. The fact that he shirks comic book convention by making her mousy instead of sensual, soft-spoken instead of kickass, dressed in sweaters and long skirts instead of tights and a cape, makes her stand out even more in this genre.

As I mention on Jokers-Circus, her lack of glamor and pretense is what most likely draws the recovering Joker to her. In Alan Moore's The Killing Joke (1988), considered the definitive Joker book, we see hints of a possible past for the Joker, one he reaches out for in his unreliable memory: a funny, understanding, pregnant wife named Jeannie. The two of them live in a run-down apartment thanks to his fledgling career as a nervous standup comic. Jeannie's described in Moore's original script as average looking, sickly, but "happy in her grim little apartment," supportive of her husband without being submissive.

There's speculation that Going Sane is meant to take place before the events of Killing Joke, leading to theories that the Jeannie we see here is actually Rebecca, distorted in Joker's memory--as he says in Killing Joke, his memories shift and transform as quickly as his manic moods. I'm not sure how I feel about this. I like Jeannie and I like Rebecca, so combining both characters feels like short-changing them both. But from a thematic perspective, Joker's softening expression in the panel above eerily echoes his expression in Going Sane here, when Rebecca's face appears to him while threatening Councilwoman Kenner, portending that maybe this is the case.

Yes, surprising spoiler, Joker reverts. Batman is alive after all; in another subplot of the book, we see him recuperating with the assistance of a lovely doctor in an idyllic little town. He's ready to abandon his Batman persona forever, just as Joseph has abandoned Joker, when his doctor tells him how an encounter with Batman in Gotham helped restore her faith in humanity after she was raped. So he returns, hoping to inspire more people like her.

This is a well-written part of the book, but fails to get me like Joker's struggle. See, Bruce Wayne is fully aware of his identity throughout, and is calmly mulling over the possibilities with all the gravity sanity brings. Joseph Kerr does not have this luxury. He's unsure what force is drawing him back to a life of crime in Gotham, only vague, terrifying shapes in his nightmares. It isn't until he sees that Bat again that he snaps, and Joseph disappears.

But then there's that shot of Joker weakening when confronted with the vision of Rebecca in Kenner's place. Like Moore's Joker, briefly reaching out for Jeannie, DeMatteis's creation is not a cardboard psychopathic cutout. Many graphic novelists, desperate to escape the campy '60s TV show depiction of Joker as a harmless mischief maker, went too far in the other direction, making him far darker and far more violent, but still lacking in depth.

Harley Quinn is a tragic and fascinating character because even if there is a small, tiny, measly little spark in Joker that's capable of love, she'll never earn it, in my incredibly unpopular opinion. Love, even in a wildly fictional setting like comic books, requires a foundation of respect, and there is no respect for Harley in Joker. How could there be, god bless 'er?

With Rebecca and Jeannie, that respect is there and that love is there, regardless of whether or not Jeannie is even real. Something makes him reach out in that picture in Killing Joke, and something stops him in that panel with Kenner. Does that mean twoo wuv could redeem Joker forever? Obviously not, since the specter of Batman is able to lure him back to his evil-doin' ways and away from Rebecca's side.

But that his love for her is enough to temporarily disturb and disorient him, distract him from the vision of Batman punching him to justice, widens the scope of his character. He's closer than ever to the original Gwynnplaine comparison, though with a far more conscious awareness of the corruption he's sunk into. The downward spiral of their relationship that Batman perpetually laments is not one-sided here; Joker, deep down, may want to get out of their sick dynamic too, but the sickness is too malignant now, too inescapable. Just like Mr. Freeze or Two-Face, Joker has his tragic edge.

Going Sane is not without its flaws. Well, it has at least one, from my point of v: the art. Man, I do not like the art. My admittedly untrained eye finds the drawings clumsy, half-assed, and uneven. In the first half of the book, Rebecca's hair is light brown, but by the end, it's blonde; Joker looks far boxier and meatier than he should, his hair bushier, and it's impossible to tell who's supposed to be good-looking and who's not, since everyone just looks sort of awful. My ideal graphic novel? This story drawn by the ingenious Brian Bolland, who drew The Killing Joke.

Still, DeMatteis's story is so strong that I even prefer Going Sane to Killing Joke overall (sorry, y'all, you can map out for me all sorts of excellent arguments as to why Barbara's paralysis is necessary, but I'm going with my classic knee-jerk take on this one: BOO). Even if you're not a Batman fan or a fan of comic books in general, the countless allusions to classic comedies and big-band music would most definitely appeal to this audience, and the story's depth should stay with you beyond that. The way it's structured is fragmented beautifully, providing the four central characters' perspectives in multi-colored narrative boxes--unfamiliar as I am with graphic novels, I'm not sure if that's a common structural strategy, but it's very effective here.

Joseph Kerr is a mostly good man with a hidden room of demons festering inside him. And DeMatteis argues that Joker is mostly a demon with a hidden sanctuary of good inside him, a corner consisting of a small, quiet man in love--in love with both a woman and with a past that he perceives as a simpler, better time. The Joker in his mind is merely a reaction to the moral decay he believes is around him. He soaks it in while also mocking it: he kills what he sees as inescapably corrupted and devoid of humor, and revels in that destruction. However, by his shaky definition, everything is corrupt, no one has a sense of humor, so everything is fair game to kill. Joker's tragedy is that unlike Joseph, he's better at keeping the good in him at bay than Joseph is at stamping down the evil.

