I thought I’d play a little “catch-up” and spotlight some noteworthy Blu-ray reissues that have been released within the past 6 months. With one exception (noted below), all of the discs are Region ‘A’.
American Pop (Columbia/Sony) – Within the realm of animated films, Ralph Bakshi’s name may not be as universally recognizable (or revered) as Walt Disney or Studio Ghibli, but I would consider him no less of an important figure in the history of the genre. During his heyday (1972-1983) the director pumped out 8 full-length feature films (Fritz the Cat, Heavy Traffic, Wizards, et. al.) using his signature blend of live-action, rotoscoping, and traditional cel animation.
In his 1981 film American Pop, director Bakshi and screenwriter Ronni Kern ambitiously attempt to distill the history of 20th Century American popular music (essentially from Vaudeville to Punk) in 90 minutes. The narrative is framed via the triumphs and travails of four generations of a Russian-Jewish immigrant family (all of whom are involved one way or the other in the music business). Intelligently written, beautifully animated, with an eclectic soundtrack (everything from “Swanee” to “Pretty Vacant”).
Columbia/Sony’s release is bare bones; no commentary tracks or extra features. The transfer, while a definite improvement over my 2009 Columbia DVD edition, does not appear to be a “restored” print (the “mastered in high definition” notation on the back of the keep case is a tell). The 2.0 DTS-HD MA audio track is adequately robust for this engaging musical-drama.
The Day of the Locust (Arrow Video) – Equal parts backstage drama, character study, and psychological horror, John Schlesinger’s 1975 drama (with a Waldo Salt screenplay adapted from the eponymous novel by Nathaneal West) is the most unsettling Hollywood dream-turned nightmare this side of David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive.
Set in 1930s Los Angeles, the story revolves around a Hollywood newbie (William Atherton) who works in the art department of a major movie studio. He rents a cheap apartment housed in a complex chockablock with eccentric tenants, including an aspiring starlet (Karen Black) who lives with her ailing father (Burgess Meredith), a former vaudevillian who wheezes his way up and down hilly streets eking out a living as a door-to-door snake oil salesman.
The young artist becomes hopelessly infatuated with the starlet, but it quickly becomes apparent that, while she’s friendly toward him, it’s strictly a one-sided romance. Nonetheless, he continues to get drawn into her orbit-a scenario that becomes increasingly twisted, especially once she impulsively marries a well-to-do but socially inept and sexually repressed accountant (Donald Sutherland). It all culminates in a Grand Guignol finale you may find hard to shake off.
A gauzy, sun-bleached vision of a city (shot by ace cinematographer Conrad Hall) that attracts those yearning to connect with someone, something, or anything that assures a non-corporeal form of immortality; a city that teases endless possibilities, yet so often pays out with little more than broken dreams.
Arrow has done a bang-up job with this edition, which features a gorgeous 2K remaster from the original negative and a plethora of extras (new commentary track, several visual essays, and more).
Gothic(BFI; Region ‘B’) – OK, full disclosure. In my 2012 review of Guy Maddin’s Keyhole, I wrote:
[Keyhole is} Reminiscent of Ken Russell’s Gothic, another metaphorical long day’s journey into night via the labyrinth of an old dark house. And, like Russell’s film, Maddin’s is visually intoxicating, but ultimately undermined by an overdose of art house pretension and self-indulgent excess.
One might read that and glean that I was underwhelmed by Ken Russell’s 1987 drama. At the time, perhaps I was. But I reserve the right to occasionally change my appraisal of a film…especially when it comes to certain filmmakers like, well, Ken Russell for instance (David Lynch comes to mind as well). Sometimes, you are not in the “right” receptive mood for a specific filmmaker’s uh, aesthetic. Upon a repeat viewing or two, some films will sort of…grow on you.
At any rate, this “metaphorical long day’s journey into night via the labyrinth of an old dark house” has grown on me; particularly as a fascinating treatise on one of life’s greatest mysteries: where does creativity come from? In this case, what “inspired” Mary Shelley (Natasha Richardson) to create her classic novel Frankenstein?
Russell’s speculative history tale suggests that “the Creature” was born during the course of a wild weekend at the country estate of Lord Byron (Gabriel Byrne). Byron invites Mary Shelly and her famous poet husband Percy (Julian Sands) for a sleepover that turns into a druggy, debauched night of “horror” (whether real or imagined is left up to the viewer). Kinetic performances all round from a cast that includes Timothy Spall and Myriam Syr. Stephen Volk wrote the screenplay; the music is by Thomas Dolby. There was added poignancy to my recent viewing, in light of Julian Sands’ tragic passing last year (Natasha Richardson also left us much too soon).
BFI has assembled an extensive package, starting with a sparkling transfer that nicely highlights DP Mike Southon’s vivid photography and Michael Buchanan’s lush art direction (his resume includes Orlando and The Krays). There’s a heap of extras, including a full-length 83-minute 2002 video work by the director called The Fall of the Louse of Usher (starring Russell and his wife Lisi) and a rare 27-minute Russell short from 1957 called Amelia and the Angel.
(Note: This is a Region ‘B’ disc, requiring an all-region player).
He Walked by Night(KL Studio Classics) – This tight 1948 police procedural from Alfred L. Werker (with uncredited co-direction by noir stalwart Anthony Mann) was based on a case taken directly from the LAPD’s files. Richard Basehart stars as a psychopathic serial thief-turned cop killer who utilizes his expertise with electronics to repeatedly elude capture by law enforcement.
One of the earliest noirs to take a semi-documentary approach in order to inject an air of realism to the story. Jack Webb (who plays the police department’s electronics expert in the film) was obviously taking notes, as that became the model for his future Dragnet TV series.
It’s also one of the first crime thrillers I’m aware of that plays to the gear heads in the audience; there’s lots of demonstrative tinkering with (then) state of the art electronic equipment (I see it as presaging TheConversation in this regard).
While the story is absorbing, the real star of this film is its cinematographer, the great John Alton. There are a number of stunning visual set pieces; particularly a climactic pursuit through L.A.’s underground tunnel system (it’s worth noting that this film was released a year before The Third Man).
Alton’s photography really pops in Kino Lorber’s absolutely gorgeous Blu-ray transfer, which is taken from a 16bit 4K scan of the 35mm fine grain. Extras include a new commentary track by film historian Imogen Sara Smith, and audio commentary by author/film historian Alan K. Rode and writer/film historian Julie Kirgo. This one is a must-have for noir aficionados.
Meteorite hunters have successfully recovered fragments of an asteroid that impacted Earth over Berlin, Germany, on January 21st— and the space rocks could be very rare indeed.
The 3.3-foot (1-meter) wide asteroid dubbed 2024 BX1 was spotted by NASA around 90 minutes before it hit Earth’s atmosphere. It burned up upon impact, exploding and creating a fireball seen by observers across Europe.
Following the event, on January 22nd, intrepid meteorite hunters were out searching for fragments of Asteroid 2024 BX1. One team that hit pay dirt was led by SETI meteor scientist Peter Jenniskens; the crew found the second and third fragments to be uncovered. […]
The meteorites, weighing 5.3 grams and 3.1 grams respectively, were finally discovered by Freie Universitaet students Dominik Dieter and Cara Weihe at around noon local time on January 26th, with the team uncovering yet more samples on January 27th and 28th.
Well, no one got hurt, right? And besides, what are the odds of another one…oh, crap.
A “potentially hazardous” football stadium-size asteroid will zip safely past Earth on Friday (Feb. 2), and, in doing so, will reach its closest point to our planet for more than 100 years. It will also be at least several centuries before the space rock ever gets this close to us again.
The massive asteroid, named 2008 OS7, is around 890 feet (271 meters) across and will pass by Earth at a distance of around 1.77 million miles (2.85 million kilometers), according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). For context, that is more than seven times further away than the moon orbits Earth.
Obviously we dodged that one (after all, it’s Saturday-and you’re reading this). Now I think we can relax. That should cap the gloom and doom for this week …oh, FFS:
WASHINGTON, D.C. – January 23, 2024 – The Doomsday Clock was reset at 90 seconds to midnight, still the closest the Clock has ever been to midnight, reflecting the continued state of unprecedented danger the world faces. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, stewards of the Doomsday Clock, emphasized in their announcement that the Clock could be turned back, but governments and people needed to take urgent action.
A variety of global threats cast menacing shadows over the 2024 Clock deliberations, including: the Russia-Ukraine war and deterioration of nuclear arms reduction agreements; the Climate Crisis and 2023’s official designation as the hottest year on record; the increased sophistication of genetic engineering technologies; and the dramatic advance of generative AI which could magnify disinformation and corrupt the global information environment making it harder to solve the larger existential challenges.
But aside from the nuclear/environmental/technological threats…we’re in good shape?
Rachel Bronson, PhD, president and CEO, the Bulletin, said: “Make no mistake: resetting the Clock at 90 seconds to midnight is not an indication that the world is stable. Quite the opposite. It’s urgent for governments and communities around the world to act. And the Bulletin remains hopeful—and inspired—in seeing the younger generations leading the charge.”
