Corvette K-225 (1943)

Pretty standard WWII era war movie, on one hand—but it’s got plenty of other stuff, like romance, revenge, and weather. Raised voices goes without saying (war). The three Rs of cinema of course being romance, revenge, and raised voices—but my personal favorite story element is weather. I suppose all seafaring adventures include weather, and all war movies are about revenge. I admit to having enjoyed some war movies, but I don’t generally care for them, as there is almost nothing more depressing to me than war… though revenge is right up there. Victory and vengeance are words that make no sense to me. I’ve seen this story many times, just not with these movie stars (stars should be one of the three Rs). Especially Randolph Scott, who I was named after! (I don’t know anyone else named after an actor, besides my brother.) He was mostly in Westerns (and I hated Westerns as a kid—but have come around to them a bit) and I felt he really elevated the genre. He’s in some war movies, as well. Here he plays a ship captain in the Canadian navy, out to get revenge on German U-boats. I enjoy movies like this if they’re more about sailing and weather than fighting—here, a lot of both. The Corvette is a smaller warship (the car was named after the ship) and K-225 is one we see being launched for war and manned by our stars (also including Robert Mitchum!). But not including Ella Raines—no women on the boat—and she’s the reason I’m watching this movie in the first place—her first role! She plays the sister of a sailor killed on Randolph Scott’s previous boat—and now her other brother in on this boat. During the time at shore—beginning of the movie—ER and RS hang out a bit—so for me, that’s the heart of the movie—to say the least—the fireworks—it’s reason for the movie existing. Once they head off to war, no more Ella Raines—so, other than the rough weather—bummer. So it goes with war movies. Why couldn’t ER have stowed away like this cute little puppy who stowed away (sailor aided) and ended up being the star of the show?

10.3.23

The Current State of Watching Shit

April 2023 – I’m trying to figure out a way to write about movies again, seeing how my writing about movies has ceased (except for a fake review of a non-existent movie). This is partly due to how fragmented my movie watching has become since I stopped seeing movies in the theater (well, nearly, and hopefully that will change). This is partly because of my poor setup at home (small TV, halfway across the room, uncomfortable chair). But I refuse to watch anything (except for an occasional interview) on a laptop, and I refuse even more adamantly to watch anything on a phone (for the love of God!). So… my idea is to write short bits about the fragments (and sometimes whole works!) I do watch—but write more frequently (and concisely) than in the past. Also, to NOT think about writing about stuff while watching it (which changes the way you watch stuff!). I’ve found it’s better to not think about the writing until you start writing. Perhaps this will encourage me to watch things in a more organized and respectful way. And maybe (assuming anyone reads this—which I don’t assume) other people relate to this problem, and this way of taking in movies (cinema, motion pictures, television, min-series, video, experimental work, etc.) which I still do care about, after all.

4.25.23

Oceans 10: The Titanic (2023)

Spoiler Alert! A retelling of the Titanic saga—in which the ship doesn’t sink! The film’s tone gradually moves from impending tragedy to comedy as the repeated motif (and tagline) “Is it sinking yet?” repeats ad nauseum—until, in the final act, it takes on new meaning: “Is the film sinking?—is the disaster we are witnessing this piece of dubious entertainment, itself?” But it’s not that simple. We are in contemporary times, and the Cunard ship lines introduces their most fabulous ship yet—an exact replica of the infamous Titanic (though with a gym and wi-fi.) The primary plot follows a rag-tag band of “master” criminals assembled to pull off the impossible—the heist of a mob-run casino on a luxury liner in its maiden voyage during the filming of a Hollywood epic (identical to the movie we are watching) as well as being followed by a documentary crew. The thieves are led by Donny Ocean (adopted grandson of Danny Ocean, and token straight white cisgender male of the “Ten”) who is employed as onboard lounge singer. The other nine “specialists” have landed gigs as: bartender, gym trainer, hull-damage specialist, meteorologist, ship’s doctor, chaplain, head chef, astrologer/psychic, and house detective! It’s a talented, witty, and diverse group. The movie’s multitude of subplots involve other employees, and both well-heeled and stowaway passengers, all of whom are embroiled in dire life crises! By the time we reach the intermission (the 2-hour-45-minute mark of the 5-hour-plus running time), you’re thinking: put these pathetic jerks out of their collective misery—sink the fucker already! But that’s when the fireworks really start! Somali pirates, Russian submarines, a giant squid, a tidal wave, more romance than The Luv Boat, and yes, an iceberg. Is it sinking yet?

Lunch Break and BNSF – at Milwaukee Art Museum

My favorite two movies in the last half of this year have been playing at the Milwaukee Art Museum, in the little basement theaters as part of a photography exhibit. It’s my favorite part of the museum, and they take it all down and reinstall a new show a couple times a year or so, it seems. These two movies make a nice double feature, as different as they are. The way they show them, though, is in the art instillation way, not the movie way, which is okay with me, generally—they are each on a loop, so there’s no real start and end time. You just drop in and watch—I suspect most people don’t stay for more than a few minutes. I don’t either, but over the months I’ve seen all of both films multiple times—a few minutes here and a few minutes there. It’s not unlike the way I watch things that are streaming, or on TV, too. I have to say, I’ve probably gotten a lot more out of these two pieces by watching them that way than if I’d watched each from end to end, once each.

The shorter of the two is called Lunch Break—it’s from 2008, by Sharon Lockhart—and as I recall reading, it was shot on film in a huge ship building factory in Maine. It looks like the camera traveled from one end of the place to the other, during breaktime, as the workers are sitting, resting, eating, reading. The film was then manipulated, by reprinting frames, to slow everything down to where the movement is barely detected—so that it takes 83 minutes for the camera’s journey—which is the optimum length for a feature film, if you want to look at it that way. There is sound—I’m not sure how it was manipulated—that roughly corresponds with the visuals. One thing that’s fun to imagine is how different the viewing experience would be if you dropped in a song now and then, so you’d have a series of odd but connected music videos. If I can find this movie streaming, I might try it as an experiment. Anyway, the whole thing is endlessly fascinating, visually—the details of the manmade environment—both beautiful and horrifying, but also mundane and ugly. All of those, at once. And really, really, slowly. I wonder if there is a drug that makes things look like this, and I wonder if anyone who was filmed in the space has seen the movie—and I wonder if it made them feel like they were on drugs.

