Gideon's daughter

Reading a review of a new film, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, I chose this film as another Bill Nighy work. Terrific choice. His character, Gideon Warner, is a fixer, a PR man, the one to go to for advice, a power broker. At that he's good. As a father, he is not. He is losing his daughter, who is about to graduate and go to Colombia to do good. Nighy has an understated, less-is-more acting style, and he does wonderful work with this character. The excesses are left to others. As he bumbles along, Gideon meets a couple who wants someone in government to listen to their story of how their child was killed. No one does. Gideon arranges it. Both Gideon and Stella drift toward one another in an adult love story that leaves one wanting more.

Touching the void

Engrossing. At points I felt as if I could not continue to listen to the narrative, but could not bring myself to stop.

The Music Never Stopped

A father who teaches his son all about his own music in the late 1950s is shocked to find his son estranged from what he has been taught: instead of remembering Bing Crosby fondly, he has become a Deadhead, is against the VietNam War, and wants to forgo college to play music. The father forces a confrontation, and is unrepentant when his son leaves home. Nearly twenty years later, for the first time the parents of Gabriel receive a phone call that sends them into a whirlwind of guilt, repentance, and, eventually, reconciliation. Except that Gabe is not well: a tumor has damaged his brain, and he can not remember anything after 1970.

One day, in a library, researching microfilm, the father, Henry, reads about a therapist who uses music to reach patients similarly afflicted to his son. It is she who manages to reach Gabe, especially once she realizes that it is 1960s music, and not the 1940s and 1950s music his father insists on, that touches Gabe deep inside and brings him out.

Nicely done. In Rotten Tomatoes, typically, it gets a higher audience mark than a critical mark: 85% vs 65%. An involving, if sentimental and predictable family drama elevated by J.K. Simmons' sympathetic lead performance. The film is based on a story by Oliver Sacks, The last hippie (which, in an interview accompanying the film, the good doctor says is based on a true case of one of his patients).

The Conspirator

An interesting twist to a Civil War story and the assassination of President Lincoln. The focus is on the conspirators: John Wilkes Booth,John Surratt

RottenTomatoes is not fond of it: The Conspirator is well cast and tells a worthy story, but many viewers will lack the patience for Redford's deliberate, stagebound approach. That might tell more about the audience that the film. It is not off the mark, either: the pace is deliberate, but the acting good. In this telling of the story, the military tribunal and Secretary of War Gideon Wells do not come off smelling too good.

Harvest (2010)

A gem of a film. Three generations gather for the patriarch's last summer: he is dying of cancer, and it is the last chance for all to be together. Well, almost all: one son, who lives locally, is waiting for his father to apologize for some past transgression, and even his approaching death does little to end the anger. The other son is something of a manipulative passive-aggressive jerk, and manipulates his father into changing his will. It is the daughter who cares for their dying father and Alzheimer's riddled mother.

Great acting, really, and something of a gritty camera work make the movie unusual. This review from May 2010 captures it well: In a just world, Harvest would be getting a wide release alongside of, if not necessarily instead of, Thor. Writer-director Marc Meyers's sophomore feature is an astonishingly confident work that avoids nearly all the pitfalls of contemporary independent cinema, flirting with cloying treacle in only the handful of moments the film employs a borderline-cliché alt-rock soundtrack. The rest of the film is sterling, its modest strengths amplified by a finely tuned creative process that never overexerts its ambitions or condescends to its subjects: three generations' worth of family living together during their cancer-stricken patriarch's last summer.

Thurgood

Excellent. Laurence Fishburne embodies Justice Marshall, and the role fits him perfectly.


Video Librarian Reviews Laurence Fishburne might have bombed on C.S.I., but he's at the top of his game in George Stevens Jr.'s play about Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. In this performance filmed at Washington's Kennedy Center by Stevens's son Michael, Fishburne is literally the whole show, framed as a one-man journey of recollection spoken before an audience of Howard University students. Ambling with a cane onto a stage that's bare except for a long conference table and occasional back projections, the aged jurist greets his listeners directly before launching into a chronological survey of his life. The actor dispenses with the cane as he recounts stories of Marshall's boyhood and unlikely academic career and then adopts a swagger as he continues with the young lawyer's entrance into the embryonic—and often dangerous—Civil Rights movement. Stevens's script is filled with wry observations and rousing anecdotes about key individuals Marshall worked with (such as Martin Luther King, Jr.) and accounts of the landmark legal cases in which Marshall played a prominent role (most notably Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, which ended segregation in public schools), culminating in his appointment to the federal bench and then being named the first African-American Supreme Court Justice by Lyndon Johnson. Fishburne captures Marshall's gregarious personality beautifully, even as he departs from the script momentarily to welcome a couple of latecomers trying to squeeze unnoticed into their front row seats. Highly recommended.

Another interesting detail is that Marshall and Langston Hughes were classmates. And once, perhaps twice, he quotes Hughes. This is acting as art, and Fishburne is magnificent.

How old is she?

In this article, the books written by the candidates for the presidency of Mexico are discussed: Andrés Manuel López Obrador has written two (“Nuevo proyecto de nación: por el renacimiento de México” and "La mafia que se adueñó de México... y el 2012”. In the latter he decrees that 30 people control the country: “… esta minoría rapaz es la principal responsable de la actual tragedia nacional: la pobreza y el desempleo, la inseguridad y la violencia, la falta de democracia y la violación cotidiana de los derechos de los mexicanos”.); Enrique Peña Nieto has (allegedly) written one, “México, la gran esperanza: un estado eficaz para una democracia de resultados” (this from the man who during the recent Guadalajara Book Fair was asked to name three books that had influenced him, and could only name the Bible (maybe he went to the same school as Governor Rick "Oops" Perry, of Texas); Gabriel Quadri de la Torre is said to have written "distintos libros y publicaciones en materia de medio ambiente y desarrollo sustentable" but it is his running under the banner of the party led by Elba Esther Gordillo Morales, presidenta vitalicia del Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (SNTE), a sort of lefty teachers union; Josefina Vazquez Mota, 51, in 1999 wrote "Dios Mío, hazme viuda por favor” (My God, make me a widow, a still-controversial book; Nuestra oportunidad: un México para todos” is her campaign book.