I’m getting mixed messages. You’ve seen the X-rays, so just give it to me straight, doc.
A durable end to Russia’s war in Ukraine seems distant, and the use of nuclear weapons by Russia in that conflict remains a serious possibility. In February 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced his decision to “suspend” the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START). In March, he announced the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. In June, Sergei Karaganov, an advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin, urged Moscow to consider launching limited nuclear strikes on Western Europe as a way to bring the war in Ukraine to a favorable conclusion. In October, Russia’s Duma voted to withdraw Moscow’s ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, as the US Senate continued to refuse even to debate ratification.
Nuclear spending programs in the three largest nuclear powers—China, Russia, and the United States—threaten to trigger a three-way nuclear arms race as the world’s arms control architecture collapses. Russia and China are expanding their nuclear capabilities, and pressure mounts in Washington for the United States to respond in kind.
Meanwhile, other potential nuclear crises fester. Iran continues to enrich uranium to close to weapons grade while stonewalling the International Atomic Energy Agency on key issues. Efforts to reinstate an Iran nuclear deal appear unlikely to succeed, and North Korea continues building nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. Nuclear expansion in Pakistan and India continues without pause or restraint.
The candidates’ suitability to shoulder the immense presidential authority to launch nuclear weapons should be a central concern of the US election in fall. This is especially true given the concerns at the end of the previous administration, which prompted then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley to take steps to ensure that he would be consulted in the event the former president sought to launch nuclear weapons.
And the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas has the potential to escalate into a wider Middle Eastern conflict that could pose unpredictable threats, regionally and globally.
Jeez. I bet you guys are fun at parties.
Anyway, the pure entertainment value of Armageddon has not been lost on film makers over the years, whether precipitated by vengeful deities, comets, meteors, aliens, plagues, or mankind’s curious propensity for seeking new and improved ways of ensuring its own mass destruction. With that joyful thought in mind, I’ve curated my Top 10 End of the World Movies, each with a suggested co-feature.
So enjoy…while you still can.
The Book of Life
The WMD: An angry God
Hal Hartley’s stylish, postmodernist fantasy re-imagines Armageddon as an existential boardroom soap. On New Year’s Eve, 1999, a yuppie Jesus (Martin Donovan) and his P.A., Magdalena (P.J. Harvey) jet into NYC, checking into their hotel as “Mr. and Mrs. DW Griffith”. J.C. has arrived to facilitate Dad’s bidding re: the Day of Judgment. However, the kid has doubts about all this “divine vengeance crap”. His corporate rival, Satan (Thomas Jay Ryan) is also in town. Trials and tribulations ensue.
Although it is not a “comedy” per se, I found the idea of Jesus carrying the Book of Life around on his laptop pretty goddam funny (“Do you want to open the 5th Seal? Yes or Cancel”). Clocking in at 63 minutes, it may be more akin to a one-act play than a full feature film narrative, but it’s engrossing and thought-provoking.
Double bill: w/ The Rapture
The Day the Earth Caught Fire
The WMD: Nuclear mishap
This cerebral mix of conspiracy a-go-go and sci-fi (from 1961) was written and directed by Val Guest. Simultaneous nuclear testing by the U.S. and Soviets triggers an alarmingly rapid shift in the Earth’s climate. As London’s weather turns more tropical by the hour, a Daily Express reporter (Peter Stenning) begins to suspect that the British government is not being 100% forthcoming on the possible fate of the world. Along the way, Stenning has some steamy scenes with his love interest (sexy Janet Munro). The film is more noteworthy for its smart, snappy patter than its run-of-the-mill f/x, but has a compelling narrative. Co-starring veteran scene-stealer Leo McKern.
Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
The WMD: The Doomsday Machine
“Mein fuehrer! I can walk!” Although we have yet to experience the global thermonuclear annihilation that ensues following the wheelchair-bound Dr. Strangelove’s joyous (if short-lived) epiphany, so many other depictions in Stanley Kubrick’s seriocomic masterpiece about the tendency for those in power to eventually rise to their own level of incompetence have since come to pass, that you wonder why the filmmakers even bothered to make it all up.
It’s the one about an American military base commander who goes a little funny in the head (you know…”funny”) and sort of launches a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. Hilarity and oblivion ensues. And what a cast: Peter Sellers (as three characters), George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Slim Pickens, Keenan Wynn, James Earl Jones and Peter Bull. There are so many great quotes, that you might as well bracket the entire screenplay (by Kubrick, Terry Southern and Peter George) with quotation marks. (Full review)
Double bill: w/ Fail Safe
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
The WMD: Ornery aliens
The belated 2005 adaptation of satirist Douglas Adams’ classic sci-fi radio-to-book-to TV series made a few old school fans (like me) a little twitchy at first, but director Garth Jennings does an admirable job of condensing the story down to an entertaining feature length film. It’s the only “end of the world” scenario I know of where the human race buys it as the result of bureaucratic oversight (the Earth is to be “demolished” for construction of a hyperspace highway bypass; unfortunately, the requisite public notice is posted in an obscure basement-on a different planet).
Adams (who died in 2001) was credited as co-screenwriter (with Karey Kirkpatrick); but I wonder if he had final approval, as the wry “Britishness” of some of the key one liners from the original series have been dumbed down. Still, it’s a quite watchable affair, thanks to the enthusiastic cast, the imaginative special effects and (mostly) faithful adherence to the original ethos.
A profoundly moving low-budget wonder from writer/director/star Don McKellar. The story intimately focuses on several Toronto residents and how they choose to spend (what they know to be) their final 6 hours. You may recognize McKellar from his work with director Atom Egoyan. He must have been taking notes, because McKellar employs a similar quiet, deliberate manner of drawing you straight into the emotional core of his characters.
Although generally somber in tone, there are plenty of wry touches (you know you’re watching a Canadian version of the Apocalypse when the #4 song on the “Top 500 of All Time” is by… Burton Cummings). The powerful denouement packs quite a wallop.
Fantastic ensemble work from Sandra Oh, Genevieve Bujold, Callum Keith Rennie and Tracy Wright. McKellar tosses fellow Canadian director David Cronenberg into the mix in a small role.
Double bill: w/ Night of the Comet
Miracle Mile
The WMD: Nuclear exchange
Depending on your worldview, this 1998 sleeper is either an “end of the world” film for romantics, or the perfect date movie for fatalists.
Anthony Edwards and Mare Winningham give winning performances as a musician and a waitress who Meet Cute at L.A.’s La Brea Tar Pits museum. But before they can hook up for their first date, Edwards stumbles onto a reliable tip that L.A. is about to get hosed…in a major way.
The resulting “countdown” scenario is a genuine, edge-of-your seat nail-biter. In fact, this modestly budgeted 90-minute thriller offers more heart-pounding excitement (and more believable characters) than any bloated Hollywood disaster epic from the likes of a Michael Bay or a Roland Emmerich. Writer-director Steve De Jarnatt stopped doing feature films after this one (his only other credit is the guilty pleasure sci-fi adventure Cherry 2000).
Originally an American Playhouse presentation, this film (with a screenplay adapted by John Sacred Young from a story by Carol Amen) was released to theaters and garnered a well-deserved Best Actress nomination for Jane Alexander. Director Lynne Littman takes a low key approach, but pulls no punches; I think this is what gives her film’s anti-nuke message more teeth and makes its scenario more relatable than Stanley Kramer’s similarly-framed but more sanitized and preachy 1959 drama On the Beach.
Alexander, her husband (William DeVane) and three kids live in sleepy Hamlin, California, where afternoon cartoons are interrupted by a news flash that nuclear explosions have occurred in New York. Then there is a flash of a different kind when nearby San Francisco (where DeVane has gone on a business trip) receives a direct strike.
There is no exposition on the political climate that precipitates the attacks; this is a wise decision, as it puts the focus on the humanistic message of the film. All of the post-nuke horrors ensue, but they are presented sans the melodrama that informs many entries in the genre. The fact that the nightmarish scenario unfolds so deliberately, and amidst such everyday suburban banality, is what makes it very difficult to shake off.
As the children (and adults) of Hamlin succumb to the inevitable scourge of radiation sickness and steadily “disappear”, like the children of the ‘fairy tale’ Hamlin, you are left haunted by the final line of the school production of “The Pied Piper” glimpsed earlier in the film… “Your children are not dead. They will return when the world deserves them.”
Double Bill: w/ When the Wind Blows
The Quiet Earth
The WMD: Science gone awry (whoopsie!)
Bruno Lawrence (Smash Palace) delivers a mesmerizing performance in this 1985 cult film, playing a scientist who may (or may not) have had a hand in a government research project mishap that has apparently wiped out everyone on Earth except him. The plot thickens when he discovers that there are at least two other survivors-a man and a woman. The three-character dynamic is reminiscent of a 1959 nuclear holocaust tale called TheWorld, the Flesh and the Devil, but it’s safe to say that the similarities end there. By the time you reach the mind-blowing finale, you’ll find yourself closer to Andrei Tarkovsky’s territory (Solaris). New Zealand director Geoff Murphy never topped this effort; although his 1992 film Freejack, with Mick Jagger as a time-traveling bounty hunter, is worth a peek.