The longer of the films is called BNSF and it’s from 2013, by James Benning. That stands for the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad, and this long video is a single shot of a length of train track in the desert, with mountains and sky in the background. The placement of the camera feels both random and deliberate—it is a pleasing composition. The manmade elements, besides the train tracks, are a line of telephone poles, and a barely discernable gravel road—both running along the side of the tracks. The length of this piece is also movie length—but a long movie. It’s 195 minutes, which is three hours and 15 minutes—exactly the length of the hit movie, Titanic (1997). Whether or not this is intentional, it’s hilarious. There is a lot of scraggly vegetation in the foreground—I think it’s sagebrush—you feel like you can almost touch it, blowing in the wind. The series of mountain ranges in the background are beautiful. The video takes place over a time of day (maybe late afternoon) where the light is steadily changing. Clouds are on the move, and the sun is to our back, left—shadows appear, disappear, lengthen. The telephone pole in the foreground is very defined, but the line of poles quickly becomes invisible with distance.

The sound in this movie is a major element—it’s, as they used to say, made loud to be played loud. Most of the time it’s nearly silent, but you hear the wind against the microphone—not how wind sounds in nature, of course, but it’s recognizable as a thing. Then a train comes, and it’s the loudest thing you’ve ever heard. Periodic, monstrous, really long, freight trains. Most of this movie is nothing much happening besides drifting clouds and changing light, but there are lot of trains out there, too, coming from either direction. A funny thing about trains is, if you’re out walking and a train goes by, there’s nothing more fascinating—I’ll stop and watch the whole thing. But if you’re driving somewhere and get stopped by a train, there’s nothing more frustrating. Which seems, to me, to be a problem with cars, not trains. A few times, for some reason, I felt like I could see something glinting in the sun, way far off, around the middle of the composition. It made me think of Montgomery Clift, in The Misfits (1961) (much of which takes place in a landscape that looks like this one), where he says, “I saw something glinting… in the sun.”

Because these two theaters, showing these movies, are in close proximity and are not exactly soundproof (no doors), you might be sitting in Lunch Break, aware of the lowkey, industrial hum, and then be aware of an increasing, low rumbling and realize it’s a train coming, in the next theater. You can run over if you want to see the train. The train sound is so thunderously loud, at some points, you can hear it from anywhere in the basement—and can be drawn to the theater—that is, if you know what the sound is and where it’s coming from.

One criticism I have, not of the movies, but of the venues, is that each has only a single, hard, wooden bench to sit on—like something that would be nailed down in a park by the sea—built to withstand the weather. Not exactly comfortable. Imagine a movie theater with, instead of comfy reclining seats, a single hard bench. It’s like they’re telling you you’re not supposed to spend any longer than a few seconds in either theater, but instead, quick check-in, then read the art-talk description that tells you what the movies are “about” so you can notch your culture scorecard like you’re collecting sports memorabilia. What they should have is actual movie theater seats—so you can, if you choose, watch each film in its entirety, aided by posted start and finish times. It might also be nice if they sold popcorn.

The Woman in the Window

I've walked out of a movie theater maybe once—just can't do it—but the nice thing about watching movies at home is that I have no qualms about turning it off once I realize it's garbage. So why did I torture myself by watching this movie to the end? First of all, just by chance, one of the last movies I watched was also called The Woman in the Window (Dir. Fritz Lang, 1944)—which I happened to watch as part of research I'm doing for a novel I'm writing that deals with voyeurism, obsession with a painting, and “the unreliable narrator.” So when this 2021 The Woman in the Window immediately referred to two other sources of my inspiration—Laura (1944) and Rear Window (1954)—I was in— despite the obvious red flags (based on bestselling thriller novel; production history—if you pay attention to that kind of thing). My favorite part of this movie is how Amy Adams recites her address like 18 times, so of course you look it up—and seeing the actual location exteriors (a brownstone block in Harlem) gives you a kind of interactive voyeuristic thrill. Also, I'm all for revisiting Rear Window (in fact, I have a proposed “sequel” to that great film in an outline—a kind of obvious idea that someone else will no doubt get to, first). The appeal of Rear Window, however, isn't its grisly murder or un-shocking ending, but its style, the world it creates, and its humor. The only thing that I found remotely humorous in this movie is when Amy Adams tried looking up her mysterious neighbor, Jane Russell, on the internet—and, of course, there's lots of images of Jane Russell. Ultimately, the only thing shocking about this movie was how it turned out to be moronic “make-you-jump” horror movie manipulation, propelled by the schlocky, cliché-ridden Danny Elfman score. Especially shocking given that some of my favorite actors are in it, including one who is credited as screenwriter. The final third especially felt like too many amateur coke-head chefs in someone's dad's ill-fated restaurant kitchen. I don't know, maybe the audience for this kind of high-pitched, sharp-object conclusion is kids who filmed/videoed much the same things—while at that tender age—as we did (Rolf, 1975, Super-8). And maybe it's really just my problem, expecting more, and being fooled to watch it until its final credit: “The making and authorized distribution of this film supported over 15,000 jobs and involved hundreds of thousands of work hours.” Nice. Billions and Billions Served.

The Second Face

Car accident framing device, then... our hero, Phyllis Holmes (Ella Raines) wrapped in bandages. We go back... back... to Fresno—she's talented and well-liked, good with children, and going into the designing clothing business... etc. But she can't land a man... or even get a job in a department store—why? Because she's homely! Watching this movie kind of makes you feel insane because, of course, she's beautiful—she's Ella Raines. I suppose they gave her a dowdy hairstyle, no lipstick, and I guess they gave her a slight prosthetic nose—it's subtle—not like a clown nose or anything. I'm guessing the unspoken intention was to make her look “Jewish”—which adds an additional, disturbing slant to this story. Anyway, she keeps getting reality shoved in her face and she's—for good reason—angry. The story is a bit convoluted, but the actors do remarkably well with dialogue that's about as smooth as a train with square wheels.