In Which 1930s Disney Breaks My Brain

2011-07-11T11:21:00.000-07:00

Let's stare into the dark, fantastic abyss of the human soul, shall we?

My favorite comment on the video: "she agreed to go back to Hades because the music was better, much better."

How long do you think it'd take me to learn her dance moves at around 0:54? I'd probably have to remove my spine and the bones from my arms, huh?

It's like they wanted to capture the edgy Cab Calloway vibe from Max Fleischer cartoons, but couldn't resist the pull of Disney's traditional delicate sappiness. Glorious.

A Cockney Scarlett: Vivien Leigh as Libby in St. Martin's Lane (1938)

2011-07-10T13:36:00.000-07:00

Or Sidewalks of London, if that's the way you roll. Many thanks to Rachel at The Girl with the White Parasol for alerting me to the Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier Appreciation Blogathon over at Viv and Larry.com. I thought I'd look at one of my favorite and less well-known of Vivien's performances. It's from one of her last films in England before heading to California for that one big picture about the Civil War.

St. Martin's Lane was made in 1938, a quirky but heartfelt little film--but not quirky and heartfelt in that appalling sticky way that happens sometimes--about the dying art of busking in late '30s Britain. It's co-written, co-produced, and co-starring Charles Laughton. He plays the gentle-hearted, wily, but fundamentally bombastic Charles Staggers, who fancies himself a Sir John Gielgud of the London streets. On some level, he knows he's not as classically refined in his talents as those onstage, but he's happy with his mediocre living and his eccentric streetwise pals.

It's not until he meets Leigh's stagestruck Libby, a sort of theatrical but homeless prodigy, that he even becomes aware that there's anything to be dissatisfied about in his meager and gypsy-like career. Really, I'm not sure why Vivien didn't send Selznick this movie instead of Fire Over England to showcase why she'd make the perfect Scarlett O'Hara. Not only does she portray the same feisty, fiery temper and irrational desires that, like Scarlett, gives her the air of a volcano just waiting to erupt in a black cloud of crazy, but she maintains throughout that adorable likability that keeps the audience from totally condemning her character.

Because really, save for a few fine moments (that I'll talk about in a bit), the script gives us very little reason to like Libby. She starts out as a pickpocket more concerned with getting a permanent wave and manicure like everyone else than earning an honest living, and Charles is just about ready to haul her in for stealing his sixpence and a famous songwriter's cigarette case, when in a magical sequence, he comes upon her dancing to a little tune she's humming, and discovers that the stuck-up little thief moves like an acrobatic swan (I'm unsure how much of the dancing is Vivien's and the rest a double's, but in the close-ups, her upper-body movements are at least very believable).

Recognizing her innate talent, Charles recruits her for his act, and, inevitably, falls for the "silly coot." And despite the fact she tears up his room in a fit, smacks him a couple of times, looks down on his act once that dashing songwriter (Rex Harrison) enters the scene again, and more or less acts the thoughtless little ditz much of the time, we can see where the infatuation comes from.

She is, after all, Vivien Leigh. And where there's Vivien Leigh, there's charm. A while back I was discussing with someone online about how Paulette Goddard would have done as Scarlett. We both agreed she probably would have done a fine job, but I argued that she was too much the hardboiled '30s dame to make us properly sympathize with her Scarlett. In Goddard's screentests, she lacks the childlike manner bordering on pert naivete that Vivien brought to not only Scarlett but most of her roles, including Blanche, Myra, and of course Libby.

We as an audience can forgive Libby a lot because instead of a tart tease, she comes across more like a damaged child, orphaned and lost, who's had to act tough to get through life at all. It's not that she's going for the handwringing, big-eyed childwoman of D.W. Griffiths movies--that would be totally out of place in this light British comedy. Libby is certainly a spoiled child, but not one without a heart.

Let's go back to those few fine scenes I mentioned, or at least one in particular. After she tears up the room and Charles lightly jokes about it, you see her face crumple in shame, and she turns away to cry. In one of the most quietly sweet moments I've ever seen, she half-heartedly snaps, "go away!" when Charles pats her shoulder. An instant later, she hugs him. Watching Laughton's face shift from numb surprise to numb softness is melting enough, but then in-between childish gulps of breath, Libby apologizes for all the wretched stuff she's done to Charles in the one day they've known each other--stolen his sixpence, made fun of him, torn up his room-- "I'm sorry, you silly fool! I'm sorry!" And she buries her face in his shoulder.

I could be wrong--I've actually had no experience being a man--but I think most guys would have no problem forgiving her there.

The other fine scene appears at the end, and I won't spoil anything except to say it does involve a very sweet kiss. Unfortunately, one of the reasons Vivien probably didn't send this flick to Selznick was because she apparently didn't have the best time working on it. Her relationship with Laughton was chilly at best, and as this was made at the height of her love affair with that Olivier person, she was quite distracted with the relationship, and Laughton was less than sympathetic (you really can't blame him. But then again, it's Vivien, so I at least forgive her, even if he couldn't).

Whatever tensions were on on-set, Laughton and Leigh did not let it show in their performances. They both had wonderful chemistry, and made the audience feel for both of them. No small feat, since both characters want different things: Libby wants fame, Charles wants Libby. Turns out both desires are incompatible, but the sweetness these characters share can't be ignored, either.