Double Bill: w/ The Omega Man
…or one from column “B”: The Last Man on Earth, I Am Legend
The Andromeda Strain
The WMD: Bacteriological scourge
What’s the scariest monster? The one you cannot see. Robert Wise directs this 1971 sci-fi thriller, adapted from Michael Crichton’s best-seller by Nelson Gidding. A team of scientists race the clock to save the world from a deadly virus from outer space that replicates with alarming efficiency. The team is restricted to a hermetically sealed environment until they can figure a way to destroy the microbial intruder, making this a nail-biter from start to finish.
Double bill: w/ 28 Days Later
When Worlds Collide
The WMD: Another celestial body
There’s a brand new star in the sky, with its own orbiting planet. There’s good news and bad news regarding this exciting discovery. The good news: You don’t need a telescope in order to examine them in exquisite detail. The bad news: See “the good news”.
That’s the premise of this involving 1951 sci-fi yarn about an imminent collision between said rogue sun and the Earth. The scientist who makes the discovery makes an earnest attempt to warn world leaders, but is ultimately dismissed as a Chicken Little. Undaunted, he undertakes a privately-funded project to build an escape craft that can only carry several dozen of the best and the brightest to safety.
Recalling Hitchcock’s Lifeboat, the film examines the dichotomy of human nature in extreme survival situations, which helps this one rise above the cheese of other 1950s sci-fi flicks (with the possible exception of a clunky Noah’s Ark allusion). It sports pretty decent special effects for its time; especially depicting a flooded NYC (it was produced by the legendary George Pal). Rudolph Maté directed; Sydney Boehm adapted his screenplay from the novel by Edwin Balmer and Philip Wylie.
The strapping young man in the photo above is my grandfather Philip Kramer (in his late teens or early twenties, to my best estimation). He immigrated to America from Bialystok circa 1910. While the area is now part of the Republic of Poland, Bialystok “belonged” to the Russian Empire when he lived there (ergo, he was fluent in Russian, Polish, and Yiddish).
One of the reasons his family emigrated was to flee the state terror inflicted on Russia’s Jewish population by Czar Nicholas (the Bialystok pogram of 1906 was particularly nasty).
I suppose I have Czar Nicholas to thank for my existence. If my grandfather had never left Bialystok, he never would have met New York City born-and-raised Celia Mogerman (the daughter of Jewish German immigrants). Consequently, they never would have fallen in love, got married, and had their daughter Lillian, who never would have met and fallen in love with a young G.I. named Robert Hartley (a W.A.S.P. farm boy from Ohio) at a New York City U.S.O. Club. They, in turn, produced…me (otherwise, you’d just be staring at a blank page here).
Two lovebirds on their honeymoon, 1955
Obvious personal reasons aside, I’m thankful that Phil got out of Dodge well before Hitler’s army divisions rolled into Poland in 1939. Needless to say, the Jews of Bialystok fared no better under the Nazi regime than they did during the reign of the Czar. Far worse, actually.
So through luck and circumstance, Phil and Celie (flanking my mom in bottom row) enjoyed a wonderful life together, creating a quintessential American family. All three of their children did their part for the war effort. My uncle Irving (third from left in the top row) served in the USAAF (he was the radio operator on a B-25 crew that flew a number of missions over Germany). My Uncle Charles (not pictured) served in the U.S. Army (Pacific theater).
My mother (center above) was too young to enlist in the military, but served in the Civilian Defense Force. The photo was taken on a Brooklyn rooftop during the war (interestingly, it took intervention by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to nudge the recruitment of women).
Thankfully, the Kramer family survived the war. But sadly a great number of their relatives who had remained in Europe did not. And many of them were victims of the Holocaust.
That is why I am thinking about all of them on this Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Recently, my mother, who escaped Hungary as a young teen in 1943 as the Nazis were closing in, called me from her home in Jerusalem. She was quite agitated, asking why even Israel’s loyal friends seem to be promoting compromise on issues fundamental to its security. She begged me to speak to anyone and everyone I know, from community leaders to elected officials.
As the world marks Saturday, January 27, as the annual International Holocaust Remembrance Day, it is clear that my mother needs no such day. The question the Jewish people must be asking is who will benefit from a day in January, 2024, designated to remember the Holocaust? […]
The United Nations, which at the initiative of its Israeli delegation designated the day back in 2005 to build Holocaust awareness and prevent further acts of genocide, now deploys the lessons of the Holocaust against the Jewish people. The U.N. has yet to condemn the explicitly and admittedly genocidal acts of Hamas against Israel on October 7 while its International Court of Justice is trying Israel for genocide in Gaza. If this is the result of remembering the Holocaust, we Jews would prefer they forgot about it. [,,,]
Everyday since Oct. 7, my mother is reminded of and haunted by the delusions of her grandparents and more than a dozen uncles and aunts who naively chose not to join her parents’ escape to Palestine as the Nazi menace spread, only to be turned to ashes in Auschwitz. She often muses aloud about how my father, of blessed memory, a Holocaust survivor, would process October 7th in Israel, October 8th in Harvard, and October 9th in the UN.
It’s not easy being a Jewish American right now, which is why I’ve been reticent to share my feelings on the Israeli-Hamas war (aside from my initial reflexive expression of abhorrence to the prospect of more death and destruction in the region, regardless of who propagates it).
From “Harold and Maude” (1971)
There has certainly been no shortage of historical dramas and documentaries about The Holocaust and the horror that was Nazi Germany from 1933-1945 (on television, stage, and screen). It’s even possible that “WW2 fatigue” is a thing at this point (particularly among post-boomers). But you know, there’s this funny thing about history. It’s cyclical.
For example, here’s how some fine folks were reacting this morning on X to posts that merely acknowledged this commemorative holiday:
Those are some of the nicest ones. But you get the gist.
One could surmise that the lessons of history haven’t quite sunk in with everyone (especially those who may be condemned to repeat it). So perhaps there cannot be enough historical dramas and documentaries reminding people about The Holocaust and the horror that was Nazi Germany from 1933-1945, nu? Or am I just overreacting to a few internet trolls and a current presidential hopeful who, when asked why he never condemned the Neo-Nazis who incited the violence in Charlottesville in 2017 (resulting in the death of peaceful counter-protestor Heather Heyer) -that there were/are “…very fine people on both sides”?
After carefully weighing all the historical evidence put before me, I can only conclude that…there were no fine Nazis in 1920 (the year the party was founded), no fine Nazis since 1920, nor are there likely to be any fine Nazis from now until the end of recorded time.
As for those who still insist there is no harm in casually co-opting the tenets of an evil ideology that would foist such a horror upon humanity, I won’t pretend to “pray for you” (while I lost many relatives in the Holocaust, I’m not “Jewish” in the religious sense, so I doubt my prayers would even “take”), but this old Hasidic proverb gives me hope:
“The virtue of angels is that they cannot deteriorate; their flaw is that they cannot improve. Humanity’s flaw is that we can deteriorate; but our virtue is that we can improve.”
Here’s hoping for some “improvement” going forward. That’s why it’s important to look backward sometimes at the lessons of history, so we remain aware of how we don’t want to be. Here are links to some films I’ve written about that might give us a good place to start:
I came into this world on April 4, 1956. 12 years later, to the day, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. left it. My intention is not to attach any particular significance to that kismet, apart from the fact that I have since felt somewhat ambiguous about “celebrating” my birthdays (I could push the weird cosmic coincidence factor further by adding Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated 2 months later on June 5th, 1968 – my parents’ wedding anniversary…cue the Twilight Zone theme). But this holiday weekend is about celebrating Dr. King’s birthday; so I have curated 10 songs to honor his legacy:
“Abraham, Martin, & John” – Late 50s-early 60s teen idol Dion DiMucci reinvented himself as a socially-conscious folk singer in 1968 with this heartfelt performance of Dick Holler’s beautifully written tribute to JFK, RFK, and MLK. Seems they all die young…
“Blues for Martin Luther King” – In 1968, music was our social media. The great Otis Spann gives us the news and preaches the blues. Feel his pain, for it is ours as well.
“400 Years” – The struggle began long before Dr. King joined it; sadly, it continues to this day. A people’s history…written and sung by the late great Peter Tosh (with the Wailers).
“Happy Birthday” – A no-brainer for the list. Good to remember that Stevie Wonder was also a key advocate in the lobby to make Dr. King’s birthday a national holiday.
“Is it Because I’m Black?” – Syl Johnson’s question may sound rhetorical, but he pulls no punches.
“Pieces of a Man” – Gil Scott-Heron’s heartbreaking vocal, Brian Jackson’s transcendent piano, the great Ron Carter’s sublime stand-up bass work, and the pure poetry of the lyrics…it’s all so “right”.
“Pride (In the Name of Love)” – The inclusion of U2’s most stirring anthem feels mandatory.
“Shed a Little Light” – James Taylor’s uplifting, gospel-flavored paean to MLK is featured on his 1991 album New Moon Shine.
“Strange Fruit” – “Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze.” Billie Holiday’s performance of this song (written by Abel Meeropol) was powerful then, powerful now, and will remain powerful forever.