Only the woman has her age given. Huh?

What do women want (to read)?

The Wall Street Journal (March 14, page D1) has an interesting article about what women read when there is no lurid cover on the book to embarrass them.

Electronic readers, and the reading privacy they provide, are fueling a boom in sales of sexy romance novels, or "romantica," as the genre is called in the book industry.
As with romance novels, romantica features an old-fashioned love story and pop-culture references like those found in "chick lit." Plus, there is sex—a lot of it. Yet unlike traditional erotica, romantica always includes what's known as "HEA"—"happily ever after."
Kindles, iPads and Nooks "are the ultimate brown paper wrapper," says Brenda Knight, associate publisher at Cleis Press, of Berkeley, Calif., a publisher of erotica since 1980.
Mainstream publishers are launching digital-only erotic labels to feed demand. At the end of the month, HarperCollins UK will launch Mischief Books, with the tag line "private pleasures with a hand-held device."

Read more about it at:Books Women Read When No One Can See the Cover

South from Granada

From Spanish director Fernando Colomo comes this adaptation of Gerald Brenan's comedic autobiographical book Al sur de Granada. Matthew Goode stars as Brenan, a young Englishman of affluent and noble stock. Motivated by idealism and with a desire to become a great writer, Gerald moves to a small Spanish town to get away from the trappings of his upbringing. There, he befriends Paco, a local man played by Guillermo Toledo, who helps introduce Gerald to the town. Eventually, the beautiful Juliana (Verónica Sánchez) catches Gerald's eye, and he immediately falls for her. From there, it's up to Paco to familiarize Gerald with the local customs so that he can win the heart of Juliana. Consuelo Trujillo and Ángela Molina also star.

Fairly good film. Enjoyable enough.


Brenan is friends with Lytton Strachey and others from the Bloomsbury group, including Dora Carrington, with whom he is portrayed as being in love. In Yegen,a village in the Spanish countryside below Granada, he settles down to clear his head so he can write. However, events and people conspire to otherwise occupy him. In the drama which includes inter-class sex and a Catholic priest who can not help but be in love with a local woman, Brenan falls in love with Julianna, a local woman whom some suspect of being a witch. She is young, and falls in love, eventually, with Brenan. She also tells him she wnats to bear his baby, and is not interested in marriage.

Hereafter

46% of Rotten Tomatoes critics liked it, 40% of the audience. I agree: the film is disjointed, lathargic, and the point it makes is strained and unconvincing. The South Pacific tsunami and the London bombings are connected via the vehicle of an American (Matt Damon) who is reluctant to again use his gift (or, as he sees it, curse) of being able to connect with the departed. Why the two Europeans are teamed up with the Yank is a mystery. The French mumble, and shots of the Eiffel Tower and of extra-marital sex are used as symbols that are so clichéd as to make me wonder who the hell had the idea of including them.

RT: Despite a thought-provoking premise and Clint Eastwood's typical flair as director, Hereafter fails to generate much compelling drama, straddling the line between poignant sentimentality and hokey tedium. There are touches of flair: Damon's character loves Dickens, not Shakespeare, and when he escapes northern California and he goes to London, he winds up taking a tour of Dickens's home and attending a Dickensian lecture by Derek Jacobi. He winds up romantically linked with the French woman, but that linkup is strained; the film wanted to make that connection, and it just does, unconvincingly.

The Time Traveler's Wife (2009)

Cute as Rachel MacAdams is, and her cuteness tends to be the feature that films concentrate on, she can not quite make this film work. But this is a far better film that than piece of merde Lord of War.

Lord of War

Drek. Mierda. Shit. Had read about it in a New Yorker article ("Disarming Viktor Bout" by Nichols Schmidle, 5 March 2012 issue), so I tried it: BIG MISTAKE.

Super 8

Fairly good. I had seen coming attractions of it several months back, and had been trying to get the film since then. It wasn't quite what I had remembered, or thought I remembered, but it was fun to watch. Better than much else.

A. O. Scott in the NY Times does not quite like it: Inescapable comparisons to Steven Spielberg (a producer of “Super 8” and something of a mentor to Mr. Abrams) are apt, but they go only so far. Themes of childlike resistance to authority and intergalactic compassion are evident here, as they were in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “E.T.” The visual and emotional poetry of those films, however, never quite blossoms, despite having been copied out carefully, line by line. But, and here I agree: Still, “not as good as E.T.” is not so bad. (“Better than ‘Thor’ or ‘X-Men: First Class’ ” may be a more relevant judgment at this moment in the history of air-conditioning.)

Sci-fi is not my thing, but this is an enjoyable movie. That is not a bad thing, at all. I mean it as a compliment.

Ernie Pyle's story of G.I. Joe

In the February 13 & 20, 2012 issue of The New Yorker, David Denby wrote a side Critic's Notebook column: Soldiering On, in which he praised this film. He called it "probably the grimmest and most poetic and the least tied to genre clichés." Grim and freee of clichés it is, indeed; poetic I am not sure sure about, but I can understand what he meant.

"Sombre, slightly maddened, fatalistic," it follows a unit to which Ernie Pyle attaches himself, as it fights in North Africa, then Italy. There is little staged heroism, or any other clichéd action. The film catches the cruelty of war in both its random and fatal violence, and its endless boredom. Burgess Meredith seems miscast as Ernie Pyle, and does his best to rescue his effort. Robert Mitchum plays a lieutenant who handles his assignment (which includes sending men to their deaths) with a soft touch. A sergeant in the unit receives a 45rpm recording of his son's voice, but can not find a way to play it. When he finally finds a victrola, it has no needle. His attempt to fashion a replacement is not only futile but maddening: each time he tries to listen to it, the record plays at the wrong speed and his frustration builds and builds.

Interesting film-making. John Wayne stinks.