Neither can Vivien's rare star quality. She doesn't so much act the role of Libby as she does throw herself aggressively at it, and while I'm sure the same Method devotees who sneer at her Blanche might have the same problems with her Libby (she can be a bit shrill at times, her Cockney accent wavers every once in a while), there's no denying she makes her character come alive in a way that can't be taught in an acting school, not really. Like Scarlett, Libby stands for all the ruthless ambition that survives because of that unshakable spark, that childlike conviction that she has no other choice but to make it--in Libby's case, to the stage and the tantalizing promise of Hollywood in the near future. Hm, that's promising.

The Mummy: Most Romantic Movie Character Ever?

2011-07-08T22:11:00.000-07:00

You thought I was going to say merely the most romantic movie monster, weren't you? Nope. Character. Ever.

See, here's the thing about romantic movies and me. The spookier, the better. When I go to a movie that's marketed as a romance, I go in with that expectation, and, well, big surprise: I get a romance. The filmmakers know their target audiences, and supply directly to them. I'm not saying romantic movies are inherently insincere; it's just that I feel less breathtaken by a product that provides the bare bones of what it promises: a love movie that gives me love scenes.

But romance in monster movies is the best. Granted, I've been on a bit of a monster movie kick lately (partly why I've stumbled across such excellent blogs as Matthew Conian's Carfax Abbey and Vulnavia Morbius's Krell Laboratories), but this has always been an opinion I've stuck by.

The expectations for a monster movie are pretty basic: thrills, chills, blood and/or guts, wowing makeup and/or special effects (depending on what era the film was made in), and maybe a few sadistic giggles here and there from audience members who enjoy on some primitive level watching innocent citizens get chowed by Mothra. You expect screaming, not murmuring sweet nothings in one's undead ear.

So when love does come along in a horror film, the emotion comes from a more genuine place, since the filmmakers thought the element so perfect for the story they defied genre to get it in. True, that may be a subjective opinion of mine, but you should subscribe to it, too. It's my blog, my kingdom, adhere!

But I'm not talking about the standard love story between the frightened ingenue and lame-brained hero. They always throw that sappy crap into the mix for the ladies, since we'd all rather hook up with Norman Kerry or David Manners than Lon Chaney or Boris Karloff, apparently--scoff scoff, as if. No, I'm talking about when the monsters get the love joneses. That's when shit gets real.

It'd be too easy, not to mention overdone, to analyze a character like the Phantom. I think it's safe to say that these days, taking into account the musical and its overindulgent sequel, Phantom of the Opera has unfortunately surpassed its early Grand Guignol horror days of the early twentieth century and is known mostly as a love story now. With, y'know, the Heathcliff character deformed in the facial region. And hell, if you look at the 2004 movie, not even that, really.

No, I'd rather focus on the Mummy.

The two versions I'm going to look at are the 1932 version starring Boris Karloff and the 1959 Hammer version starring Christopher Lee. I could look at the 1999 version, but frankly...I don't wanna. It's too recent for me to really wanna do, I think. Not under the radar enough. One thing I'll say is that Rachel Weisz was very charming. I liked her character better than either Zita Johann from the 1932 version or Yvonne Furneaux from 1959.

The 1932 film is stronger on a structural, cinematographic, and narrative level than the 1959 offering. True, it has the minor flaws of most early sound films, such as uneasy jump cuts and random music placement. But there's no denying the power of the story it tells. Boris Karloff, of course, is the main attraction. What's really striking is that Karl Freund (in his directorial debut) took the most enticing qualities of the reigning Universal Horror Monsters--the Frankenstein Creature's isolated loneliness and Dracula's seductive aura--and stirred them up to create Imhotep, the high priest played by Karloff, who becomes mummified after trying to resurrect his love.

I watched the 1959 one before this, so I was surprised by the presentation of Imhotep as, for the most part, a wrinkly guy dressed in Egyptian garb. The more popular image of the mummy in the collective consciousness--dude staggering around wrapped in bandages--is only in one scene, when he's first awoken by a soon loony Bramwell Fletcher (who I am so relieved wasn't actually the hero like I feared, not that David Manners was much more appealing). It's arguably one of the film's best scenes.

Fletcher's irritating petulance quickly shifts into chilling hysterical laughter, and becomes for that brief scene a fantastic performance. Karloff is similar to Creature from the Black Lagoon here, his grimy paw fondling the ancient scrolls, and his bandages trailing behind him like seaweed as "he goes out for a little walk," Fletcher titters madly (far and away the movie's best line and delivered with just the right amount of camp and sincere, hopeless terror.)

I could go on and on about the coolness of that scene and many others, but again, I want to focus primarily on the romantic nature of Karloff's Imhotep. I wonder: is this the first time on film we see the now standard romantic/horror movie trope of the heroine serving as the reincarnation/lookalike of the monster's long-lost love? As a Dark Shadows fan, I detected echoes in Ihmotep's interactions with Zita Johann's Helen Grosvenor (reincarnation of his long lost Princess Anck-es-en-Amon) similar to the early, menacing Barnabas Collins and Maggie Evans' dynamics.

Like Frid with Barnabas, Karloff masters dual emotions, such as the mesmerized infatuation and icy self-control he maintains when interacting with Johann. He wants to do minor horrible things to her, but like he says, he's been mummified, buried alive for more than 3,700 years in order to be with her. Surely, can't she sacrifice a few moments of torment to spend an eternity of bliss with him? Isn't that essentially the same question Barnabas asks Maggie?

It's just that tantalizing edge of dark, morbid obsession and mysticism that makes horror movie romances more compelling to me than ordinary love stories. Particularly touching is Imhotep's motivation for wanting to resurrect Anck-es-en-Amon in the "proper way"-- "It was not only this body I loved, it was thy soul. I destroy this lifeless thing!" A pure love, twisted and fouled by the torture Imhotep has endured, is demonstrated in the only way Imhotep finds plausible, through destruction.