“Why (The King of Love is Dead)” – Like the Otis Spann song on this list, Nina Simone’s musical eulogy (written and performed here just days after Dr. King’s death) is all the more remarkable for conveying a message at once so timely, and so timeless.
*Note: In light of (I am loathe to say, “in honor of”) the 3rd anniversary of the January 6th insurrection, I am re-posting this piece, originally published March 25th, 2023.
Castle by the sea, fig. 1: Richard Nixon’s “La Casa Pacifica” (California)Castle by the sea, fig. 2: Donald Trump’s “Mar A Lago” (Florida).
There’s an old theatrical performer’s axiom that goes “Always leave ‘em wanting more.” In August of 1974, President Richard Nixon made his Watergate-weary exit from the American political stage with a nationally televised resignation soliloquy and left ‘em wanting more…answers. Any immediate hopes for an expository epilogue to this 5-year long usurpation of the Constitution and Shakespearean tragedy were abruptly dashed one month later when President Gerald Ford granted him a full pardon. Like King Lear, the mad leader slunk back to his castle by the sea and out of public view. […]
[Actor Frank Langella] uncannily captures the essence of Nixon’s contradictions and complexities; the supreme intelligence, the grandiose pomposity and the congenital craftiness, all corroded by the insidious paranoia that eventually consumed his soul, and by turn, the soul of the nation.
In a 2019 CNN panel discussion regarding lessons learned from Nixon’s ill-fated second term, former Watergate Special Prosecutor Richard Ben-Veniste had this to say:
“As I said in my book, written shortly after I left the office [as Special Prosecutor] …For the future, the lessons of Watergate are wonderful, in that the system worked–in this circumstance…but they almost didn’t work. For the future, does it take something more than what we have experienced in Watergate [regarding] the type of evidence: demonstrative, incredibly powerful evidence of criminal wrongdoing for a President of the United States to be put in a position of either resigning, or certainly [being] impeached and convicted?”
Panel member Carl Bernstein was more succinct, offering this take:
“The system worked in Watergate. But it worked ultimately because there was a ‘smoking gun tape’. It’s very questionable whether the system would have worked without that gun.”
Bernstein was referring to Nixon’s self-incriminating statements regarding a coverup and obstruction of justice…captured for posterity via a secret recording system the President himself had arranged to be set up in order to document all his Oval Office conversations.
I probably don’t need to remind you who the occupant of the White House was in 2019.
Several days after that CNN panel discussion aired (45 years after Nixon resigned), the media, members of Congress and concerned citizens found themselves poring over the 400 pages of the highly anticipated Mueller Report (officially titled as Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election) and asking themselves the $64,000 question:
“Is there a ‘smoking gun’ buried somewhere in here…or a reasonable facsimile thereof?”
As we’ve learned in the fullness of time, in regards to allegations of “conspiracy” or “coordination” between Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia, the Mueller report concluded that the investigation “did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities”. However, it also said that Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election was illegal and occurred “in sweeping and systematic fashion”.
As for obstruction of justice allegations, the report “does not conclude that the President committed a crime, [and] it also does not exonerate him”. On the latter point, the “investigation found multiple acts by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations, including the Russian-interference and obstruction investigations”.
The report also states that once Trump was aware that he was being investigated for obstruction of justice, he started “public attacks on the investigation and individuals involved in it who could possess evidence adverse to the president, while in private, the president engaged in a series of targeted efforts to control the investigation.”
With the spectre of criminal charges hanging over his third bid for the White House, Donald Trump has scheduled a massive rally in Texas this weekend.
The campaign event, planned for Saturday, marks the former president’s return to a traditionally conservative state in which he remains very popular.
But his decision to hold the rally in Waco – best known for an armed standoff 30 years ago – has raised eyebrows.
The 1993 tragedy is seen as a landmark event for the American far-right.
A city of about 140,000 people in the heart of Texas, Waco is celebrated these days as host to Baylor University, the Dr Pepper Museum and the home-improvement reality show Fixer Upper.
Three decades ago, however, it was where FBI agents, the US military and Texas law enforcement laid siege to a religious cult known as the Branch Davidians.
The small, insular Christian sect was led at the time by David Koresh, 33, an apocalyptic prophet who allegedly believed he was the only person who could interpret the Bible’s true meaning.
Under Koresh, the Branch Davidians had stockpiled weapons in order to become an “Army of God”.
Authorities intended to conduct a surprise daylight raid on 28 February 1993 and arrest Koresh, but what ensued was a 51-day standoff that left 76 people dead, including more than 20 children and four federal agents. […]
Two years after the siege, Timothy McVeigh – a young man who had shown his support at Waco and became fixated with the federal response as evidence of an impending New World Order – bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, killing 168 people and injuring nearly 700 others. It remains the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in US history.
The raid also had an impact on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who – as a young radio host in 1998 – organised a campaign to rebuild the Branch Davidians’ chapel as a memorial to those who had died. Mr Jones was among the most prominent early voices to back Mr Trump in his 2016 presidential campaign.
“Waco still resonates in this anti-government space as something that shows the federal government doesn’t protect people, is out to violate their civil rights, is out to take their guns,” [co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism non-profit Heidi] Beirich said.
“Nowadays that very much feeds into the ‘deep state’ conspiracies that we see on the far-right; the attacks on the FBI; the idea that federal law enforcement is a weapon of Democratic presidents.”
Mr Trump has often drawn on these frustrations, painting himself as the victim of a secret cabal of government operatives and effectively tearing down the walls that separated the mainstream Republican Party from its more extremist and radical fringes.
The former president’s sense of victimhood has only intensified since he left office. His conspiracies about the 2020 election still abound and he has framed the legal action he is facing on multiple fronts as an effort to destroy him.
Depending upon whom you might ask, MOVE was an “organization”, a “religious cult”, a “radical group”, or all of the above. The biggest question in my mind (and one the film doesn’t necessarily delve into) is whether it was another example of psychotic entelechy. So what is “psychotic entelechy”, exactly? Well, according to Stan A. Lindsay, the author of Psychotic Entelechy: The Dangers of Spiritual Gifts Theology, it would be
…the tendency of some individuals to be so desirous of fulfilling or bringing to perfection the implications of their terminologies that they engage in very hazardous or damaging actions.
In the context of Lindsay’s book, he is expanding on some of the ideas laid down by literary theorist Kenneth Burke and applying them to possibly explain the self-destructive traits shared by the charismatic leaders of modern-day cults like The People’s Temple, Order of the Solar Tradition, Heaven’s Gate, and The Branch Davidians. He ponders whether all the tragic deaths that resulted should be labeled as “suicides, murders, or accidents”.
Keeping Lindsay’s definition of “psychotic entelechy” in mind:
“Potential death and destruction”?
One could also ask if “MAGA” is an “organization”, a “religious cult”, a “radical group”, or all of the above. I mean, they do have a flag:
I’m just asking questions.
Nixon famously stated in the David Frost interviews, “I’m saying that when the president does it…it’s not illegal.” Mind you, he made that statement several years after he had resigned from the office of the president in shame, ending a decades-long political career in the most humiliating manner imaginable. Yet he never publicly apologized for any of the questionable actions he engaged in while serving as the President of the United States.
If that pathology reminds you of somebody else…perhaps a specific “somebody” currently vying for the presidency (yet again), you will not be surprised to learn that there is a disturbingly prescient link between Richard M. Nixon and Donald J. Trump, in this letter:
Nightmare fuel.
How ironic that Nixon, the man who many historians posit lost his 1960 presidential bid because he was not as telegenic as JFK and never did get the hang of the medium (even once he eventually became the leader of the free world) was nonetheless canny enough to recognize a master manipulator of the idiot box when his wife saw Trump on a TV show.
As this post goes to press, tonight’s scheduled episode of Richard Nixon’s Ghost Presents: The Donald Trump Show will have just wrapped up on C-SPAN …live and direct from Waco, Texas.
Howard Beale: “Why me?”
Arthur Jensen: “Because you’re on television, dummy.”
Which brings me to why I felt this was the perfect week to pull out my dusty DVD of Robert Altman’s brilliant (and underappreciated) 1984 film adaptation of Donald Freed and Arnold M. Stone’s one-man play Secret Honor (****) to take it for a spin on current events.
Originally titled as “Secret Honor: The Last Testament of Richard M. Nixon” when it opened in 1983 at Los Angeles Actors’ Theater, the film is a fictional monologue by Nixon, set in his post-presidential New Jersey office. Part confessional, part autobiographical, and (large) part batshit-crazy postcards from the edge rant, it’s an astonishing piece of writing; a pitch-perfect 90-minute distillation of Nixon’s dichotomy.
Philip Baker Hall (most recognizable from the Paul Thomas Anderson films Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, and Magnolia) pulls out all the stops in a tour-de-force turn reprising his stage role.
His Nixon is at once darkly brooding and explosively feral, pacing his claustrophobic office like a caged animal, swigging Chivas Regal and alternately pleading his “case” before an unseen Court of Public Opinion and howling at the moon (not dissimilar to how late night TV satirists envisioned Donald Trump pacing the Oval Office, wolfing cheeseburgers and unleashing Tweet storms from the Id).