She goes to help her friend (a woman who's going through hard times herself because she's getting older—her husband is leaving her for an younger woman) and bam! We're back to the beginning. Once Phyllis recovers from the accident, her doctor essentially gives her a nose-job, and just like that she's beautiful, and also glamorous, now—dresses well, new hairstyle, and makeup—and suddenly all the men are falling all over her—even some who met her before now don't recognize her! This reminded me of how it used to piss off my mom when, in movies, they shorthanded “ugly” by having a woman wear glasses—then she'd take them off and guys would all suddenly come in their pants.

Anyway, even though the “world is her oyster” now, she has kept her anger and kind of breezes through high society like an assassin. At a pool party she meets a wise old drunk, a rich guy who tells her how empty his life is—always realizing that people only like him for his money. She's smart enough to apply that. Then she finds out that the guy who secretly paid for her plastic surgery was her old friend who was in love with her when she was “ugly”—but she had told to fuck off. She goes back to him, now in love with him, but now he doesn't want her because he “liked her how she was before”—see, he's afraid of having a beautiful wife because he had one once who left him. So now he tells her to fuck off, and she leaves. Then he goes running after her in rom-com style, she stops, sees him, runs back—but is hit by a truck! Now she's ugly again, but now—he loves her again—but now—now she thinks he's just pitying her—so she tells him to fuck off again. And it just goes on and on and on—the comic cosmic clown parade of stupid vanity, self-destruction, tragic luck, and bad choices. Aren't humans silly? Oh, did I forget to say “spoiler alert?” It's okay, because a lot of that, toward the end, I just made that up! You'll have to watch it to find out what really happens!

Decision at Sundown

This 1957 Randolph Scott Western, directed by Budd Boetticher, makes very little sense as a traditional narrative—it's more like an absurdist essay on the the Western form—at least that's how it seems to me—watching in my usual way—piecemeal, decimated, distracted, on TV, between hideous commercials, and writing this as I'm watching. It starts out nicely, with Randolph Scott and his comic relief buddy (Noah Berry Jr.—who gets tragically killed the way buddies always do in movies). Randolph Scott, it turns out, wants to kill a man for revenge—I won't go into it. Anyway, he gets holed up in a stable for almost the whole movie. I wrote that the buddy was killed before it even happened—since you could see that coming down Fifth Avenue—and now it just did. This movie is kind of like Dog Day Afternoon (which happens to be on the other channel right now)—now that I think of it. It's someone holed up in a standoff for nearly the entire length of the movie, but it's not about the standoff—it's about everything that goes on around it—an essay on society, hypocrisy, hate, and fear. And then the most lovable character in the movie is killed. (Okay, maybe in DDA he wasn't the most lovable—he's a bit of a psychopath—but he's played by John Cazale who brought more heart to his roles than anyone could ever expect.) After the buddy was killed in this one, I kind of gave up on the (anti)hero, Randolph Scott, and the townspeople, and humanity. But the movie ultimately redeemed itself for me, because you can't help but expect one of those absurd turn-arounds at the end where the star ends up with a beautiful woman—but not in this one. People try to be nice to him, even, but he's just like a shell of a person. And then, not having had the satisfaction of revenge, and knowing that he couldn't help the people he loves—he rides off into the sunset, a broken man. Now that I think about it, this is actually a lot more like a Seventies movie than a typical, formulaic Fifties Western, like so many I've seen on TV lately. It must have been a satisfying picture to be involved with, even if—I'm guessing—a lot of people didn't get it.

The Blue Gardenia

I never heard of this movie, somehow, even though it's right up my noir alley, includes artists, newspapermen, normal working people, Tiki-culture, a diner, Los Angeles, and Anne Baxter. Not to mention that it's based on a book by Vera Caspary and directed by Fritz Lang, who, besides being one of the most important figures in cinema history, can be a lot of fun. This came out in 1953, the same year as The Big Heat, which I suppose overshadows it, but still The Blue Gardenia has a lot going for it. Anne Baxter lives with two roommates—three young woman who work as switchboard operators. It kind of reminded me of the young, working women, rooming together, in some series books I've read. After her GI boyfriend dumps her, she's distraught and goes on a date with a sleazebag artist, played by Raymond Burr. They go to the Blue Gardenia, where Nat King Cole is singing, and she drinks way too many Pearl Divers, a fruity rum drink (I missed the boat on those, too). Anne Baxter plays a convincing intoxication. I won't say more, since it's a mystery, and maybe others missed this one as I did. Richard Conte gets involved—he's an actor I've never given much thought to (even though he's in one million movies, including Tony Rome and The Godfather) and he's really likable here. The best thing about this movie, though, is seeing this odd slice of the world in a slightly different way than the average movie, regardless of genre.

Seven Ways from Sundown

This starts out as a really charming Audie Murphy Western (1960) about a polite and green kid who's joined the Texas Rangers, even though he doesn't even have a six-shooter. The internet said the original director, George Sherman, got in an argument with Audie Murphy, who threatened to kill him, and Harry Keller finished as director. The best thing, right off, is Audie's character's name, Seven Ways from Sundown Jones. He explains that his dad named the kids by number—I mean, he didn't really even name them, just numbered them! But his mom always added an additional nickname—so there was One for the Money Jones, Two to Get Ready Jones, and on, up to Seven. He didn't mention the other names, but it's in my nature to fill out the information. Three's Company Jones, Four Dead in Ohio Jones, Five Card Stud Jones, Six Flags Over Texas Jones—and then maybe even Eight is Enough Jones. Some family! Anyway, he's tracking down a bad guy named Jim Flood (Barry Sullivan) who is charming in his own way. Actually, as it went on, I got to like him more than Seven, as their friendship grows. It's essentially a love story. I had to see how it ended, though I could have predicted it all along. I was kind of sad, having to see one of these guys get killed, and kind of mad at myself for caring. I guess, ultimately, it falls into the category of Westerns where one guy essentially kills another guy with personalty.