On paper, this is a bit overblown, what. But through Karloff's subtle performance, he sells it. He doesn't wring the words for their romantic floweriness. He states them as fact--hard, dark fact, and that keeps him from turning into a full-on Byronic hero. Karloff's quiet dignity keeps him aloft amongst stuffy old archelogists and doctors, and whiny, pompous love interests.

Another favorite scene is the flashback segment. I was struck at the time by how like a silent melodrama this part was, and this impression is confirmed in the trivia section at IMDb:

The flashback scenes in ancient Egypt were designed to resemble a silent film, with no dialog, exaggerated make-up and gestures, and a faster camera speed, to suggest the great antiquity of the events portrayed.

It's a testament to the power of silent movies and Freund's ingenuous talent that even in this brief homage, Freund is able to express so much emotion. We see Imhotep as he was then, handsome and distraught, kneeling by his dying princess, and the genuine way Karloff kisses her hand and presses it to his face shines as the most human moment in the film.

The terror is a necessary backdrop to his devotion, to illustrate just how far Imhotep has decayed, both physically and morally, due to his great love. That his love "has lasted longer than the temples of our gods" is what makes the character transcend the trashiness associated with the monster genre, and the monstrousness of his actions ground the film from becoming too bogged down by the love story.

That said, the characters in the 1959 Hammer film are generally more likable. Well, let me qualify that: director Terence Fisher doesn't even try to make the side characters more sympathetic than Lee's Kharis, and that paradoxically makes them easier to live with. There's no pretense to uphold. And let's face it, even at his most uncaring and superfluous, Peter Cushing, with his dry, distant delivery, is a far more palatable straight-laced hero than poor pompous Manners.

Overall, his character and the other Brits are uniformally unemotional (well, aside from the bumbling Cockney comic relief). Cushing's John Banning takes his father's mental breakdown and grim fate in abnormally stiff upper-lipped fashion, and treats the proceeding mummy business with the air of one tackling a puzzling alogorithm.

He even treats his wife, the stunning Ava Gardner-esque Furneaux, in an amusingly detached, scientific manner, whether noting her strong resemblance to a drawing of the dead princess (named Ananka in this version), to dismissing her flattered feelings at his comparing her to the most beautiful woman in the world as, "Remember, the world was smaller back then." It's a minor funny scene that nonetheless showcases the chummy, if not passionate, nature of their relationship.

All this English stoicism works to highlight Kharis as the most sympathetic character in the movie by far. This sympathy is emphasized more here than in the 1932 movie, because the conniving cunning of Imhotep is transferred instead to George Pastell's villainous Mehemet Bey. Bey is...what is he? In the early scenes he's a lurking observer, condemning Banning's search party as committing sacrilege, then later on he's a rich tourist who can afford a mansion with a mummy slave to boot. He's in charge of doling out the orders; Kharis has no choice but to obey him.

Therefore, Kharis is far more a Frankenstein Creature than a Barnabas Collins here. Which isn't particularly a bad thing, but I wish we could have seen more of him, more development. Wish they hadn't cut out his tongue and all, wish we could have heard him speak.

In an interesting shift from the original, the flashback in this movie makes Kharis appear less sensitive than when he's a monster in bandages. Lee is excellent in both flashback and in the storyline proper. However, he's such a tall, majestic figure when he's the high priest, with his basso profondo voice valiantly affecting the Cushing mask of stoicicism to deflect his torment at losing his forbidden love, that we only really see his vulnerability when he's a disoriented mummy.

He's most touching when as the attacking mummy he sees Furneaux's Isobel for the first time, and recognizes her features as Ananka's. He stops attacking Banning and approaches her stiffly, hands held out in supplication. As my dad says, Lee is great at "eyeball acting" here, which are his only discernible features as he appeals to the frightened Furneaux. Once he registers her repulsion, his dyes dim with sadness and he lumbers away, sparing the Bannings for the time being.

All right, so it looks like he's about to throttle her here, but I assure you, he's actually supplicating!

Unlike Karloff's Imhotep, you get the impression there's nothing on earth that could convince Kharis to hurt Isobel/Ananka even for a second. He saves her from Bey, then later respects her wishes to release her from his grip, solidifying that at his heart, this tower of strength, this imperious high-priest, is doomed to the role of the humble servant--he's tied to Bey out of necessity, Ananka out of love.

Despite the fact his character is not as well-developed or even as well done on a narrative level as Karloff's, this weakness makes Lee's Kharis the more tragic figure. In either version, though, I feel the Mummy captures what's best in a good horror movie: terror and strength combined with an unshakable foundation of doomed romance.

The Versatility of Caroline Munro

2011-06-22T13:39:00.000-07:00

No, no, I'm not talking about a new perfume she's launching, like Meryl Streep did some years back. I'm talking about the other kind.

After perusing The Carfax Abbey, a wonderful blog in tribute to horror films, I remembered why Caroline Munro is one of my favorite recent finds. Despite the fact this actress has remained under the radar for anyone not obsessed with B-movie Hammer Queens from the '60s/'70s, Munro has run the gamut in the roles she's played.

From lost Lenores...

To doomed, hippie go-go dancers...

To Arabian damsels-in-distress...

(John Phillip Law was pretty smokin' in this movie, by the way. Facial hair works for him.)