Everything is illuminated

Wonderful film. Not everyone agrees, of course. In the NYT, AO Scott pans it: Mr. Foer's verbal and imaginative energies brought him close to succeeding. Mr. Schreiber, plucking a single thread of the novel's interwoven narratives, shows himself to be a sincere and serious reader, but his effort at translation does not quite work. Taken on its own, without comparison with its literary source, the movie, Mr. Schreiber's first as writer and director, is thin and soft, whimsical when it should be darkly funny and poignant when it should be devastating.

Roger Ebert liked it: The gift that Schreiber brings to the material is his ability to move us from the broad satire of the early scenes to the solemnity of the final ones. For Grandfather, this is as much a journey of discovery as it is for Jonathan, and the changes that take place within him are all the more profound for never once being referred to in his dialogue. He never discusses his feelings or his memories, but in a way he is the purpose of the whole trip. The conclusion he draws from it is illustrated in an image that, in context, speaks more eloquently than words.  'Everything is Illuminated" is a film that grows in reflection. The first time I saw it, I was hurtling down the tracks of a goofy ethnic comedy when suddenly we entered dark and dangerous territory. I admired the film but did not sufficiently appreciate its arc. I went to see it again at the Toronto Film Festival, feeling that I had missed some notes, had been distracted by Jonathan's eyeglasses and other relative irrelevancements (as Alex might say). The second time, I was more aware of the journey Schreiber was taking us on, and why it is necessary to begin where he begins in order to get where he's going.

Along the way there are some gems, a lot of humor (especially in the early parts), and a lot of beautiful countryside.

They travel, grandfather Alex driving, grandson Alex riding shotgun, Jonathan in the back seat with Sammy Davis Jr. Jr. At one juncture they pass by an old concrete box of a building, many windows broken, seemingly abandoned. Jonathan asks about it.

"Soviet," says Alex.
"What happened?" asks Jonathan.
"Independence."

As they seek out the woman in a faded photograph that Jonathan carries, a memento from his grandmother, showing his grandfather and a woman that grandmother told him saved his grandfather, they are hurtling into the past. When Jonathan remarks that his grandmother told him that Ukrainians were so anti-Semitic, that, at first, Jews thought the Germans might be an improvement, Alex is incredulous. He asks his own grandfather about that, and grandfather Alex says nothing, but his haunted look speaks to something his silence does not. But, what is it? Was he a Nazi collaborator? Or?

In the end, the answer is obvious. I cringed several times at the sight of German soldiers loading bullets into their rifles, Jews lined up mere yards away, about to be massacred. Yet the sounds never appeared; that technique worked beautifully: there is no need to state, let alone overwork, the obvious: Nazis killed Jews. But other things happened, too. The film tells one such story.

Swimming

Very nicely done.

Director Robert J. Siegel handles this delicate material with grace and style. ''Swimming'' conveys the thrill and complexity of an adolescent crush, underscoring Frankie's nuanced character. Yearning for something more than the weekend partying on the boardwalk with piercing-shop proprietor Nicola, the repressiveness of the restaurant, and the condescension of her older brother, Frankie is eager to assume her own identity. The film nicely delivers two different characters into Frankie's world who help her figure out who she is and where her loyalties lie: the dubious but seductive Josee and Heath (Jamie Harrold), a likable drifter who sells T-shirts from his van.

Ambrose delivers an authentic, understated, beautifully etched performance that ranks with classics of the coming-of-age genre, which has been much maligned by Hollywood in recent years. ''Swimming'' is a finely crafted film that is all the more remarkable because it achieves its emotional power and moments of revelation with such delicacy, restraint, and ambiguity.

Boston Globe.

Tea with Mussolini

A oldie, a goodie.

Tuskegee airmen

Rather good, even if a little labored.

Moneyball

On 4 January 2011 I made a calendar entry to be on the lookout for the eponymous film version of Michael Lewis's book. The book was grand reading fun, for me. I thoroughly enjoyed the narrative style, the language and its expert use, and the story. I felt as if it was unnecessary to know baseball to enjoy the story (though, of course, it added a dimension to know the sport). Thus, when I read about the film, I looked forward to seeing it.

Finally, last night I watched it, and I was disappointed. Critics liked it. Manohla Dargis of the NY Times praised it: The hungry heart of “Moneyball,” a movie about baseball in the digital age, is a beautiful hard case named Billy Beane. Coiled yet cool, Billy has the liquid physical grace and bright eyes of a predator. He was built to win. Even his name, with its short syllabic bursts, sounds ready for ESPN exultations. That he’s played by Brad Pittgiving the quintessential Brad Pitt performance just seals the deal.. The LA Times critic also liked it, Pitt and Seymour Hoffman (who returns here, letter-perfect as Oakland Manager Art Howe - I thought he was completely miscast), and Ebert does, too (I walked in knowing what the movie was about, but unprepared for its intelligence and depth.) I wasn't too impressed.

Lincoln Lawyer

Brisk and good legal thriller. Lincoln refers to the car that is his office, this lawyer looking for a big payday, willing to defend anyone who has the cash. Some cops think he's too slick, unprincipled, and dislike him, intensely in cases. His ex-wife (Marisa Tomei, one of the few higher-profile American actresses in her age group (she was born in 1964, five years before Mr. McConaughey) who’s actually allowed to act her age, who conveys intelligence and sexiness, and suggests a life that’s been lived and without a face frozen by filler and fear. She plays a character and not just the love interest. She isn’t the star, of course, but without her and the other exceptionally well-cast supporting players, Mr. McConaughey would have a tougher time making you believe that he was to the sleaze born) is a prosecutor.

The story, and there’s a lot of it, nicely condensed from Mr. Connelly’s page-turner best seller, largely turns on a case that looks like a slam dunk or, as one of Mick’s bail bondsmen, Val (John Leguizamo), insists, a jackpot.


That NY Times review, one of many, sums it up well. A good movie.

Switch

Weak script. Didn't laugh for the first twenty minutes, even though I could tell I'd been prompted to laugh. Finally did laugh, and did enjoy the film, but it was as weak as near-beer. The acting is good. Thomas Robinson, who plays the kid Sebastian, is wonderful. But ...