Nixon, who is taping his monologue on a cassette recorder (in a blackly comic reference to his purported technical ineptitude, he spends the first several minutes of the film fumbling and cursing while trying to figure out how to work it) largely speaks in the first person, but oddly switches to the third at times, referring to his “client” whenever he addresses “your honor” (it’s no secret Trump often refers to himself in the third person).
The word salad soliloquies Nixon utters as he prowls the long dark night of his soul in arctic desolation share spooky parallels with the word salad soliloquies that Trump bellows as he prowls podiums in the full light of day at his public rallies.
Nixon frequently rants at his “enemies”. He is particularly obsessed with “those goddam Kennedys”. This is one of the more revealing insights into Nixon’s psychology contained in Freed and Stone’s screenplay; Nixon, ever self-conscious about his modest Quaker roots, is obviously both resentful and envious of the Kennedys’ privileged patrician upbringing, Ivy League education, movie-star charisma, and physical attractiveness.
He also lights into the other usual suspects in his orbit: Henry Kissinger, President Eisenhower, liberals, “East coast shits”, Jews, the FBI, and the media (you know…the “deep state” and “fake news”).
In rare moments of lucidity, he sadly recalls the untimely deaths of his brothers (Arthur, who died in 1925 at age 7, and Harold, who died in 1933 at age 23, both from TB) and speaks tenderly to the portrait of his late mother (although it gets weird when he refers to himself as her “loving dog”…and promptly begins to bark).
Hall is mesmerizing; while he doesn’t physically resemble Nixon, he so expertly captures his essence that by the end of the piece, he is virtually indistinguishable from the real item. It takes substantial acting chops to carry an entire film; Hall has got them in spades.
Film adaptations of stage plays can be problematic, especially in a chamber piece. But since this is, after all, Robert Altman…not to worry. He cleverly utilizes the limited props to his full advantage; for example, the four CCTV monitors in the office pull double duty as both a metaphor for Nixon’s paranoia and a hall of mirrors representing his multiple personalities (shades of the symbology in Pete Townshend’s rock opera Quadrophenia).
It also helps that Hall’s performance is anything but static; he moves relentlessly about the set (in a supplemental interview on the Criterion DVD, Hall recalls the original running time of the play as 2 ½ hours…I can’t begin to imagine the mental and physical stamina required to deliver a performance of that intensity night after night). DP Pierre Mignot deserves major kudos for his fluid tracking shots.
Watching the film again in context of all the drama and angst surrounding the ongoing saga of former POTUS/current presidential hopeful Donald J. Trump, I was struck by both its timelessness as a cautionary tale about the dangers of unchecked power and corruption, and its timeliness as a reminder of what democracy looks like at its lowest ebb-which is where we may be now (sadly).
As Oliver Stone reminded us in the closing credits of JFK: What is past is prologue. Stay tuned.
Year-end roundup time…here’s a few more recommended 2023 Blu-ray reissues for your creel:
Dance Craze(BFI; Region ‘B’ locked) – In the book Reggae International, a collection of essays compiled by Stephen Davis and Peter Simon, sub-culturalist Dick Hebdige writes about the UK’s short-lived yet highly influential “2-tone” movement of the early 1980s:
Behind the fusion of rock and reggae lay the hope that the humour, wit, and style of working-class kids from Britain’s black and white communities could find a common voice in 2-tone; that a new, hybrid cultural identity could emerge along with the new music. The larger message was usually left implicit. There was nothing solemn or evangelical about 2-tone. It offered an alternative to the well-intentioned polemics of the more highly educated punk groups, who tended to top the bill at many of the Rock Against Racism gigs. […]
Instead of imposing an alienating, moralising discourse on a popular form (alien at least to their working-class constituency), bands like the Specials worked in and on the popular, steered clear of the new avant-gardes, and stayed firmly within the “classical” definitions of 50s and early 60s rock and pop: that this was music for Saturday nights, something to dance to, to use.
In 1981, a concert film called Dance Craze was released. Shot in 1980 and directed by Joe Massot (The Song Remains the Same), it was filmed at several venues, showcasing six of the most high-profile bands in the 2 Tone Records stable: Bad Manners, The English Beat, The Bodysnatchers, Madness, The Selector, and The Specials.
I’d heard about this Holy Grail, but it was a tough film to catch; outside of its initial theatrical run in the UK (and I’m assuming very limited engagements here in the colonies) it had all but vanished in the mists of time…until now.
This film is nirvana for genre fans; all six bands are positively on fire (this is music for Saturday nights-I guarantee you’ll be dancing in your living room). Thanks to cinematographer Joe Dunton’s fluid “performer’s-eye view” camerawork and tight editing by Ben Rayner and Anthony Sloman, you not only feel like you are on stage with the band, but you get a palpable sense of the energy and enthusiasm feeding back from the audience.
Luckily for posterity, Dunton originally shot the film in super 35mm. Coupled with the meticulous restoration (using 70mm materials), it looks and sounds superb (especially for a concert film of this vintage). Extras include a 34-minute episode of the BBC program Arena examining the 2-tone movement (from 1980), outtakes, previously unseen interview footage, and more. (Please note: This is a Region ‘B’-locked Blu-ray, and requires an all-region player!).
Inland Empire(Criterion Collection) – From Richard A. Barney’s 2009 book David Lynch: Interviews:
Barney: I’ve read some comments you’ve made about the pleasures of [writing a script ‘as you film’]. Can you talk about that and whether [working that way on Inland Empire] was a horror at other times?
Lynch: There’s no horror. The horror, if there is a horror, is the lack of ideas. But that’s all the time. You’re just waiting. And I always say, it’s like fishing: Some days you don’t catch any fish. The next day, it’s another story – they just swim in.
When I read that excerpt (featured in the booklet that accompanies Criterion’s Blu-ray package), a light bulb went off in my (mostly empty) head. Lynch’s answer is analogous to my experience with Inland Empire. The first time I watched it…he didn’t hook me. I watched it once in 2007, found it baffling and disturbing (even for a Lynch joint) and then parked the DVD for 16 years.
Being a glutton for punishment, I purchased the Blu-ray earlier this year (the extras looked interesting, and life is short). When I re-watched the film recently, I kept an open mind. This time, he caught me – hook, line, sinker and latest edition of Angler’s Digest. As I once wrote in a capsule review of his equally experimental Eraserhead:
I think the secret to his enigmatic approach to telling a story is that Lynch is having the time of his life being impenetrably enigmatic-he’s sitting back and chuckling at all the futile attempts to dissect and make “sense” of his narratives. For example, have you noticed how I’ve managed to dodge and weave and avoid giving you any kind of plot summary? I suspect that David Lynch would find that fucking hysterical.
In Inland Empire, Laura Dern stars as an actress (or is she?) who lands a part (or does she?) in a) a film b) her own nightmare, or c) somebody else’s nightmare. It’s Rod Serling’s Alice In Wonderland. Know going in that this is a David Lynch film; if you buy the ticket, take the ride.
While it’s odd to tout a “4k restoration” of a film that was digitally shot to begin with, I suppose the print looks as sharp (and at times, as purposely blurry) as originally intended by the filmmaker. There’s a generous helping of extras, including two documentaries about Lynch, a 2007 short by Lynch, 75 minutes of extra footage, and more.
Tintin and the Mystery of the Golden Fleece/Tintin and the Blue Oranges(Kino Classics) – Thundering typhoons! This “twofer” set features beautifully restored prints of the first two live-action feature films based on writer-illustrator Hergé’s classic comic book series The Adventures of Tintin (published between 1929-1986).
Interestingly, unlike a previous 1947 stop-motion film and an animated late 50s TV series, Jean-Jacques Vierne’s Tintin and the Mystery of the Golden Fleece (1961) was not adapted from one of the Hergé books but was an original story (co-scripted by André Barret and Rémo Forlani). Ditto Philippe Condroyer’s Tintin and the Blue Oranges (1964), which featured an original story by Condroyer, André Barret, Rémo Forlani and René Goscinny.
Both films star athletic Belgian actor Jean-Pierre Talbot as the titular globe-trotting boy-reporter/adventurer. Talbot is a ringer for the comic book character. Tintin’s stalwart (and perpetually half-in-the-bag) co-adventurer Captain Haddock is also on hand (played with appropriate bombast by Georges Wilson in the 1961 film and Jean Bouise in the 1964 film). The other iconic series characters, like bumbling detectives Thompson and Thompson, Professor Calculus and (of course) Tintin’s faithful dog Snowy are all rendered with equal aplomb.
I’m a fan of the books but had never seen these two films. Tintin and the Mystery of the Golden Fleece is the best of the pair; a delight from start to finish. While entertaining enough to hold your interest, Tintin and the Blue Oranges has a less cohesive story and leans more on slapstick (note how many writers toiled on it-usually not a good sign). That said, rest assured it’s not as manic and overcooked as Steven Speilberg’s animated 2011 entry The Adventures of Tintin.
No extras, but the prints are pristine, and fans of the books should get a kick out of this set.