To some kind of...what is she? A gypsy sidekick vampire hunter? I dunno...

To conniving Bond villain henchwenches...

To Barbarella-ish/female Han Solo /dominatrix space heroines...

(That collar is very integral to the plot, don't worry)

To, yes, even a Goody Two Shoes of sorts.

I admire this lady. Save for her turn as the baddie Naomi in The Spy Who Loved Me, she was never in any super blockbusters. Few of these films are even really remembered these days outside of their aforementioned cult followings. Plus, she refused to ever go nude in any of her films, which--let's face it--is a rarity in her genre. Yet this Hammer dame is incredibly beloved in her still sizable fanbase. Even though she turned down roles in Hollywood to stay in England and remain close to her family (she's sane, in other words), she's a constant at Hammer Conventions. I've read nothing but glowing reports from fans who've met her, saying she's a wonderfully warm and genuine human being.

If I were going for any sort of film career, I'd want--well, maybe not some of the movies she's made, but essentially the level of fame she has: just obscure enough to avoid parasitical paparazzi and tabloid reporters, but beloved enough in my own genre that the devoted fans I do have are enthusiastic about my work and are lovably nerdy and appreciative. My ego is flexible, in other words.

So long story short, I think I've found my new obscure (though not totally obscure) B-Movie Queen to idolize. There've been quite a few--Elsa Lanchester, Lisa Marie, Edwige Fenech, Sue Lyon, Arlene Martel, Marian Thompson, Dolly Haas, Marisa Berenson, Lara Parker, Frances Dee, Jessica Harper, Sherry Jackson, and a gallery of others I can't remember just now. Have I seen every single movie or TV show these gals have acted in? Hell no. What instead draws me to a lot of these actresses is probably what draws a lot of Audrey Heburn fangirls to her stuff--a certain iconic style, whether in their looks or personality, that just resonates in the clips and pics I've seen.

Munro, even in awful '70s perms or wearing an overabundance of eye-makeup, always carries herself with an engaging, innocent class alongside her sex appeal. She has a very expressive face, and that helps sell her performances even when producers inexplicably dub her (why would they do that? She's released singles, fer Gadssakes). In a Hammer Horror flick, an expressive face is just as good as any method actor. Gets the job done.

And about those looks of hers. She's like God head-butted Vivien Leigh and Claudia Cardinale together and smushed them into one really, really pretty person.

See?

I'll leave you with two videos I found yesterday while I was researching Ms. M. The first is a rare treat from moggy23. It's a longish segment of a 1966 TV show called "A Whole Scene Going" that predicts the wild, hot new fads teens should expect in the coming year (including skateboarding! So foreign and exotic, from before the times every jerk on campus rode one to class, and I had to get out of their way to avoid getting run over! Sweet!).

Munro, at age sixteen, had just won Britain's "Face of the Year," and she's analyzed by the snippy hostess at about 2:00. I'm sure she loved being called just "a continuation of 1965." Then at about 4:40 she's awkwardly listening to The Who up on her pedestal in front of the audience. It's a great clip showcasing the crossroads between The Early Mod 1960s and The Late Psychedilic 1960s, and the young Munro is very cute in it.

The second is an insane '80s Meat Loaf music video, compliments of RCAFFBWurzel, to "If You Really Want To." It's...well, it's this.

I'm not gonna lie, I love everything about that. Added to Munro's versatility list, I guess, is the ability to play Office Manager/Edwardian Vampire/Shoulder Pad McHairdo.

I Done Been Lassoed in by the Internet Memes: 15 Movie Questions

2011-06-01T18:17:00.000-07:00

Swiped from the hands of Rachel, The Girl with the White Parasol. Following her lead, I hereby tag whoever wants to fill this thang out to fill it out. If you do, feel free to leave a link in my comments. I'd love to read 'em.

*Edited once I realized I left out no. 6, durr-hay.*

1. Movie you love with a passion

The Bride of Frankenstein, 1935.

I just about wore out the old VHS of this one when I was a wee sprite. There's almost a homey vibe to this macabre slice of camp, and it's camp done classy, and smartly, with hilariously warped humor. Skeptical? Then you've never met Dr. Pretorious, as played by Ernest Theisiger. That erudite, bitchy madman.

Plus, you've got Karloff, the achingly doomed Colin Clive, and Elsa Lanchester, whom I maintain is still one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen, "unconventional" as that beauty may be. Not to mention one hell of an actress.

Another treasured movie I'm passionate about is The Nightmare Before Christmas, which I associate a lot with this one. How can you not, when you compare Sally to both The Bride and The Monster?

2. Movie you vow never to watch

Old Yeller, 1957

I actively avoid movies about animals. Something in the plot always puts the animals in peril, or they die. It's supposed to be heartwarming and teach you about life, but I call bullshit. THERE IS NOTHING EDUCATIONAL OR UPLIFTING ABOUT INJURED OR DYING ANIMALS. And I don't care how you try arguing with me differently, I refuse to watch. Put Marley & Me on the list, too.

3. Movie that literally left you speechless.

Now you get to call me a hypocrite, because I'm choosing Jeux Interdits (Forbidden Games), 1952.

Even knowing about the infamous puppy scene I watched it, thanks to that damn Pauline Kael's review. I was left speechless afterward because I was crying. Crying and crying and crying. And then I cried. I couldn't stop for the longest time after I finished watching.