The Donut King

The Donut King is a 2020 documentary by Alice Gu which is on the film festival circuit in this difficult time for new films; I watched it as part of the virtual Milwaukee Film Festival, going on now. I would like to be watching a lot more movies this way, but I'm currently unemployed, and the money is running out, and the near-future a little shaky at this point. So I'm being cautious. I am grateful to have found out about this film by MFF emails—one arrived yesterday alerting my about it. The odd thing is that it was the day after I received some advance copies of my long awaited novel, The Doughnuts (and the day before it became available as an ebook—today). That kind of coincidence doesn't happen every day, so I bought a ticket and watched it alone. It's a great film, about rise of the Cambodian donut shops in Southern California, focusing mostly on a Cambodian refuge, Ted Ngoy—how he came to the US, worked as a baker, then started his own donut shop, and then kept opening franchises, and sponsoring more refugees, helping others start shops, and on and on. It starts with a bit of the history of Cambodia during the Vietnam war, and the refugee crisis at that time—a brief, but necessary, history lesson to lead into this donut saga. Then there's some history of the donut business in this country—Dunkin' Vs. Winchell's, etc., and a bit of the recent history of Los Angeles, through the donut lens. So it's also a bit of an “American Dream” saga, which is complete with the downfall chapter—linked to, yes, Las Vegas, and an addiction—yes, gambling. It's a great inspiring, hopeful, tragic, sad, and ultimately humane story—to some degree universal, but very much more rich as it focuses in on the immigrant experience, then the Cambodian immigrant story, specially, then this particular family, and finally this kind of remarkable man, Ted Ngoy. Along the way, there is plenty of visual stimulation, as well—that is, donut “porn”—even when you can't eat them, donuts are great to look at—and there's plenty of that, here. Oh, and by the way, the only place the novel, The Doughnuts, crosses over, is that it's set partly in LA, and some of the shops in the movie provide an occasional setting for scenes. If you ever wondered, like I did, what's with all the donut shops in LA?—this is your movie. It answers that mystery—plus, you get some history, humanity, and some great real-life characters, on the way.

Cattle Empire

This 1958, Joel McCrea, color, Western (directed by Charles Marquis Warren) starts out not with the far-off image of a lone rider in an open range, like many, many Westerns, but rather a shot of a townsfolk mob standing around looking at something on the ground. What could it be? Two dogs copulating? A soiled takeout bag from McDonalds—litter from the future? No, it's a guy with a rope around him, just before being dragged behind a horse. A lot of people are mad at this guy. Someone is blind, someone's kid was killed. Someone's store was burned. One guy lost his hand! Is this Satan, you think? No, it's John Cord (McCrea), a guy who, no matter how much anyone expresses their hatred for him, just moves on. “What's next?” He's hired by the guy he blinded! (second Western in a row I saw with a blind guy) to run a cattle drive—because he's the best at running a cattle drive. This, then, becomes a cattle drive movie. I can imagine a cattle drive being like the worst job you ever had, but in movies it's depicted as an attractive, exciting way to live—a moving community with good eatin', a perfect test of one's resolve and character, and the perfect way to get to the bottom of a mystery. I won't give it away, but I have to mention, there is one cowboy with red hair and matching scraggly beard, and here's another way Westerns aren't realistic or fair—redheads are always bad people. As an aside—at one point there seems to be a lot of controversy about whether the cattle drive goes via “Horsethief Creek” or “Dismal River”—one of which is likely dry. It occurred to me that both places sound like they could be indie bands, and probably are.

Tall Man Riding

This is a 1955 Randolph Scott Western, directed by Lesley Selander. It starts out in the usual way, a man riding a horse, alone in Western, open, idyllic country. But then he comes upon a shootout, and instead of getting out of the way, he gallops over, saves a guy, kills a guy. He and the guy he saves have some common past, but it's not spelled out yet. But something's up. A little later, he rides into town, goes to the saloon, drinks some whiskey. There's a card game going on, an attractive woman who sings at the saloon, a gunslinger named “The Peso Kid” standing at the bar—the usual. We start to get to know a complex web of characters. Then, up in his room with a guy, Randolph Scott removes his shirt, but they don't make love. Instead, he shows the guy the scars on his back from when he was whipped by someone. Not in a good way. So very quickly, we find out that revenge is the motive here. Soon we'll also find out that there's a woman involved (Dorothy Malone). Scott has his usual look, sharply dressed, including a neck scarf. His overall appearance is a little ragged, though, including his hat, and I think this means something. Maybe he's in store for some self-improvement. RS gets ambushed, knocked over the head with a board. Before the dudes can kill him, however, the woman who sings at the bar, Reva, rides up shooting with her rifle and saves him! She's kind of the real star of this movie—earlier she gave him a good lecture about hate, and told him he should just leave. She's totally right, too, but of course, then we wouldn't have a movie. She's played by Peggie Castle, who I'm not familiar with. Internet says she specialized in playing the “other woman.” I guess I know what that means, but I never gave it much thought—that's an interesting concept to dwell on. Anyway, there's a lot of politics in this movie—I won't go into it all—but it's a good one. It's the not uncommon setup where you have corrupt, weak, and villainous people in a town—pitted against corrupt, weak, and villainous people at a ranch. Randolph Scott is against all of them (except for Reva, who being a woman, sane, good, interesting, and not the top-billed star, gets the short end of the stick). The odds are totally against RS, and he'd be pretty much screwed if he wasn't, you know, the star of the movie. The ending is one of those that both kind of drops in from the heavens, and drops the ball. The less said about the ending, the better.