Tokyo Pop(Kino Lorber/Indie Collect) – This 1988 film is a likable entry in the vein of other 80s films like Starstruck, Breaking Glass, Desperately Seeking Susan, Smithereens and The Fabulous Stains. Star Carrie Hamilton’s winning screen presence helps to buoy the fluffy premise. Hamilton (who does her own singing) plays a struggling wannabe rock star who buys a one-way ticket to Tokyo at the invitation of a girlfriend. Unfortunately, her flaky friend has flown the coop, and our heroine is stranded in a strange land. “Fish out of water” misadventures ensue, including cross-cultural romance with all the usual complications.
For music fans, it’s a fun time capsule of the late 80s Japanese music scene, and the colorful cinematography nicely captures the neon-lit energy of Tokyo nightlife. Director Fran Rubel Kuzui (who co-wrote the screenplay with Lynn Grossman) later directed the 1992 feature film Buffy the Vampire Slayer and went on to serve as executive producer for the eponymous TV series. Sadly, Hamilton (Carol Burnett’s daughter) died of cancer at age 38 in 2002.
This one has been on my reissue wish list for a while. Indie Collect’s 4k restoration is sparkling, and the colors are vibrant. Regarding the audio…it is nice and clean, but be ready to ride your volume control, as the music has about ten times the gain over the dialog (a noticeable trend in remastered film soundtracks that makes me crazy). There are no extras, but you can’t have everything, and I am just happy that I can finally retire my VHS copy!
Yes, I know. That’s an oddly generic (some might even say silly) title for a post by someone who has been scribbling about film here for 17 years. Obviously, I like movies. That said, I am about to make a shameful confession (and please withhold your angry cards and letters until you’ve heard me out). Are you sitting down? Here goes:
I haven’t stepped foot in a movie theater since January of 2020.
There. I’ve said it, in front of God and all 7 of my regular readers.
It turns out that it is not just my imagination (running away with me). A quick Google search of “Seattle rain records” yields such cheery results as a January 29th CNN headline IT’S SUNLESS IN SEATTLE AS CITY WEATHERS ONE OF THE GLOOMIEST STRETCHES IN RECENT HISTORY and a Feb 1stSeattle P-I story slugged with SEATTLE BREAKS RECORD WITH RAIN ON 30 DAYS IN A MONTH. Good times!
February was a bit better: 15 rainy days with 4.1 hours a day of average sunshine. But hey-I didn’t move to the Emerald City to be “happy”. No, I moved to a city that averages 300 cloudy days a year in order to justify my predilection for a sedentary indoor lifestyle.
In fact it was a marvelously gloomy, stormy Sunday afternoon in late January when I ventured out to see Japanese anime master Makato Shinkai’s newest film Weathering with You (yes, this is a tardy review gentle reader…but what do you expect at these prices?). Gregory’s Girl meets The Lathe of Heaven in Shinkai’s romantic fantasy-drama.
That excerpt is from my review of Weathering With You, published February 9, 2020. If I had only known of the more insidious tempest about to make landfall, I would have savored that “…marvelously gloomy, stormy Sunday afternoon in late January” (and every kernel of my ridiculously overpriced popcorn) even more.
Of course, I’m referring to the COVID pandemic, which would soon put the kibosh on venturing to movie theaters (much less any public brick-and-mortar space in general) for quite a spell. Keep in mind, I live in Seattle, which is where the first reported outbreak of note in the continental U.S. occurred; I think it’s fair to say that the fear and paranoia became ingrained here much earlier on than in other parts of the country (and justifiably so).
Well, that’s all fine and dandy (you’re thinking)…but hasn’t the fear and paranoia abated since everything “opened up” again in (2022? 2021? I’ve lost track of the time-space continuum)? Here’s the thing-even before the pandemic, I had been going to theaters less and less frequently due to physical issues. I won’t bore you with details, suffice it to say I had both knees replaced (the first in 2014, the second in 2016)…but it didn’t quite “take”. And admittedly, I still mask up whenever I go to any public venue (including the grocery store). Perhaps that all adds up to “functional agoraphobia” (maybe one of you psych majors can help me out here?).
And you know what? I’m also tired of dealing with traffic, parking hassles, fellow theater patrons who are oblivious to people with disabilities, and astronomical ticket prices (add the $7 box of Junior Mints, and it’s cheaper to wait several months and just buy the Blu-ray).
And get off my lawn, goddammit.
Anyhoo, I haven’t been dashing out on opening weekend to see many first-run films in recent years; at least not the major studio releases that are playing on a bazillion screens. But thanks to “virtual” film festival accreditation, I am still able to screen and review a number of “new” movies (albeit many that have yet to find wider distribution).
So that is my long-winded way of explaining why I have decided not to entitle this (obligatory) end-of-year roundup as “the best” 10 films of 2023. Rather, out of the new films I reviewed on Hullabaloo this year, here are the 10 standouts (no Barbies, no nukes, no capes). I’ve noted the titles that are now streaming …hopefully the rest are coming soon to a theater near you!
Adolfo – Strangers in the night, exchanging…cactus? Long story. Short story, actually, as writer-director Sofia Auza’s dramedy breezes by at 70 minutes. It’s a “night in the life of” tale concerning two twenty-somethings who meet at a bus stop. He: reserved and dressed for a funeral. She: effervescent and dressed for a party (the Something Wild scenario). With its tight screenplay, snappy repartee, and marvelous performances, it’s hard not to fall in love with this film.
Downtown Owl – It took me a while to get into the rhythm of this quirky comedy-drama, which begins with a nod to Savage Steve Holland (palpable Better Off Dead energy) then pivots into a more angsty realm (as in Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm). Adapted from Chuck Klosterman’s eponymous novel by writer-director Hamish Linklater (no relation to Richard), the story is set during the winter of 1983-1984 in a North Dakota burg (where everybody is up in everyone else’s business).
Julia (Lily Rabe) is a 40-ish, recently engaged, self-described “restless” soul who has just moved to Owl to take a teaching position at a high school. Episodic; we observe Julia over a period of several months as she acclimates to her new environs. She strikes up a friendship with a melancholy neighbor (Ed Harris) and pursues a crush on a laconic buffalo rancher (I told you it was quirky). There’s a sullen high school quarterback, and a pregnant teen (it’s a rule). All threads converge when a record-breaking blizzard descends on the sleepy hamlet. A bit uneven, but it grew on me. (Streaming on Plex)
Hey, Viktor! – In 1998, a low-budget indie dramedy called Smoke Signals became a hit with critics and festival audiences. It was also groundbreaking, in the sense of being the first film to be written (Sherman Alexie), directed (Chris Eyre) and co-produced by Native Americans. The film was a career booster for several Native-American actors like Gary Farmer, Tantoo Cardinal and Adam Beach. For other cast members, not so much …like 11-year-old Cody Lightning, who played Adam Beach’s character “Victor” as a youngster.
Fast-forward 25 years. Cody Lightning plays (wait for it) Cody Lightning in his heightened reality dramedy (co-written with Samuel Miller), which reveals Cody has hit the bottom (and the bottle). Divorced and chronically depressed, his portfolio has dwindled to adult film gigs and half-finished screenplays about zombie priests. When his best friend and creative partner Kate (Hannah Cheesman) organizes an intervention, Cody has an epiphany…not to stop drinking, but to make a Smoke Signals sequel. All he needs now is a script, some of the original cast, and (most importantly) financial backing.
Reminiscent of Alexandre Rockwell’s In the Soup, Hey, Viktor! is an alternately hilarious and brutally honest dive into the trenches of D.I.Y. film-making (I was also reminded of Robert Townshend’s Hollywood Shuffle, in the way Lightning weaves issues like ethnic stereotyping and reclamation of cultural identity into the narrative). The cast includes Smoke Signals alums Simon Baker, Adam Beach, Gary Farmer, and Irene Bedard.
I Like Movies – To call Lawrence (Isaiah Lehtinen), the 17-year-old hero of writer-director Chandler Levack’s coming of age dramedy a “film freak” is an understatement. When his best bud ribs him by exclaiming in mock horror, “I can’t believe you never masturbate!” Lawrence’s responds with a shrug, “I’ve tried to, but…I’d rather watch Goodfellas or something.” Levack’s film (set in the early aughts) abounds with such cringe-inducing honesty; eliciting the kind of nervous chuckles you get from watching, say, Todd Solondz’s Happiness (a film that Lawrence enthusiastically champions to a hapless couple in a video store who can’t decide on what they want to see).