A woman approaching middle age yet still childless decides to get pregnant by artificial insemination, only to discover that the donor she chose may not be the father of her child in this comedy starring Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman. Wally Mars (Bateman) is a dyed-in-the-wool pessimist. Hopelessly neurotic and unrepentantly narcissistic, he gets no joy out of life except for the time he spends with his best friend Kassie (Jennifer Aniston). However, despite the fact that Wally pines to be more than just friends with Kassie, she isn't convinced they'd make a good couple. When Kassie announces to Wally that she's found the perfect sperm donor, he's crestfallen; as far as he's concerned, the ideal candidate is standing right in front of her. Later, Kassie selects handsome stranger Roland (Patrick Wilson) to provide the seed. Things get complicated when Kassie's best friend Debbie (Juliette Lewis) throws an "insemination party" to commemorate the big event, and Wally intercepts Roland's special delivery, drunkenly replacing it with his own before blacking out. Pregnant and content, Kassie leaves the city for Minnesota, where she gives birth to a healthy baby boy. Flash-forward seven years, and Kassie returns to New York with her son, Sebastian (Thomas Robinson), who shares an uncanny number of physical and psychological traits with embittered bachelor Wally. Before long Wally and Sebastian have become good friends, and Wally becomes convinced that the boy is his biological son. His ideal family is finally within reach, and if he can just figure out a means of breaking the news to Kassie gently, perhaps she'll find it in her heart to forgive him, and recognize that he'll make the perfect father for Sebastian. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

In the electric mist

Violent, yes, but a good film. Well told story, good acting, great pace.

Will Rogers: a political life

How can someone so interesting be made so uninteresting?

A gem, a dud

Laura (1944) is a timeless gem. Gene Tierney is the title character, who is presumed to have been murdered – until she shows up. Detective Lt. Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) falls for her, her image in the painting in her apartment, and then falls hard for her when she appears. But, who is dead? The zinger is that the body is never seen. Vincent Price is Laura's coy


Critics in Rotten Tomatoes give it 100%, the audience 90%, a rather rare combination of taste. But not everyone likes it. The Village Voice critic: Elevated by studio boss Darryl Zanuck from "B" picture status, Laura opened at the Roxy, became a critical and popular hit, was nominated for five Oscars (winning for cinematography), and launched Preminger's directorial career. Still, alternately sprightly and turgid, if abetted by its haunting, ubiquitous score, it's far from a great movie—most beloved by second-generation surrealists who appreciate it for its time-liquidating dream narrative of l'amour fou. See that movie if you can; for me, Laura is a flavorsome but flawed anticipation of two far more delirious psychosexual cine-obsessions: Vertigo and Blue Velvet.

In contrast stands We own the Night (2007). I didn't like it, or finish it.

The Departed (2006)

Violent. Very violent. Inexplicably, extremely popular. Inexplicable to me: I do not understand why very violent films are so popular, and better films are not so popular.

The Yards

I’d seen a one-column-wide item about it in the 19& 26 December 2011 issue of the New Yorker magazine. Richard Brody wrote that dierctor James Gray “returned to his native Queens” to film “a blend of operatic drama and documentary veracity.” he states there was “an ending imposed on the film by the producers, with grave results for the film and Gray’s career.”

Not sure how far back the ending in question goes, but I can guess that the very last scene might be it.


Wahlberg plays Leo, who has just come out of prison, serving a couple of year for car theft. He got caught, friends of his did not, and he did not give them up. Street credibility plays an important role in their lives. Phoenix is his best friend, Willie, who is having a serious romance with Leo's cousin, Erica (Theron, who looks great in her Goth colors, dark nail polish, heavy black eye makeup, leather wristband). Caan plays Erica's father, a corrupt owner of a subway car repair company, neck deep in payoffs and sweetheart deals. Steve Lawrence play sthe Queens borough president.


Good acting, and a good story well told.

Mother and Child

How three women are affected by adoption. 51 year old Karen (Benning) has never stopped thinking about the child she gave up for adoption, 37 years earlier, when she was 14 years old. That child (Watts), now a successful attorney, lives an empty life, centered around achievement in law, careless sex based on conquest, extreme cynicism about life and people. A black woman (Washington), unable to conceive her own child, desperately hopes that adopting will fill the void in her soul.

Benning allows herself to be seen by the camera as she is, a 53 year old woman who is not trying to hide her age. She need not hide anything; no one should. She is stellar as a woman haunted by her past, caring for her aging mother, unable to connect with people. Into her life enters a fellow physical therapist (Smits), whom she pushes away, afraid of connecting, of feeling emotion. He persists, and they become friends, and, eventually, marry. That marriage is a little forced, and a weak spot of the film. One of few.

Watts is an unsympathetic character, despite what might be a most sympathetic circumstance: she misses not having a mother, not knowing whom her birth mother was, and that haunts her. Yet she turns that hurt and anger into a manipulative cynicism of undue proportions. During a sexual encounter with her new boss (Jackson), she not only controls the entire act, but calls him old man, deliberately wanting to put him in his place (she is already on top, literally).

You may not quite trust “Mother and Child”— its soft spots and fuzzy edges give it away — but you can believe just about everyone in it. A.O. Scott's NYT review.

Washington's character, Lucy, is a layered woman who desperately wants to be a mother. When she and her husband interview with a nun who will arrange the adoption, and then with the mother who is going to give up her baby, Lucy talks incessantly, then upbraids her husband for not stopping her. When the birth mother decides not to give up her baby, Washington launches into a tour de force, an amazingly emotional and hysterical outburst of anger and pain. It is acting at its best.

In the end, all three stories meld into one. Elizabeth, pregnant, abandons her law firm, goes to work with a public interest firm, and insists on giving birth naturally despite a dangerous condition. She sees her brown baby (her boss was indeed the father; she got pregnant despite having tied her tubes at 17 {this scene is weak, and a missed opportunity, though perhaps Elizabeth would not have reflected on it} and decided to have the child), but dies. That baby is given to Lucy, and Lucy agrees to let Karen visit.