No Name on the Bullet

In this 1959 Western, directed by Jack Arnold, Audie Murphy rides into a small Western town and registers at the hotel under the name of John Gant—which causes everyone to freak out. No one recognizes him, but apparently his name proceeds him—a famous hired killer. Only the town doctor doesn't seem to know the name (he's spent time back East, so he's out of the loop). Everyone else is speculating who he's there to kill—which also means, who hired him and why? So it's a nice mystery, really low key and atmospheric. My kind of movie, for awhile. One guy is so freaked out he kills himself. Suicide is one of the more odd and disturbing—though not that common—elements to Westerns. It turns out that half the people in town are so caught up in unsavory behavior that they assume he's there to kill them. So they even start killing each other! It's really a nice setup, actually. Still, the ending is looking like it's going to come down to the usual showdown between good and evil (either hand-to-hand combat or a gunfight), but it actually plays out in a much more interesting way. Of course, I couldn't help imagine even more possibilities, due to such a good foundation—but that's just me, always wanting more. As it stands, this movie is way, way more satisfying than most of the 1950s Westerns I've seen.

Groundhog Day

I read that the movie Groundhog Day (1993) (Dir. Harold Ramis) was leaving Netflix on Sept. 1, which is kind of cruel, in that, isn't this the movie that's getting everyone through this thing... like if you watch it every day? Maybe not. I shouldn't complain—we shouldn't complain about entertainment options, I mean—imagine if we were like in the early days of home VHS, when everyone had like 4 tapes—how sick you'd be of those! Anyway, I've only heard Groundhog Day referenced with the COVID 19 pandemic like 700 times now, so I thought I'd watch it again. It's a weird thing about this movie, I don't know how many times I've watched it, and I can never remember what happens! Not just the very end, but even the plot development, etc. It's like it becomes erased from my mind. As I was watching it, I thought I'd remember how it played out, and I did not. The end was a total surprise. Maybe I had actually never watched it to the end, but that's crazy. So anyway, I thought I'd better write up this article immediately, just in case I can't remember it tomorrow. Maybe no one remembers it! In which case, I guess I'll just recommend it. I think it's a pretty great movie—there's snow!—it's kind of the ultimate romantic comedy—Bill Murray is at his best—I don't need to go into the plot or anything because everyone has seen this movie, probably multiple times. If there is someone out there who hasn't, you sure don't want me ruining it for you now. I was actually surprised at how serious it got at one point—I mean, it practically turned me into stone. Or into a believer of something. Something. Or maybe stone. Who knows. I won't remember tomorrow. Of course, I can read this... but I never read my own shit. It's too embarrassing. I'm hopeless. Plus, I'm not sure that not only every memory of the movie is erased, come the next day, but also writing about it doesn't disappear. I couldn't find a thing about it, on the internet. Maybe I'm looking at the wrong internet. Are we all looking at the same internet? I don't think so. Anyway, of course there was the basic stuff—who's responsible for it, when and where it was shot, how many rotting tomatoes, box office. I noticed that it came out mid-February 1993—significant for me—and maybe I did see it then—because exactly eight months later (you know, the 8 month rule) I quit drinking for good, which is maybe the hardest thing I ever did, and of not little importance to my life, I like to think. So, if you happen to read this (though I'm convinced this file will disappear somehow) and you happen to be in a place where you're wondering about quitting drinking, yourself, feel free to contact me and talk. I don't know if I can help or not, but I'll try. All I know about that is you have to do it alone, and you can't do it alone. If that sounds like a contradiction, yeah. Most important things do seem contradictory, confusing, and very, very hard. Sometimes you have to just keep trying, keep trying... and then one day, it's all very easy... and then one day, you're dead... and then...

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm

I read about this movie a while ago—maybe it was playing somewhere, and I wanted to see it but couldn't make it—but I recently noticed there's a very nice transfer of it on youtube, so I got to see it. It's really my kind of thing. It was made by Willam Greaves in 1968, and the full title is Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One—I guess he was planning more installments—he likely had tons of footage. It's an experimental film in the purest and best sense of what that means. He apparently set it up like he was making a drama, with a large group of people who were likely film students and local actors—shooting in Central Park—using three cameras at once—supposedly to back-up the primary action, and also to document the filmmaking process. The drama, what we see of it, is badly written and acted, and as a director, he's kind of bizarre—and he allows the crew to film them talking about the whole process when he's not around. Apparently, he had in mind, the whole time, that he was going to construct something totally unique in the editing processes. This kind of reminded me of an attempted video I started with some friends, in which we taped a large open call audition for a “movie”—with fairly ridiculous audition scripts. That, in turn was inspired by the Iranian, Mohsen Makhmalbaf's 1995 feature, Salaam Cinema, about a staged audition. This kind of experimentation is prominent in Iranian cinema—I wonder if they were influenced or aware of Greaves? Anyway, it's hard to explain why this movie works so well—a lot has to do with the way it's constructed, which feels effortless—but I'm sure was very difficult. It's nice hearing these people in 1968 talk, too—interesting to compare it to how a group of people talk now. Also, it's very funny. Miles Davis on the soundtrack doesn't hurt, either.

The Quick Gun

I've been watching some old Westerns on TV, in part because they're the only movies I can get on broadcast TV, and also out of fascination—that there are so many of these Fifties and Sixties Westerns—no wonder I hated them, growing up. They're all variations on the themes of bullying, fear, courage, stupidity, and worshiping the ability to draw a gun faster than the person you are shooting. There's occasionally discussion of morals, wrong, and right—but nowhere near as much as discussion of speed. If you wonder why the USA is known for, as much as anything, sports and gun violence, these old Westerns are a good place to start. This a 1964 Audie Murphy picture, directed by Sidney Salkow. I got sucked into this one because our hero is returning to Shelby, Montana, which I know from being one of the stops on the Amtrak. The town may as well, however, be called “Hell,” because a signifiant part of the tough guy population is gone on a cattle drive, and a large outlaw gang is on their way there to take the cattle money and rape the women. Audie M. is returning because his old girlfriend, Helen, the schoolteacher, is there—but it turns out the reason he had left in the first place was because he killed a couple of guys—and of course their dad wants to kill him. The ex tells him she's getting married to the Sheriff—who's played by James Best, who is a great old actor—young here, and very compelling. He can tell Helen is still in love with Audie, so he calls off the wedding—not even jealous! Then when the preacher pleads with him to try to go to reason with the outlaws, he does, and they just shoot him, unceremoniously. Not very smart—everyone saw that coming. Anyway, the movie plays out in absurd Western action fashion, in the last five minutes, and is ultimately a story about the love of the gun.