While the puppy scene--and the whole movie--wrenched my heart out, maybe I find it preferable to other animal and children related movies because there was nothing mawkish or manipulative about it. Directors wanting to make a beautiful but simple movie about war or growing up should all be required to watch this one. The frank and touching performances from the children, Brigitte Fossey and Georges Poujouly, combined with the haunting strain of guitar music and the slapstick comedy from the rustic parents demonstrate more raw human feeling than any other movie I've seen.

But I warn you: it will tear you apart. Big time.

4. Movie you always recommend.

The Big Lebowski, 1998.

Why? Because it has a little bit of everything for every type of viewer. On a basic comedy level, it's pure gold. But do you also like Raymond Chandler mystery noirs? Beautiful parodies therein. Like Westerns? You've got the wonderfully weird "Stranger" narrator played by Sam Elliott. Are you a Busby Berkeley fan and an acid rock fan? You've got the "Gutterballs" sequence set to "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)" by The First Edition. Do you like bowling? Are you a disaffected hippie? Disaffected Vietnam vet? Disaffected nihilist? It's all here.

You can't find another movie with more opportunities for in-jokes and one-liners that you can (and will) repeat ad infinitum with your group of friends. This movie is a good way to judge friends, by the way: do they like it? They're your friends. They don't? Oh, I guess they don't exist. For example: my last birthday, my friend took me to Seattle's Lebowskifest. There I saw an exact clone of Jeff Bridges in perfect Dude garb. Therefore, my friend is a good friend. See how it works?

"You're like a child, who wanders in in the middle of a movie and wants to know--"

5. Actor/actress you always watch no matter how crappy the movie.

This is tricky for me, because if I really like an actor, it honestly makes me cringe to see them in something I know--and you can tell they know--is bad bad bad. However, I'll pick Roddy McDowall, because he once said:

I absolutely adore movies. Even bad ones. I don't like pretentious ones, but a good bad movie, you must admit, is great.

That makes me feel a little bit better if I inadvertently catch him acting in something crappy, hoping he maybe enjoyed making stuff like Fright Night and, hell, possibly even Laserblast.

6. Actor/actress you don't get the appeal for.

There are a few, but I'll give the nod to Doris Day. I touched a little on why here, but to reiterate: she's just too bland. I mean, she's adequate and her voice is okay, but there's just no excitement. Granted, I loved Love Me Or Leave Me, and I got a corny kick out of Pillow Talk, but both movies could have been vastly improved with a more dynamic female lead. Although I get the inkling it was that non-threatening, white-bread vibe that probably attracted a lot of post-WWII audiences: as my dear grandma used to say, "why can't people just be ordinary?" And Doris was in spades.

The runner-up spot belongs to John Wayne, who's a big blank if ever I saw one, and Sarah Jessica Parker, who's all right in a few things, but I never understood why everyone thinks she's such an irresistible romantic comedienne.

7. Actor/actress, living or dead, you'd love to meet.

...All of them? I don't know. I actually sorta fear meeting people I really respect, because what the hell would we have to say to each other? Lots of awkwardness would ensue, I'm sure. But for the sake of the meme...Lauren Bacall.

Her autobiography By Myself was maybe the first Hollywood bio I ever read, and remains one of the best. She managed to make somebody with her looks and talent come across as the lovable and even at times goofy underdog throughout. Plus, um, married to Bogie and witness to the Rat Pack and stuff? Too damn cool to not want to meet. Frankly, any of the surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood--Maureen O'Hara, Joan Fontaine, Olivia de Havilland, Mickey Rooney, Ann Blyth, etc.--I'd most definitely give my eyeteeth to meet and quiz about ye olden days.

8. Sexiest actor/actress you've seen. (Picture required)

Leonard Nimoy, but only as Mr. Spock from the original series in the '60s.

WHAT DON'T JUDGE ME.

9. Dream cast.

Oh, gee, I dunno, I've never ever contemplated casting anything before (*cough*this guy*cough cough*and this guy over here). Really, either of those would be a nerd dream come true pour moi, but once again, for the sake of the meme, I'll come up with something original.

I know, I know! How about taking Philip Pullman's mid-'90s trilogy His Dark Materials, stack them up in Mr. Peabody's Way-Back Machine, and actually make a good movie version in one of my favorite dream-casting years, 1945?

Something along the lines of:
Jo Ann Marlowe as Lyra Belacqua (this sadly forgotten kid's cameo role as a young Hedy Lamarr in 1946's The Strange Woman pretty much gob-smacked me with her talent)
George Sanders as Lord Asriel
Vivien Leigh as Mrs. Coulter
Gary Cooper as Lee Scoresby
Orson Welles as the voice of Iorek Byrnison the Bear

Actually, you know what? I might extrapolate on this some more in its own blog post, so I'll stop right there. Plus I can't think of any other actors right now. But can't you imagine the art deco, Wizard of Oz old school special effects and everything? Hee. Be pretty tough to sneak the controversial religious material past the censors, though...but still, what are dreams for?

10. Favorite actor pairing.
There are a lot, but I'm going with Carole Lombard and John Barrymore in Twentieth Century, 1934.

Screwball comedy at its finest, natch. Both actors reach unheard of heights in zaniness, and feed off each other like nobody's bidness.

11. Favorite movie setting.

The magical, totally unrealistically spotless and loopy Paris of Amelie, 2001.

In particular, the cafe she works at and her rad apartment. I want that apartment, man.

12. Favorite decade for movies.

Guess I'll cop Rachel's answer and go with the '40s, or mid-'30s to mid-'40s, however you want to put it. So many greats in that time I can't even handle it. Film Noir, Citizen Kane, George Sanders' hottest decade...good times.