Hedy’s folIy

In a front-page review, on Sunday 18 December 2011, John Adams (the composer) writes about The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World, by Richard Rhodes. The illustration accompanying the review speaks to her attributes: a startlingly beautiful Vienna-born actress who, although still in her early 20s, had accomplished her own scandal by appearing nude and simulating passionate adulterous sex in a mostly silent movie called “Ecstasy.”

Louis B. Mayer had seen her "Ecstasy" but was ambivalent about her (“You’re lovely, but . . . I don’t like what people would think about a girl who flits bare-assed around the screen.”). Nonetheless, he signed her to a contract, with the proviso that she change her name.

She commanded the screen not so much for her acting, which at best was passably droll and arch, but rather for the perfect beauty of her face, with its colliding sensuality and innocence, and for the subtle irony and sly intelligence that animated her work with screen partners like Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart and Charles Boyer.

Under contract to MGM, she worked hard, was generally liked, and although not a diva was scrupulous about fighting for her rights in an era when actors and actresses were “properties” rather than people. She avoided the celebrity party circuit, preferring small gatherings with close friends. At home she set up a drafting table and devoted her downtime to inventions, including a bouillon-like cube that when mixed with water would produce an instant soft drink. It was at a dinner at the home of the actress Janet Gaynor in 1940 that she met George ­Antheil.

Antheil was a composer from Trenton, and had caused a sensation similar to Stravinsky with his Rites of Spring. He went to work in Hollywood, scoring films. He had also written a book, “Every Man His Own Detective: A Study of Glandular Criminology.” He also wrote pieces for Esquire, and Hedy Lamar had read one of those.

According to Antheil’s autobiography, “Bad Boy of Music,” Hedy requested the meeting because she had read one of his Esquire articles about glands. This was Hollywood, and the most beautiful woman in the world was concerned about her breast size.
These were days before implants.

That a glamorous movie star whose day job involved hours of makeup calls and dress fittings would spend her off hours designing sophisticated weapons systems is one of the great curiosities of Hollywood history. Lamarr, however, not only possessed a head for abstract spatial relationships, but she also had been in her former life a fly on the wall during meetings and technical discussions between her ­munitions-manufacturer husband and his clients, some of them Nazi officials.

Slumdog millionaire

Finally saw this 2008 film. A Mumbai teen who grew up in the slums, becomes a contestant on the Indian version of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" He is arrested under suspicion of cheating, and while being interrogated, events from his life history are shown which explain why he knows the answers. In doing so, the film shows a slice of Indian society. Finely done.

Rent

Fun to see it again. Could not help comparing it to the stage version we saw off-Brodway last week.

Behind the Camera, but Still the Star

Once the red carpet follies were over, the war correspondent Christiane Amanpour introduced the film, calling it “remarkable and courageous” while warning that there was “no way to sugarcoat” the atrocities it portrays. The afterparty, at a nightclub high atop a hip New York hotel in the meatpacking district, complete with the usual supercilious doormen, rotating disco ball and thumping music, was co-sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations and the human rights group Women for Women International. That was the atmosphere on Monday night at the New York premiere of “In the Land of Blood and Honey,” a harrowing look at the fratricidal Bosnian war of the 1990s: an unusual convergence of foreign policy seriousness and Hollywood glamour. But that is the way that Angelina Jolie, who wrote, directed and co-produced the film, operates these days.

Even as big as cynic as I am has to concede that a Hollywood star shining some of her light on important issues is a good thing, but I can not get past the exploitation. Jolie makes a movie about ethnic cleansing, and then they have a fancy party guarded by supercilious doorkeepers. She does the same thing elsewhere: she traveled to Cambodia, I think, for humanitarian reasons (as the catchphrase goes), then has a picture of her in a canoe in a commercial for Louis Vuitton. I mean, c'mon.


As she views it, her celebrity is both blessing and burden. She is on the cover of Newsweek this week and is scheduled to appear on “Charlie Rose” this month, trying in every appearance to get the public interested in her film and the issues it raises, including rape as a war crime and the ethics of international intervention.

Granted, her celebrity lets her get things done that others could not.

But she also noted that “with certain outlets and certain reporters it is an uphill battle” to deflect focus away from her and onto her film and its cast. Indeed, on the red carpet on Monday night, cast members had to field questions about what it was like to work with Ms. Jolie and how much time her children spent on the set. And then there was this: “Angelina has a lot of tattoos. Did you see them?” 

Life by fame, suffer by fame.

A war on punctuation

America’s next president, Newt Gingrich, is also a prolific author of poorly reviewed historical fiction. As it is the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, it seems as good a time as any to remember Newt’s own book about the subject—a novel that The New York Times called a “war on punctuation.” The first 23 pages are available online

US President? Whoa there, Nellie! if he gets nominated by the Republicans, and that is still a big if, he does an election to contest (and I can only begin to imagine how much Bill Clinton looks forward to that –sparing all the obvious metaphors,too).

Lindbergh

I'd read about Lindbergh in Ed Cray's bio of George Marshall, and was interested in his connection with Hap Arnold. I'd read Berg's bio of Goldwyn, some years back. As it turned out, this bio was written in a similar style to the Goldwyn book, and it simply did not work well. I found it chatty, breezy, and not that good. And yet I read most of it. But, I finally gave up.

Yankee Doodle Dandy - 1942

Corn-pone, but Cagney somehow pulls it off. He portarys George M. Cohan, and the flags never stop waving.

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)

Holds up, mostly, but it could have been edited to be fifteen minutes shorter. Lana Turner was 25, John Garfield 33, and both were believable in their roles. Based on a book by James M. Cain, the same author who wrote Double Indemnity (also made into a film).

Trivia: John O'Hara wrote a poem entitled Lana Turner has collapsed!