1917

In my lifetime, or my grandchildren's, there's a greater chance of all human life being eradicated than war being eradicated, and so I guess as long as we keep having wars we're going to keep making pro-war movies—this one is this year's most popular one—it's won and is nominated for many industry awards. I refused to go, but then went to see it with a friend—I love being wrong about things, and for half of this movie I felt like I had been wrong not to want to see it—it was so much fun, kind of like that pro-war classic, Apocalypse Now (1979). Also, there are a lot of conspiracy theories surrounding this film, including that it was shot in one continuous take (and why not!) and the title, 1917, when you turn it upside down says “Libi” which is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning, “My Heart”—director Sam Mendes' secret dedication to someone, possibly his mother. And why not? We never forget our moms.

Anyway, I loved the journey through those cool looking trenches—it felt like a video game where you keep going to a different, deeper level. Also, it took me back to childhood when we built forts and dug tunnels. We also played POW camp, thinking we were destined for Vietnam. By the time the guy fell into the river, however, I was pretty far removed from any reality, but I was still willing to forgive the pic had it followed the following storyline. Anyone who remembers seeing the 16mm short “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” (based on the Ambrose Bierce story) projected in grade-school, certainly thought about that classic while the guy was washed downstream. What I expected, then, was for him to finally reach the safety of a sunbaked shore (and maybe some bathing French prostitute/nurses) when he would suddenly be thrust back to the point of being buried alive after the rat (spoiler alert) tripped the explosive wire—and when his friend tried to dig him out he was, alas, dead. From that point on it's just the other guy—but repeating the exact same steps, but now alone. So then, when the plane crashes and he pulls the guy from the plane, when the pilot pulls a knife on him, he immediately shoots him—and is thus not, this time, mortally wounded. I think audiences would absolutely eat up this twist—but hey, no one was taking my notes.

Other suggestions I have to improve the second half of the movie include getting rid of the score, or at least reduce it somewhat, so it's not the loudest, most overbearing and manipulative thing you've ever heard. Also, an alternative ending could be when the guy finally gets to Colonel Cumberbatch with the letter from the General, he could pull it out of the envelope and (remember all that time he was in the water?) on the paper is nothing but faint clouds of faded ink. They all laugh, give the bloke some tea, and send him into battle with the rest of the poor bastards. Or, even better, when he finally reaches the destination, it seems that they have already received the message that he was bringing and called off the attack. It seems that the General, no idiot, in an effort to hedge his bets, sent out scores of two man teams with the same letter, each thinking they were the only hope, and so actually several identical letters had reached their destination first. They all have tea and yuck it up, then, but our hero, understandably, is considerably perturbed.

Randy Russell 2.9.20

Joker

I went to see this movie because Joaquin Phoenix was in it, period. I have hated—with a passion—all of the Batman movies I've seen, except for Batman (1966), so I neither read, heard, nor anticipated anything about this one, and in fact allowed myself to fool myself into thinking it wasn't a Batman movie at all, to the point that I was momentarily confused when they called New York “Gotham.” If it wasn't for the suffocating score (I may never want to hear anything that sounds remotely like a cello again), it could have been enjoyable at times—if I'd been able to sink back, back into time, maybe to the age of 16 or so, when I first saw Taxi Driver and thought: “One of these days I'm gonna get organizized, too!” I guess there was some relief (as in “The Cinema of What It Ain't”) in not seeing Joker magically transform into the chess master genius. And the joy of watching him run down hallways and slide around corners almost made up for so many blows to the head and face that you might think it was The Three Stooges, or a Wes Anderson movie. The final nail in the coffin, though, was that it had a perfect ending (the Indian-head test pattern after the talk show that went awry)—but made the unforgivable mistake of tacking on not one but two additional, and unnecessary, and increasingly weak endings.

Also, I found the ironic use of two Sinatra songs to be one too many, and “Send in the Clowns”—come on. The really funny thing though, is after the movie ended with that song, the next movie I watched, later the same day, began with a muzak-like version of that song! You can't make the stuff up that is the odd coincidences in my life; well, you could, but what would be the point? This later movie was the 2013 cut of Moon Dust, made locally here, by friends, and contains some performances that are as good as anything I see ever. Also, if it had an official budget, that figure won't be found in a Variety article, because no one's getting paid back and the movie in not released (though it should be—all of the versions).

Maybe I'm too hard on Batman movies because I don't really know or get the Batman world, and if people do, I'm sure that helps. I was a little too young for the Batman comics my mom bought for me at the grocery store around the time the TV show was on, and, of course, not sophisticated enough to understand why the two didn't resemble each other outside of the costumes. I still have a few of those comics, and I might put a couple on my reading list and see what they make me remember or feel about my seven-year-old self grappling with them. I'm not sure how long it took me to realize the Adam West Batman was a comedy, but when I did it didn't detract from some of the bizarre and powerful performances found there occasionally. I think I was an adult before I realized that Cesar Romero's Joker was actually a clown. “Holy shit, he's a clown!” I said one day. I guess I had just thought he was an actor who went a little heavy with the powder. My favorite character and performance, though, not just in this show, but maybe ever, was Frank Gorshin's Riddler. That very first two-part episode with him and Jill St. John is maybe my favorite TV episode of all time. But all of them with Frank Gorshin—I wonder if there are outtakes somewhere? I wonder if you could just take the Riddler episodes and some outtakes and put them all together and make a full length Riddler movie? He was truly inspired. You probably can't even remember how much—go back and watch some of those episodes and pay attention to every little gesture and word, how he does everything. I've never seen anything like it. If you're reading this and you don't agree with me, and we happen to have dinner anytime soon, we'd be best to steer the conversion away from the subject of mad genius.