Lawrence, who dresses (and pontificates) like a Canadian version of Ignatius J. Reilly, is obsessed with two things: Paul Thomas Anderson’s oeuvre, and the goal of getting into NYU film school in the fall (despite not even having been accepted yet, and that he’s not likely to save up the $90,000 tuition working as a minimum wage video store clerk over the summer). Wry, observant, and emotionally resonant, with wonderful performances by the entire cast,
L’immensità – Emanuele Crialese’s semi-autobiographical drama about a dysfunctional family (set in 1970s Rome) combines the raw emotion of John Cassavetes’ A Woman Under the Influence with the sense memory of Fellini’s Amarcord. Penélope Cruz portrays a woman in a faltering marriage struggling to hold it together for the sake of her three children, to whom she is fiercely and unconditionally devoted. Her teenage daughter Edri identifies as a boy named “Andrea” (much to the chagrin of her abusive father). Buoyed by naturalistic performances, beautiful cinematography (by Gergely Pohárnok) and a unique 70s Italian pop soundtrack. (Streaming on Amazon Prime)
The Mojo Manifesto – How do I describe Mojo Nixon to the uninitiated? Psychobilly anarchist? Novelty act? Social satirist? Performance artist? Brain-damaged? Smarter than he looks? The correct answer is “all of the above.” “Mojo Nixon” is also, of course, a stage persona; an alter ego created by Neill Kirby McMillan Jr., as we learn in Matt Eskey’s documentary. The film traces how McMillan came up with his “Mojo Nixon” alter-ego, which provided a perfect foil to embody his divergent inspirations Hunter S. Thompson, Woody Guthrie, 50s rockabilly, and The Clash. Not unlike Nixon himself, Eskey’s portrait may be manic at times, but it’s honest, engaging, and consistently entertaining. (Full review) (Streaming on Amazon Prime)
Next Sohee – Writer-director July Jung’s outstanding film is reminiscent of Kurosawa’s High and Low, not just in the sense that it is equal parts police procedural and social drama, but that it contains a meticulously layered narrative that has (to paraphrase something Stanley Kubrick once said of his own work) “…a slow start, the start that goes under the audience’s skin and involves them so that they can appreciate grace notes and soft tones and don’t have to be pounded over the head with plot points and suspense hooks.”
The first half of the film tells the story of a high school student who is placed into a mandatory “externship” at a call center by one of her teachers. Suffice it to say her workplace is a prime example as to why labor laws exist (they do have them in South Korea-but exploitative companies always find loopholes).
When the outgoing and headstrong young woman commits suicide, a female police detective is assigned to the case. The trajectory of her investigation takes up the second half of the film. The deeper she digs, the more insidious the implications…and this begins to step on lot of toes, including her superiors in the department. Jung draws parallels between the stories of the student and the detective investigating her death; both are assertive, principled women with the odds stacked against them. Ultimately, they’re tilting at windmills in a society driven by systemic corruption, predatory capitalism, and a patriarchal hierarchy.
Once Within a Time – Billed as “a bardic fairy tale about the end of the world and the beginning of a new one”, this visually arresting 58-minute feature (co-directed by Godfrey Reggio and Jon Kane) represents an 8-year labor of love for Reggio (now 83), who is primarily known for his “Qatsi trilogy” (Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, and Naqoyqatsi). He re-enlisted his Qatsi trilogy collaborator Philip Glass to score the project. Glass’ score is quite lovely (and restrained-I know he has his detractors) with wonderful vocalizing provided by Sussan Deyhim.
Ostensibly aimed at a young audience, the film (a mashup of The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Tron, 2001, and Princess Mononoke) utilizes a collage of visual techniques (stop-motion, puppetry, shadow play, etc.) with echoes of George Melies, Lotte Reiniger, Karel Zeman , Rene Laloux, George Pal, Luis Buñuel, The Brothers Quay, and Guy Maddin.
A small group of children are spirited away to a multiverse that vacillates (at times uneasily) between the lush green world, future visions of a bleak and barren landscape, and the rabbit hole of cyberspace; surreal vignettes abound. Unique and mesmerizing. (Full review) (Currently playing in select theaters)
One Night With Adela – Volatile, coked to the gills and seething with resentment, Adela (Laura Galán) is wrapping up another dreary late-night shift tooling around Madrid in her street sweeper. However, the young woman’s after-work plans for this evening are anything but typical. She has decided that it’s time to get even…for every wrong (real or perceived) that she’s suffered in her entire life. Galán delivers a fearless and mesmerizing performance. Shot in one take (no editor is credited), writer-director Hugo Ruiz’s debut is the most unsettling portrayal of alienation, rage, and madness I have seen since Gaspar Noe’s I Stand Alone. Definitely not for the squeamish.
Ride On -It’s interesting kismet that Ride On (written and directed by Larry Yang) opened in the U.S. on Jackie Chan’s 69th birthday, because on a certain level the film plays like a sentimental salute to the international action star’s 60-year career.
That is not to suggest that Chan appears on the verge of being put out to pasture; he still has energy and agility to spare. That said, the shelf life of stunt persons (not unlike professional athletes) is wholly dependent on their stamina and fortitude. It’s not likely to shock you that Chan is cast here as (wait for it) Lao, an aging movie stuntman.
While not saddled by a complex narrative, Ride On gallops right along; spurred by Chan’s charm and unbridled flair for physical comedy (sorry, I had a Gene Shalit moment). And the stunts, of course, are spectacular (in the end credits, it’s noted the film is dedicated to the craft). In one scene, Lao views a highlight reel of “his” stunt career; a collection of classic stunt sequences from Chan’s own films; it gives lovely symmetry to the film and is quite moving. (Full review) (Currently streaming on Amazon Prime, Vudu, Apple TV, and Google Play)
The last Beatles song featuring the voice of late member John Lennon and developed using artificial intelligence [was] released on Thursday at 1400 GMT alongside the band’s first track, record label Universal Music said.
Called “Now and Then”, the song – billed as the last Beatles song – will be released in a double A-side single which pairs the track with the band’s 1962 debut UK single “Love Me Do”, Universal Music Group (UMG.AS) said in a statement.
The Beatles’ YouTube channel premiered late on Wednesday the short film “Now And Then – The Last Beatles Song” ahead of the release of the track.
Directed by Oliver Murray, the 12-minute clip features exclusive footage and commentary from members of the band, Lennon’s son Sean Ono Lennon and filmmaker Peter Jackson, who directed the 2021 documentary series “The Beatles: Get Back”.
In the clip, Jackson explains how his team managed to isolate instruments and vocals from recordings using AI, including the original tape of “Now and Then” which Lennon recorded as a home demo in the late 1970s.
The song also features parts recorded by surviving members Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr as well as the late George Harrison.
“That ultimately led us to develop a technology which allows us to take any soundtrack and split all the different components into separate tracks based on machine learning”, Jackson says in the video.
And in the end …how did it all turn out? Give it a spin-and I’ll meet you on the flip side:
I think it’s quite lovely, and couldn’t have arrived at a better time (most of the news as of late has been…soul crushing). In fact, out of the 3 resurrected and studio-sweetened John Lennon demos borne of Paul, George, and Ringo’s Beatles Anthology sessions in 1995 (the other two being “Free As a Bird” and “Real Love”), I think this one is toppermost of the poppermost.
“Farewell, hello. Farewell, hello.”
-Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
I don’t know why you say, “Goodbye”, I say, “Hello”
-The Beatles, “Hello Goodbye”
Beatles forever!
(It’s a good week to say “hello” to one of my older posts-restored and remixed)
I Saw A Film Today: A Top fab 14 list
(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on December 16, 2017)
By Dennis Hartley
Here’s a Fab Four fun fact: The original U.K. and U.S. releases of the Beatles LPs prior to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band did not contain all the same songs (even when the album titles were the same). This was due to the fact that the U.K. versions had 14 tracks, and the U.S. versions had 12. That’s my perfect excuse to offer up picks for the Top 14 Beatles films.
I don’t really want to stop the show, but I thought that you might like to know: In addition to documentaries and films where the lads essentially played “themselves”, my criteria includes films where band members worked as actors or composers, and biopics. As per usual, my list is in alphabetical order:
The Beatles Anthology-Admittedly, this opus is more of a turn-on for obsessives, but there is very little mystery left once you’ve taken this magical 600 minute tour through the Beatles film archives. Originally presented as a mini-series event on TV, it’s a comprehensive compilation of performance footage, movie clips and interviews (vintage and contemporary).
What makes it unique is that the producers (the surviving Beatles themselves) took the “in their own words” approach, eschewing the usual droning narrator. Nicely done, and a must-see for fans.
The Compleat Beatles– Prior to the Anthology, this theatrically released documentary stood as the definitive overview of the band’s career. What I like most about director Patrick Montgomery’s approach, is that he delves into the musicology (roots and influences), which the majority of Beatles docs tend to skimp on. George Martin’s candid anecdotes regarding the creativity and innovation that fueled the studio sessions are enlightening.
It still stands as a great compilation of performance clips and interviews. Malcolm McDowell narrates. Although you’d think it would be on DVD, it’s still VHS only (I’ve seen laser discs at secondhand stores).
Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years– As a Beatle freak who has seen just about every bit of Fab Four documentary/concert footage extant, I approached Ron Howard’s 2016 film with a bit of trepidation (especially with all the pre-release hype about “previously unseen” footage and such) but was nonetheless pleased (if not necessarily enlightened).
This is not their entire story, but rather a retrospective of the Beatles’ career from the Hamburg days through their final tour in 1966. As I inferred, you likely won’t learn anything new (this is a well-trod path), but the performance clips are enhanced by newly restored footage and remixed audio. Despite the familiar material, it’s beautifully assembled, and Howard makes the nostalgic wallow feel fresh and fun.