Lana Turner has collapsed!
I was trotting along and suddenly
it started raining and snowing
and you said it was hailing
but hailing hits you on the head
hard so it was really snowing and
raining and I was in such a hurry
to meet you but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky
and suddenly I see a headline
LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!
there is no snow in Hollywood
there is no rain in California
I have been to lots of parties
and acted perfectly disgraceful
but I never actually collapsed
oh Lana Turner we love you get up

Footloose (1984)

Cute, But, Kevin Bacon was 26 when he played a high school student, Lori Singer 27. (In the 2011 version, not much has changed: both leads are in their 20s)

Descendants

A.O. Scott of the NY Times reviewed it two weeks ago: The emotional trajectory of “The Descendants” is familiar enough. It is about the fracturing and healing that take place within families. Matt needs to bond with his children, make peace with his wife and deal with the pesky politics of entitled cousins. As he works his way through these challenges and others, including a confrontation with his wife’s lover (Matthew Lillard), a lively and complicated mesh of plots and subplots takes shape, but the most striking and satisfying aspects of “The Descendants” are its unhurried pace and loose, wandering structure.

It does move at a leisurely pace, without dragging, not hurrying the action to fit a preconception.

 To call “The Descendants” perfect would be a kind of insult, a betrayal of its commitment to, and celebration of, human imperfection. Its flaws are impossible to distinguish from its pleasures. For example: after what feels as if it should be the final scene, a poignant, quiet tableau of emotional resolution and apt visual beauty, Mr. Payne adds another, a prosaic coda to a flight of poetry. Without saying too much or spoiling the mood, I will say that I was grateful for this extra minute, a small gift at the end of a film that understands, in every way, how hard it can be to say goodbye. 

“The Descendants” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Bad language, impossible situations.


In the New Yorker, Anthony Lane makes a comparison to From here to Eternity, and ends his review with a nice twist of that line, in assessing that closing scene. Death, which has loomed ahead throughout, begins to drift away behind them, and the film completes its journey: from eternity to here. ♦

 From left, George Clooney, Shailene Woodley and Amara Miller in "The Descendants." More Photos »

Fox Searchlight

The young actors did great work. Sid is a stoner, yet has an additional dimension that some people miss: he is not a boyfriend in the romantic sense, but simply a friend who is a boy, a young man; what he shares with Alexandra is a sublime friendship, an abiding loyalty.

Very enjoyable.

Rent

How It Went

Not too well, from the sounds of it. The first paragraph of the review is startling.

Kurt Vonnegut died in 2007, but one gets the sense from Charles J. Shields’s sad, often heartbreaking biography, “And So It Goes,” that he would have been happy to depart this vale of tears sooner. Indeed, he did try to flag down Charon the Ferryman and hitch a ride across the River Styx in 1984 (pills and booze), only to be yanked back to life and his marriage to the photographer Jill Krementz, which, in these dreary pages, reads like a version of hell on earth. But then Vonnegut’s relations with women were vexed from the start. When he was 21, his mother successfully committed suicide — on Mother’s Day.

Oops.

Vonnegut’s masterpiece was “Slaughterhouse-Five,” the novelistic account of being present at the destruction of Dresden by firebombing in 1945. Between that horror (his job as a P.O.W. was to stack and burn the corpses); the mother’s suicide; the early death of a beloved sister, the only woman he seems truly to have loved; serial unhappy marriages; and his resentment that the literary establishment really considered him (just) a writer of juvenile and jokey pulp fiction, Vonnegut certainly earned his status as Man of Sorrows, much as Mark Twain, to whom he is often compared, earned his.

Yikes.

Vonnegut and the other great “comic” (or if you prefer, ironic or tragico-comical-ironic) novelist of World War II, Joseph Heller, are getting their biographical due, almost simultaneously.There are some odd synergies. The two met years after their wars, onstage at a literary festival in 1968, and became great friends and eventually neighbors. Heller’s war was up in the air, as a bombardier in the nose cone of a B-25. Vonnegut’s was at ground level, as an infantryman in the Battle of the Bulge, and ultimately beneath ground level, in the basement of Schlachthof-Fünf during the firebombing. In a detail that struck me as, well, weird, Vonnegut’s breakthrough moment while he was trying to get a handle on how to write his novel came during a visit to a war buddy — in Hellertown, Pa. More ironic is that both World War II novels ended up being Vietnam novels.

Fascinating review. I read Vonnegut. And I saw him once, on the stoop of a townhouse on 48th Street (I think it was), around the corner from 3rd Avenue; he'd come outside, with a little white poodle, I think, smoking a cigarette, and sat on the stoop. He saw me recognize him, and shrugged.

White Wedding

Fun film. Started out strong and funny, weakened at the end, especially in its use of predictable and wooden stereotypes. Nonetheless, even in its use of two-dimensional white supremacists, the film makes good points

I am comic

A documentary about comedy that breaks the golden rule: if you have to explain it, well, it just ain't funny. Alas, this wasn't very funny. Many comedians do a schtick, or are interviewed, about being comedians. For some reason, Ritch Shydner becomes the focus of the film: having not performed for years, he decides to make a comeback, and the film documents it. Bad idea.

The one really funny bit was Tommy Davidson doing a simulated broadcast if Spanish-language news, with comments in English interspersed. It was hilarious.

The movie was not.

Frozen River

Takes place in the days before Christmas near a little-known border crossing on the Mohawk reservation between New York State and Quebec. Here, the lure of fast money from smuggling presents a daily challenge to single moms who would otherwise be earning minimum wage. Two women - one white, one Mohawk, both single mothers faced with desperate circumstances - are drawn into the world of border smuggling across the frozen water of the St. Lawrence River. Ray and Lila - and a New York State Trooper as opponent in an evolving cat-and-mouse game.

 Nice acting, gritty story. Seeking to save enough money to buy a double-wide trailer, Ray stumbles upon the smuggling of human being across the Mohawk reservation as a way to skirt the law. Chinese, and Pakistanis are put into the trunk of her car, she is given half of the money on the Canadian side, and gets the other half when she delivers the human cargo. A sort of loyalty develops between the two women,both of whom are single mothers and don't have great prospects in life, as they accumulate enough money to reach for a piece of a dream.