13. Chick flick or action movie?

Action movie, simply because I've been won in lately by superheroes like Batman, Superman, and most recently Thor. Most still bore me to tears, granted. But I'll basically take anything over what "chick flick" usually signifies, at least for the past twenty or thirty years. '90s rom coms? The worst.

14. Hero, villain, or anti-hero?

Anti-hero. More compelling than the hero, and more dimensional than the villain.

15. Black and white or color?

I would say depends on the movie, but really it depends on the actors. Some look great in color, yet don't come off in black-and-white, and vice-versa.

You know who's a beautiful exception and looked equally shizam either way? That's right, my girl Viv.

Column A

Column B

And that's the way it's done.

Thoughts on Thor and Movie Theaters These Days with the Previews and the Loud and the I Don't Know What

2011-05-30T11:04:00.000-07:00

...I liked it! Roger Ebert was all, "it doesn't stack up to more epically serious superhero movies of recent times, like The Dark Knight or Spiderman," but I say GOOD. This is about a dethroned Norse God traipsing around Earth. I don't want gritty Gotham skyscrapers or emo-pants Peter Parker whining up the joint.

Pauline Kael (because I never have ever mentioned her here before) once said, and boy am I paraphrasing, "if you can't appreciate good trash, you can't appreciate the movies." And that is exactly what Thor is. Good trash.

There were some things that bothered me, sure. I really like the relationship between Chris Hemsworth's titular beefcake and N.Po's Jane Foster, but we should have seen more of a build-up to it. There was that sort of squashy scene around the fire where they talk sexily about science and magic (an aphrodisiac thrown out there for all D&D players?), but is that really enough to highlight why Thor suddenly decides to become one a'them long-haired peace-niks instead of one a'them long-haired Viking warriors?

I mean, Branagh should have at least included a scene where Jane shoots him a run-down about why violence be bad, and how everybody should get together and lurve one another (while giving his abs the once-over), so we could at least see how that seed first gets planted in his mind. As played out on screen, I interpreted his change of heart stemming from how his inability to pick up his hammer and finding out Loki's taken charge of Asgard humbled (i.e. damn humiliated) him. So I was a little surprised everyone started crediting this newer, genter Thor to the love of a good mortal woomin.

But like I said, I warmed to their relationship anyways, because of Hemsworth and Portman's performances. I hate to say, I always thought Portman, though obviously an adequate and occasionally strong actress, was a little low on charm--her slightly tinny voice can really grate on the nerves--but she brought a silly, harried, fun quality to Jane that immediately made her likable. And I found Hemsworth attractive, so what? My mom and I originally wanted to see the movie because of our mutual creepy (on my part) crush on Anthony Hopkins, but Hemsworth weren't nothin' to spit at.

And it's not because I specifically go for that blond, buff body type. I don't, actually. In fact, if he had spoken in a Sly Stallone or Vin Diesel monotone rumble, I most definitely would have been all blech with him. But he brought the proper gravitas and clear diction to his role, and so, basically, it worked.

I also liked how they didn't make Loki a black-and-white bad bad bad guy. Fits into his original mythological role of taking moral ambiguity to Catwoman-level heights. Hey, when he was king, did he remind anybody else very vaguely of The Monarch from The Venture Bros? I mean, obviously the outfit's not exactly the same, but the way he wore it on his slight frame and with his slicked back dark hair...if he'd had but a nasal voice and a floating cocoon...well, anywho.

But: I now have a reason aside from my crippling poverty as to why I should skip movie theaters and just wait for everything I want to see to come out on Netflix. And that reason is movie theaters suck. At the risk of sounding like a geriatric misanthrope--which deep in my black, twisted heart, I truly am--I maintain the movie itself was shorter than the combined commercials/previews. And gah! The loud! So loud! Everything was loud! Once the previews started, it was like Green Lantern wanted my ear drums to explode! You're supposed to use the ring for good, not booming and clanging and car throwing and so forth! Don't be a Sinestro, GL! C'mon!

And what's with that self-serve butter dispenser crap for the popcorn at the theater we went to? You can't do that to someone like me. I won't stop! I need mediation, or I'll go too far! So my kernels ended up way too saturated, and I felt like liquid death afterward.

And what about that airline food, anyways? And what about Scarecrow's brain?

Also: was it another unique trait of the theater we went to that the chairs were super fancy? You could recline in them and put your feet up and everything. We attended the 2-D showing, but I noticed we were in the same theater as the 3-D viewings. Are awesome chairs a general commodity in 3-D theaters? Because I'm still not going to 3-D movies, yo.

Poor Rene Russo didn't get a lot to do, did she?

For the first time finally saw King's Speech and Smiles of a Summer Night, proving I'm a crappy film buff

2011-05-14T22:21:00.000-07:00

And here are a few quick, stray observations:

King's Speech

1. Pretty good, though like most film snobs, I think Social Network deserved the Best Picture Oscar over it. Got a little cutesy toward the end.

2. However, Firth really, really deserved his Oscar. He made what could have been a pathetic ass of a character incredibly sympathetic, until he was almost excruciating to watch. But not excruciating in an overindulgent, masochistic way some actors do, thinking they're great artists, when really, they're just overdoing it. Excellent job.

3. I'm also really, really, desperately in love with him. Which is another testament to his talent, since I adored him even when he was breaking down in tears, whining about not wanting to be King. Again, another actor might have made me want to slap him, but instead I really felt for him over his predicament. Poor royal blighter. Would marrying me make you feel better? Cuz I know it would me.