Randy Russell 10.11.19

Ad Astra

I went to see Ad Astra (2019) under ideal conditions—a friend asked me, spur of the moment, and I knew nothing about it, at least until seeing a poster of Brad Pitt in a space helmet outside of the auditorium. The title is a cool Latin phrase, briefly translated in the minimal opening credits. Sci-fi on a summer afternoon, you can't beat it if you're sci-fi geek like me; I never get tired of the movie depiction of gnarly hardware silently hurtlin' thru the cosmos. If you're having the misfortune of reading this instead of going to the movie first, I'll just tell you: this is a terrible, terrible movie and you'd be wise to skip it, unless you're even more a sci-fi geek than I am and have to see them all—or you want to prove me wrong, which is another game we can play. Anyway, for me, the cinema is well beyond life support, and now we're just digging up corpses, I guess. That the only two Hollywood movies I saw all summer is this and the Tarantino one—and the fact that Brad Pitt plays the chillest guy in world in both—strikes me as perverse. Brad re-writes history in both, but also the laws of science in this one (now that Pluto is no longer a planet, we can get to the edge of the solar system in the time it takes to get to an LA beach), and instead of merely saving Sharon Tate, he saves mankind form the most heinous threat yet imagined: power surges. I've read enough movie scripts to know I would have thrown this one across the room, and I've written enough to know that the brief intoxication you get from an idea like “Apocalypse Now... in Space!” mixed with re-watching Terrence Malick, some Wikipedia mythology, and Moby-Dick CliffNotes—and with plenty of Red Bull and Adderall, you can get to 180 pages in a self-delusional flurry. Apparently enough people have these issues with their fathers being assholes that this father-son thing resonates? Or the Christian market is actually this big now? I haven't had this much God shoved down my throat since the last time I watched a Jimmy Swaggart camp meeting, but frankly, as I believe myself to be a moral person, I prefer brother Jimmy's bourbon soaked transgression to enduring the on-line therapy sessions with a guy whose emotional and spiritual reawakening comes at the price of murdering several (oddly, Christian) space cops, hooking up with his nutso dad in a deep space trailer park, finding God thru his digital photos, and then solving the power surge crisis with one big bomb which has the convenient extra benefit of... poof!—propelling him right back home into the arms of his hot lady who he's now ready to commit to. In a way, it's reassuring that dumb shit like this gets made, but still, I can't forgive it for teasing us with Donald Sutherland and then abandoning him like cheap carry-on luggage at the moon-port.

Randy Russell 9.23.19

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

I was trying to write about every movie I see at the theater, but sometime (late last year?) I commenced in failing at that project, then I stopped seeing movies in the theater, and then I just stopped watching movies. Maybe I'll write a single article about the few movies I've seen and haven't written about, or maybe I won't. Anyway, I thought that this movie might be a good one to get me back to writing about movies again. My idea is to write short reviews. I have failed. But anyway, after this, it's going to be short reviews. Or no reviews. Anyway, there's a lot to talk about here. It's worth noting that Quentin Tarantino can command, maybe more than anyone currently making movies, money, stars, time, and final cut—gets credit for the popularity and success of his movies—but also is asked to take responsibility for what people criticize in his movies—and I understand can get a little prickly. But since there is zero chance of him reading this, I'm not going to worry about pissing him off (I still may want to audition for the next one). First of all, there's the goofy title, which may or may not contain “...” (also known as “three dots”). Next, for much of this movie (too long not to have an intermission), the pace is relaxed, meandering, taking its good old time. I love that. Most movies are afraid to do that. It almost felt like not watching a movie, or watching a movie from the late Sixties or early Seventies, one of the ones where you think, what in the hell is going on here? But if you're like me, are just, like, in movie heaven.

If I was to say this movie is “Quentin Tarantino's love letter to Hollywood,” in any capacity (including those words) you would have my utmost permission to march right over here to HQ and beat me with a frozen mackerel. (Not) talking about love letters, I was not expecting much after The Hateful Eight (2015) brutally disappointed me. I loved the beginning of that movie and hated where it went. It was as if you exchanged a steamy series of love letters with someone, then hiked over a mountain and across a desert to finally see them and were greeted with: “Who you?” The first half or more of this movie is like paging through old Life magazine ads, imagining, at least, an aesthetically better world. Lifestyle porn, cocktail porn, and more than anything else, cool old car porn. Perversely, there was an advertisement just before the movie started for some kind of new SUV automobile that, of course, looks like absolute shit, and like every other new car, and all these people, who are terrible actors, are saying how great it looks. (Now that I think about it, I'm not sure this wasn't actually part of the movie?—if this was some kind of joke ad, ha! You got me! Touché QT!)