Conviction

A working mother puts herself through law school in an effort to represent her brother, who has been wrongfully convicted of murder and has exhausted his chances to appeal his conviction through public defenders. 

Hilary Swank plays the sister, Sam Rockwell the brother, and Minnie Driver her law-school chum and research partner. The accents are notable, and good, the pace taut, and it is a good movie.

The Last Voyage

Caught this one on TCM last night, already started. A ship is going down. The captain, played by George Sanders, appears hesitant, unsure, inflexible, as he tried to deal with many decisions at once. His accent, and that of his assistant, are both English, and contrast strongly with the Yankee informality of the rest of the uniformed crew. Edmond O'Brien plays the chief engineer (Walsh), for whom saving his men becomes paramount as the tragedy deepens. Robert Stack plays Cliff Henderson, whose wife, Laurie (Dorothy Malone), is trapped by a fallen beam.

Woody Strode plays Hank Lawson, a crew member who does help Henderson rescue his trapped wife. Eventually, once his men are safe, so does Walsh. They cut the steel, so Mrs. Henderson can escape, just in time. Lawson walks around shirtless the entire time, and he is quite well built.

Strode was a decathlete and football star who went on to become a pioneering black American film actor. He was nominated for a Golden Globe award for best supporting actor for his role in Spartacus in 1960.

I was struck by the film for a couple of reasons: it seemed almost the template for future disaster films; and Strode had a dignified role, and some body. For 1960, a good film, but only to a certain extent. The ;last line of dialogue spoken is by Henderson, who says, as Lawson is about to be pulled into a lifeboat, says, now this is a man I want to help. Wooden, stiff; could have had a little more emotion.

The narrator was Charles Laughton, not a favorite. Dorothy Malone, who had played the Acme Book Shop Proprietress in The Big Sleep, and would go on to lay in Peyton Place, was in her bleached blonde phase already. I remember, some years ago, realizing who she was on watching the Bogart film, again, and being astounded by the difference between her looks in 1946 and 20 years later.

Up Periscope

Saved Friday night. James Garner plays what amounts to a Navy SEAL sort, who has been assigned to slip into a Japanese-held island from which the enemy is transmitting, take pictures of their code, and slip out. He is transported on a submarine commanded by a hard-bitten (yet something of a sensitive soul of a) captain played by Edmond O'Brien. Everyone smokes. The medic is played by Ed Byrnes (Cookie of 77 Sunset Strip). The film works.

Love me or leave me

Cast: Doris Day, James Cagney, Cameron Mitchell, Robert Keith, Tom Tully
Director: Charles Vidor
Writer: Daniel Fuchs and Isobel Lennart
Running Time: 122 min.
Genre: Drama, Musical
Rating: No Rating
Synopsis: One of the gutsiest movie musicals of the 1950s, Love Me or Leave Me is the true story of 1930s torch-singer Ruth Etting, here played by Doris Day. While working in a dime-a-dance joint, Ruth is discovered by Chicago racketeer Martin The Gimp Snyder (fascinatingly played with nary a redeeming quality by James Cagney). The smitten Snyder exerts pressure on his show-biz connections, and before long Ruth is a star of nightclubs, stage and films. Ruth continues to string Snyder along to get ahead, but she can't help falling in love with musician Johnny Alderman (Cameron Mitchell). After sinking his fortune into a nightclub for Ruth's benefit, Snyder is rather understandably put out when he finds her in the arms of Alderman. Snyder shoots the musician (but not fatally) and is carted away to prison. Upon his release, Snyder finds that Ruth is still in love with Alderman; he is mollified by her act of largesse in keeping her promise to perform in his nightclub at a fraction of her normal salary. No one comes off particularly nobly in Love Me or Leave Me, even though the still-living Ruth Etting, Martin Snyder and Johnny Alderman were offered full script approval. The fact that we are seeing flesh-and-blood opportunists rather than the usual sugary-sweet MGM musical stick figures naturally makes for a more powerful film. In his autobiography, James Cagney had nothing but praise for his co-star Doris Day, and bemoaned the fact that she would soon turn her back on dramatic roles to star in a series of fluffy domestic comedies.~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

I enjoyed it. This review captures the film quite well. Doris Day pulled off the songs; her voice had a little, even more than little, resonance and vibrato to it (a couple of times I thought of Sara Vaughn), not the usual limited range and sweetness of so many other musicals.

Tremé

Watched last two episodes last night. Enjoyable. Not great, but certainly excellent for television.

TR

Originally broadcast on PBS television series, the American Experience. One incongruity: David McCollough is a talking head in the program, not its narrator. Yet nothing can take away from Theodore Roosevelt. In turn maddening and inspiring, he is truly bigger than life. Some of his views are appalling, yet he is the president who started to conserve the national resources of this nation: in a day when developers were planning to "improve" the Grand Canyon, he declared it a national treasure. He busted trusts, yet was an unrepentant capitalist.

The night of the gun

Came across this book by reading a story on NPR about David Carr, media critic at the NY Times: The News Diet Of A Media Omnivore. Came across it by reading an NPR tweet. Kirkus: A brilliantly written, brutally honest memoir.

General of the Army

After reading the H.W. Brands biography of FDR, I read Partners in Command, by Mark Perry. I was left with a feeling of not knowing enough about George Marshall, and sought out a biography. Ed Cray's book does justice to the man.

George Marshall was both ambitious and selfless, something of a contradiction of terms and characteristics. From and early age he wanted to be a soldier, and served in the military for nearly six decades. Command of fighting soldiers is what he always sought, and was nearly always denied, for he turned out to have an uncanny talent for administration and planning. Pershing became his mentor and model, Fox Conner his teacher. From them he learned how to command and how to devise military strategy. FDR would grow to rely on him, to such a degree that he could not abide letting him go to serve as field commander.