Smiles of a Summer Night

1. Is it even possible for Swedish women to be ugly, or even just average looking? Because they're really starting to hurt my generic American feelings.

2. Gunnar Bjornstrand looks uncannily like Mirror Universe Spock. Maybe that's why I find him strangely attractive and compelling, given my romantic inclinations toward Leonard Nimoy's Mistah S.

3. Why, why, why do I always root for the one couple that never works out? C'mon, this is getting ridiculous! What was she thinking? Henrik was such a krak. Such a krak.

A few other items of business:

1. Aren't you proud that I broke my blog's recent cycle of posting YouTube clips? I don't know why that trend was bothering me, but it was.

2. According to Google translate, krak is Swedish for douche bag. Only there should be an umlaut over the -a, but I forget how to do that online.

3. Really? You miss the YouTube videos? Then here are some clips of Bertie Wooster set to Weird Al Yankovic, apropos my last post.

Happy, you demanding kraks?

"...And they call him Red-Haired Tom!"

2011-05-05T23:13:00.000-07:00

Any Jeeves and Wooster fans afoot? Good. Because if you are indeed a proud member of the Drones Club, you'll most likely be well acquainted with this clip:

But wait! There's more! Are you acquainted with this, an actual full recording of "Forty-Seven Ginger Headed Sailors," orchestrated by Jack Hylton, and uploaded to YouTube by apparent fellow vintagephile GrammophonPlatten?

No, you weren't? Well, now you are. You're welcome.

P.S. Sometimes I go with the most rational option in the debate, and decide I'd of course rather marry Jeeves, what with that awesome bulging brain of his helping me out of scrapes and pretty much solving all my problems all the time always. Not to mention those manly broad shoulders and vaguely cheeky smirk.

But then again, sometimes I'd think it would be very fun and low-key to tie the knot with Bertram. He is all sorts of adorable after all, what with his piano playing, police helmet snatching, and general standing around like a loony sheep. And hey, let's be brutally honest here: he's got the clams, the bread, the do-re-me. Mooooonnnneeeeys. Thoughts?

P.S.S. At what point did my blog become a Frankensteinian concoction stitched together from YouTube clips of classic miscellanea? Huh.

I'm not gonna lie: George Burns was kinda hot back in the day.

2011-04-22T15:14:00.000-07:00

Reading Gracie, George Burns's biography of/ode to his wife and comedy partner, you get the idea from him that all he had to do was stand back and adore her while she carried the whole act. As much as I love Gracie--and I do, I really, really do--I have to say that after watching some of their shorts together, Burns drastically short-changed himself. Very chivalrous of him, I guess, but unfair. There's something out there called "presence," and I must say he had it in abundance.

And, like I said, I think he was pretty hot way back when. Gruff, deep voice, snappy dresser...I dunno, he just works it for me circa late 1920s/early '30s.

Anyhow, George and Gracie remain one of my favorite screwball couples, up there alongside Nick and Nora.

Here's what might be their very first film short, a portion of their signature show on Vaudeville, Lambchops. Y'know, if you've got eight minutes and two seconds to spare:

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Credit to teapotwashere

And hell, in case you have an additional 10:50 at your disposal, here's another personal favorite, The Babbling Book. Check out 3:24 in particular for what I mean about Burns's presence: even though his entrance is just the understated set-up for the punchline, he somehow owns the moment. Very suave, very cheeky.

Credit to rrgomes

Joan Fontaine's screen test for Rebecca (1940)

2011-04-12T16:58:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd post this, in case other Hitchcock/Joan Fontaine aficianados hadn't seen it yet:

Credit to braniki1.

Wow. This reminds me why Fontaine's Mrs. De Winter is one of my favorite performances.

I don't claim to be as consummate a fan of hers as, say, The Self-Styled Siren. The only other performances I've seen of Fontaine's that have gotten to me like Mrs. De is her Jane Eyre and the parts of Constant Nymph where she doesn't try too hard to sound fragile and adolescent--she has an unfortunate tendency toward bleating when she's upset there. In other roles, like her Oscar winning turn as Lina in Suspicion, and when she unfortunately played opposite the crazy-beautiful late Liz in Ivanhoe, I find her "grand lady" bit comes off as bordering on bland and stuffy.

She often needs a shy, gentle character with moody depths to accurately tap her talent. For all that I wish I was Vivien Leigh and kinda sorta worship the ground her kittenish feet walked on, I was ultimately very, very unimpressed by her own screen test for Mrs. De Winter. As everyone has discussed to death, Viv would have made a spectacular Rebecca if that raven-haired babe had shown up in the movie, but someone mousy and insecure? Vivien handled the gentle and soft-spoken Myra beautifully in Waterloo Bridge, but she was still supposed to knock 'em dead with her looks and be comfortable enough in front of people to dance ballet. But shy to the point of tongue-tied? It's awkward even to contemplate.

What I love so much about Fontaine in the role is that she didn't go the hand-wringing, wide-eyed, icky-sweet route a lot of actresses might have gone. There's something so direct and realistic about her performance, that it makes you want to cringe in empathy.

To change the subject all whiplash-like, anybody know who's filling in for Maxim in the vid? That ain't Larry O's sexy tones. His sexy, sexy tones. Dang, were Fontaine and Leigh lucky dames circa 1940 (well, maybe not Fontaine so much. He was apparently a bit of a pill to her during filming, on account of wifey not making the grade).