So then, we're watching actors, some playing movie stars (both biographical and imaginary) and some playing not-movie stars, but all of them actors (it's Hollywood!) in some respect. Most fun is Brad Pitt playing a stunt double and self-made mystery man with a nemesis named Randy and a dog named Brandy. (When I was in high school, a friend got a new dog, and at dinner his dad asked what he named it—he mumbled Brandy, to which his dad said, “Do you think Randy will appreciate that?) The dog is a handsome pit bull (get it) and between Brad and the dog, I'm guessing the heartthrob appeal is about 100%. Brad works as driver, stunt man, and companion of a washed up, alcoholic TV actor played by Leonardo DiCaprio (amazing performance, I don't think I've ever seen anyone, a man at least, on the verge of tears for an entire movie). It didn't occur to me until later, after a big deal was made about Brad killing his wife “and getting away with it,” that this odd couple could be informed by Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs—an obvious American icon who fell into an alcohol-fueled, paranoid, angry, racist, pathetic state (though many people still loved him)—and an impenetrable, questionable antihero, who was hard to take your eyes off of. So our heroes, here, are what we (do we, really?) need right now—the super-couple for 2019, not cartoon superheroes, not robots, but flesh and blood straight white males. Though Brad's character is about as straight as a three dollar bill (no one turns down a “blowjob while driving”). I'm not sure if they're “doing it” (I might be too unsophisticated to pick up 2019 innuendo), but I see Leo as kind of like the frat guy who wakes from a blackout drunk—on Old Spice stained sheets—and conveniently “can't remember” anything. What I liked most, though, is Brad's portrayal of this kind of guy who goes through life—no matter what he's doing, driving, fixing something, feeding the dog—as if he is constantly being filmed. We all know people like that, right? In fact, you might be one. In fact, I might be one. I am, actually—I will admit that, for the first time, here. The camera is on me right now, typing this, in spite of my lack of pants.

So eventually there's the Manson Family, and our heroes thwart this horrible murder of Sharon Tate and those other people, that real-life tragedy that people never seem to get tired of rehashing. But yes, our heroes in this movie, they change history, as if they went into the The Time Tunnel (1966)—which maybe was a missed period reference, or maybe I missed it). Oh, I guess I should say “spoiler alert.” Is that a spoiler alert?—no, I guess you're supposed to say that before you give away the amazing plot twist, so the person reading can, ha, stop reading on a dime and come back to your article after they've seen the movie. As if. Anyway, if someone told me that there's a movie that's a spot on theatrical rendition of the Mansion murders, you're not going to be able to pay me to see that movie, because fuck the Mansion Family. I refuse to put people who are famous for unimaginative acts of tragic stupidity into some kind of “famous for the sake of famous” museum. My approach to the deplorable is to ignore them. Apparently QT's approach is to recreate history, so these characters can get mauled by a pit bull and have their heads slammed viciously into furniture like 1000 times. I do realize that these Manson Family murders freaked out an entire generation—no more free love, free drugs, romanticism of mental illness, and bathrooms, henceforth “for customers only.” One interesting thing I just recalled, my high school history teacher, Mr. Wenzel, in talking about Charles Manson said, “If they ever let him out of prison, there's going to be one fat man on the hill with a rifle.” (Referring to himself, he was portly.) I can't remember another time a teacher spoke with such murderous passion about someone or something, and I think it made me realize the impact that that event had on society's feeling of well-being.

While watching this movie, though it wasn't boring, my mind wandered to an idea about social media—I don't know why, maybe because of our different ways of entertaining ourselves in 1969 and now? Anyway, I was thinking that one of the problems with social media (maybe older people have this more than people who have grown up with it?) is that most of us, even though we know better, kind of assume that we're all looking at the same thing. So, for example, if someone is looking at Facebook on Sunday night, they assume it's like everyone's got the TV on, say ABC, at that time—so like what they're seeing on Facebook is what you're seeing on Facebook. So the idea that came to me is to somehow organize social media trades—so for example, for a couple of hours on Sunday night, you take over my Facebook and I take over yours—we can look at the feeds, see who their friends are, comment, and post stuff. I'm sure we can think of a snappy name for this activity! (Facebook Swapping, perhaps?) Well, let's try it. I'm very serious about this. (I know I should have made this proposal somewhere else, but since it did come to me while watching this movie...)

A few other random observations. I missed Samuel L. Jackson, but did you notice—I can't remember exactly where—someone was doing a Samuel L. Jackson impersonation? I noticed that, and it was pretty good. Also, I liked the music and how it was used, for the most part. Particularly, when we get to Family-frenzy, instead of using “Helter Skelter” like they would do, if they could afford it, on TV, the soundtrack plays “Twelve Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming to the Canyon)”—which manages to be both too on-the-nose and too ironic, yet still perfect. Also, I just love that song (who's making the creepy John Phillips biopic?!) A few decades ago, I coined a term, “The Cinema of What-It-Ain't”—though I don't know if you can say, “coined” since it didn't catch on (dumb name), but it was about the trend I noticed more and more (sure, this is all through film history and literature) of creating tension and release by exploiting expectations based on other works and then thwarting those expectations. Sure, some of that is fine, and inevitable, but it becomes a real crutch, and this movie (if you haven't seen it, why are you even reading this?) if you've seen it, think about it—this has got to be one of the worst offenders I've seen in recent years (though I admit, I see almost no popular movies). Just one example: you're just waiting, dreading the moment that dog gets shot, so you can feel real remorse, but the dog doesn't get shot!! And one last, unrelated, random thing—I've been noticing, more and more, the use of the name “Randy” to kind of shorthand some quality of particular characters. Where did this come from? What does it mean? The “Randy” in this movie has a particular quality—hard to put your finger on. Maybe I'm too close to it. (In this case, played by Kurt Russell, adding another layer of queasiness, for me, personally.) Okay, I'm just trying to figure out exactly when the name Randy became synonymous with “douchebag?” I don't like it.

At some point we do see Charles Manson—he stops by the Tate-Polanski residence, but unless I missed something, we don't see him again. After the members of his Family are thwarted, instead of successful, at their murders, I suppose we could assume that Manson might still be arrested, but on the other hand, in this new history, maybe Manson escapes (I don't remember when he was actually arrested and I'm not going to look it up)—and is still at large! Or at least until the sequel to this movie comes around (which will be QT's last, right? Before he becomes a novelist?) It could be called, Once Upon a Time... in Iowa or something, and could be about Manson's nearly successful attempt to get elected President and start a race war and end civilization, etc. Of course he's thwarted by someone (an A-list actor, of course) who then smashes his head into a coffee table for maybe like the last 40 minutes of the movie, which eventually kind of just becomes abstract, and if not entirely beautiful, meditative and perversely cleansing. Just an idea! I'm throwing that out there for free!

Randy Russell 8.4.19