After serving as Chief of Staff during WW 2, GCM went to China on President Truman's behalf, to try and get the Nationalists and Communists to compromise and form a government of national unity. That would become the basis for McCarthy and others of his ilk to charge Marshall with treason, an idea so palpably absurd that only a fanatic could entertain its veracity. The China Lobby could and would not understand that it was Chaing Kai Shek who "lost" China, and found scapegoats in Truman and Marshall.

GCM also served as Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense. It was his misfortune to have to deal with Douglas MacArthur for most of his life and career. Yet Marshall understood that MacArthur needed to be handled gingerly, and always figured out how to do so.

Cray does a magisterial job of tracing GCM's life and career. The book is also very well edited. It reads easily, for one interested in a sweep of 20th century US history.

how Black is Black?

Gene Robinson is one of my favorite talking heads. When Chris Matthews lets him talk (how would Matthews and Schaap fare in a talkathon?), Robinson is incisive, perceptive and sharp. This is a fascinating book; I did read a couple of chapters, but this is not a good time for me to read this: I am in a history mood. It is worth reading, and I intend to get back to it.

Fair game

Didn't like it. Stopped watching. Lots of mumbling.

Into the storm

Followup to The gathering storm, with Alberty Finney as Winston and Vanessa Redgrave as Clementine. Brendan Gleeson overplays his role; then again, the script looks for nigh every Churchill cliché, and tries to stuff them all in. Len Cariou plays an unconvincing FDR, who comes off as second banana. Now, this is a film about Churchill, but FDR was never second banana to him. Janet McTeer was a revelation; her Clemmie was as good as imaginable, strong, not at all overplayed, convincing.

FDR

An American Experience film, nicely done.

A bridge too far

Film version of Cornelius Ryan's book. Cast includes Dirk Bogarde, James Caan, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, and Edward Fox, as well as Elliot Gould, Laurence Olivier and Liv U. Not a happy story, but a good war movie.

Erotic Muse

Bawdy

Band Wagon

Great dancing, nice singing, thin plot, and Oscar Levant all in one film. A classic

Terrible Terry Allen

Having come across this book, and then across Allen's name, I thought this would be a wonderful book to read. Alas, it wasn't. I stopped, having skipped many pages. I found the writing style disagreeable.

Man in the middle

Not quite sure why I picked out this film, but I have always liked Robert Mitchum. Here he plays an army lifer who gets called to a joint American-British theater during the Second World War (keeping with the theme of my currently reading H.W. Brands's biography of FDR, Traitor to his class), and is asked to provide a credible defense for a GI who has murdered a Brit in cold blood in front of numerous witnesses. Mitchum pays Lt. Col. Barney Adams; he has been summoned by General Kempton (played by another favorite, Barry Sullivan), a friend's of his father (an off-screen senior Adams). Col. Adams reluctantly accepts the assignment, and then pursues all leads, in order to provide a vigorous defense.

Adams refuses to accept what is obviously a coverup. Along the way he meets a nurse, Kate Davray (played by France Nuyen), who provides him with evidence he is, at first, reluctant to accept. What he is not reluctant to do is pursue Nurse Davray, in a 1963 sort of way.

There is much cigarette smoking, much alcohol drinking. Adams defiantly pursues a vigorous defense that even his client, played with a slightly too-heavy hand that almost descends to schtick by Keenan Wynn. Mitchum does a deft job of acting, and fully extends the role. Trevor Howard underplays a British psychiatrist who has been shunted to dispensing medicines, exiled from his true work. Cynical, Major Kensington comes to the rescue of Adams, whose every attempt to get at the truth is frustrated by roadblocks thrown in his way even by his sponsor, General Kempton.

Adams finally accepts Nurse Davray's evidence, and, along with Kensington's corroborating evidence, wins the case. Nicely done.

House of Bamboo

This all started with a column in a New Yorker issue in August, Critic's Notebook: Trouble in Mind. To wit: The most exciting spasm of violence in Samuel Fuller's wide-screen, color-splashed 1955 film noir, "House of Bamboo", is one that doesn't happen. It involves an American crime boss (Robert Ryan) who runs a syndicate in Tokyo, a hard-nosed expat (Robert Stack) who has recently joined the gang and arouses suspicion, and a billiard ball. In the first Hollywood feature to be shot on location in postwar Japan, Fuller transports to an exoticized setting his usual concern: the conflict between the moral repugnance of violence and its visual and visceral thrills. The movie is famous for its gunplay - a bathtub shooting that's sordidly funny, a police ambush of silhouettes seen through the rice paper screen, and a climactic shootout on a flying-saucer-like carousel perched on a rooftop high above the city. But for one terrifying moment, captured in a single tense shot and embodied in Ryan's seething, panterish self-control, Fuller makes his fierce sympathies ambiguous even as he imagines gore beyond what Hollywood mores allowed - and hints that he enjoyed it. The writer was Richard Brody.

In watching the commentary provided by two critics, several names jumped out:

The street with no name

Pickup on South Street

I shot Jesse James

Cinemascope

The film itself was interesting. It begins with a narration, which itself is unusual: a film, not a documentary, begins as if it were a documentary. It is post-WW2 Japan. A supply train chugs along, and stops for a peasant struggling to move his oxen off the tracks. In quick order, it turns out he is not a peasant, for he chokes the engineer who comes out to yell at him. Other train personnel are similarly mugged. And the lone US soldier is shot, and killed. A peasant woman hears the shot, rushes over, sees the dead body, and screams into the camera.

Robert Stack lands in Yokohama, takes a taxi to Tokyo, and chases after Mariko, the sweetheart of his buddy (who in prior shots is seen on an operating table being interrogated by US Army personnel, who find the picture of Mariko in his wallet; he confesses that they were married, but that it is a secret). Stack's character (Spanier) begins to intimidate pachinko managers, shaking them down for protection money. At the second joint he is ambushed by men working for Ryan's character (Sandy). He is thrown through rice paper screens, and beat up a bit. In short order, he joins the gang, and becomes a favorite of the boss. Such favoritism rankles Sandy's long-standing second-in-command, and tension is born, to manifest itself in various ways (including the above-mentioned bathtub scene).