A Hard Day’s Night– This 1964 masterpiece has been often copied, but never equaled. Shot in a semi-documentary style, the film follows a “day in the life” of John, Paul, George and Ringo at the height of their youthful exuberance and charismatic powers. Thanks to the wonderfully inventive direction of Richard Lester and Alun Owen’s cleverly tailored script, the essence of what made the Beatles “the Beatles” has been captured for posterity.
Although it’s meticulously constructed, Lester’s film has a loose, improvisational feel; and it feels just as fresh and innovative as it was when it first hit theaters all those years ago. To this day I catch subtle gags that surprise me (ever notice John snorting the Coke bottle?). Musical highlights: “I Should Have Known Better”, “All My Loving”, “Don’t Bother Me”, “Can’t Buy Me Love”, and (of course) the classic title song.
Help! – Compared to its predecessor (see above), this is a much fluffier affair, from a narrative standpoint (Ringo is being chased by a religious cult who wish to offer him up as a human sacrifice to their god; hilarity ensues). But still, it’s a lot of fun, if you’re in a receptive mood. The Beatles themselves exude enough goofy energy and effervescent charm to make up for the wafer-thin plot line.
Marc Behm and Charles Wood’s script has a few good zingers; but the biggest delights come from director Richard Lester’s flair for visual invention. For me, the best parts are the musical sequences, which are imaginative, artful, and light years ahead of their time (essentially the blueprint for MTV, which was still 15 years down the road).
And of course, the Beatles’ music was evolving in leaps and bounds by 1965. It has a killer soundtrack; in addition to the classic title song, you’ve got “Ticket to Ride”, “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away”, “The Night Before” and “I Need You”, to name a few. Don’t miss the clever end credits!
I Wanna Hold Your Hand-This was the feature film debut for director Robert Zemeckis and writer Bob Gale, the creative tag team who would later deliver Back to the Future and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Sort of a cross between American Graffiti and The Bellboy, the film concerns six New Jersey teenagers. Three of them (Nancy Allen, Theresa Saldana and Wendy Jo Sperber) are rabid Beatles fans, the other three (Bobby Di Cicco, Marc McClure and Susan Kendall Newman) not so much.
They end up together in a caper to “meet the Beatles” by sneaking into their NYC hotel suite (the story is set on the day the band makes their 1964 debut on TheEd Sullivan Show). Zany misadventures ensue. Zemeckis overindulges on door-slamming screwball slapstick, but the energetic young cast and Gale’s breezy script keeps this fun romp zipping right along.
Let it Be– By 1969, the Beatles had probably done enough “living” to suit several normal lifetimes, and did so with the whole world looking in. It’s almost unfathomable how they could have achieved as much as they did, and at the end of all, still be only in their twenties.
Are there any other recording artists who have ever matched the creative growth that transpired over the scant six years that it took to evolve from the simplicity of Meet the Beatles to the sophistication of Abbey Road ? So, with hindsight being 20/20, should we really be so shocked to see the four haggard and sullen “old guys” who mope through this 1970 documentary?
Filmed in 1969, the movie was intended to document the “making of” the eponymous album (although interestingly, there is also footage of the band working on several songs that ended up appearing on Abbey Road). There’s also footage of the band rehearsing on the sound stage at Twickenham Film Studios, and hanging out at the Apple offices.
Sadly, the film has developed a rep as hard evidence of the band’s disintegration. There is some on-camera bickering (most famously, in a scene where George reaches the end of his rope with Paul’s fussiness). Still, there is that classic mini-concert on the roof, and if you look closely, the boys are actually having a grand old time jamming out; it’s almost as if they know this is the last hurrah, and what the hell, it’s only rock ’n’ roll, after all. I hope this film finally finds its way to a legit DVD release someday (beware of bootlegs).
The Magic Christian– The original posters for this 1969 romp proclaimed it “antiestablishmentarian, antibellum (sic), antitrust, antiseptic, antibiotic, antisocial and antipasto”. Rich and heir-less eccentric Sir Guy Grand (Peter Sellers) meets a young homeless man in a public park (Ringo Starr) and decides to adopt him as his son (“Youngman Grand”).
Sir Guy sets about imparting a nugget of wisdom to his newly appointed heir: People will do anything for money. Basically, it’s an episodic series of elaborate pranks, setting hooks into the stiff upper lips of the stuffy English aristocracy. Like similar broad 60s satires (Candy, Skidoo, Casino Royale) it’s a psychedelic train wreck, but when it’s funny, it’s very funny.
Highlights include Laurence Harvey doing a striptease whilst reciting the “To be, or not to be” soliloquy from Hamlet, a pheasant hunt with field artillery, and well-attired businessmen wading waist-deep into a huge vat of offal, using their bowlers to scoop up as much “free money” as they can (accompanied by Thunderclap Newman’s “Something in the Air”).
Badfinger performs the majority of the songs on the soundtrack, including their Paul McCartney-penned hit, “Come and Get It”. Director Joseph McGrath co-wrote with Sellers, Terry Southern, and Monty Python’s Graham Chapman and John Cleese (both have cameos).
The enormous cast includes a number of notable supporting players to keep your eye peeled for (mainly cameos), including Wilfrid Hyde-White, Richard Attenborough, Raquel Welch (Priestess of the Whip!), Spike Milligan, Roman Polanski, Christopher Lee, and Yul Brenner.
Magical Mystery Tour– According to a majority of critics (and puzzled Beatles fans), the Fabs were ringing out the old year on a somewhat sour note with this self-produced project, originally presented as a holiday special on BBC-TV in December of 1967. By the conventions of television fare at the time, the 53-minute film was judged as a self-indulgent and pointlessly obtuse affair (it’s probably weathered more drubbing than Ishtar and Heaven’s Gate combined).
Granted, upon reappraisal, it remains unencumbered by anything resembling a “plot”, but in certain respects, it has held up remarkably well. Borrowing a page from Ken Kesey, the Beatles gather up a group of friends (actors and non-actors alike), load them all on a bus, and take them on a “mystery tour” across the English countryside.
They basically filmed whatever happened, then sorted it all out in the editing suite. It’s the musical sequences that make the restored version released on Blu-ray several years ago worth the investment. In hindsight, sequences like “Blue Jay Way”, “Fool on the Hill” and “I Am the Walrus” play like harbingers of MTV, which was still well over a decade away.
Some of the interstitial vignettes uncannily anticipate Monty Python’s idiosyncratic comic sensibilities; not a stretch when you consider that George Harrison’s future production company HandMade Films was formed to help finance Life of Brian. Magical Mystery Tour is far from a work of art, but when taken for what it is (a long-form music video and colorful time capsule of 60s pop culture)-it’s lots of fun. Roll up!
Nowhere Boy– This gem from U.K. director Sam Taylor-Wood was one of my 2010 Seattle International Film Festival faves. Aaron Johnson gives a terrific, James Dean-worthy performance as a teen-aged John Lennon. The story zeroes in on a crucially formative period of the musical icon’s life beginning just prior to his meet-up with Paul McCartney, and ending on the eve of the “Hamburg period”.
The story is not so much about the Fabs, as it is about the complex and mercurial dynamic of the relationship between John, his Aunt Mimi (Kirstin Scott Thomas) and his mother Julia (Anne-Marie Duff). The entire cast is excellent, but Scott Thomas handily walks away with the film as the woman who raised John from childhood.
Produced by George Martin– While no one can deny the inherent musical genius of the Beatles, it’s worth speculating whether they would have reached the same dizzying heights of creativity and artistic growth (and over the same 7-year period) had the lads never crossed paths with Sir George Martin. It’s a testament to the unique symbiosis between the Fabs and their gifted producer that one can’t think of one without also thinking of the other. Yet there is much more to Martin than this celebrated collaboration.
Martin is profiled in an engaging and beautifully crafted 2011 BBC documentary called (funnily enough) Produced by George Martin . The film traces his career from the early 50s to present day. His early days at EMI are particularly fascinating; a generous portion of the film focuses on his work there producing classical and comedy recordings.
Disparate as Martin’s early work appears to be from the rock ’n’ roll milieu, I think it prepped him for his future collaboration with the Fabs, on a personal and professional level. His experience with comics likely helped the relatively reserved producer acclimate to the Beatles’ irreverent sense of humor, and Martin’s classical training and gift for arrangement certainly helped to guide their creativity to a higher level of sophistication.
81 at the time of filming, Martin (who passed away in 2016) is spry, full of great anecdotes and a class act all the way. He provides some candid moments; there is visible emotion from the usually unflappable Martin when he admits how hurt and betrayed he felt when John Lennon curtly informed him at the 11th hour that his “services would not be needed” for the Let it Be sessions (the band went with the mercurial Phil Spector, who famously overproduced the album). Insightful interviews with artists who have worked with Martin (and admiring peers) round things off nicely.
The Rutles: All You Need is Cash– Everything you ever wanted to know about the “Prefab Four” is right here, in this cheeky and hilarious 1978 mockumentary, originally presented as a TV special. It’s the story of four lads from Liverpool: Dirk McQuickly (Eric Idle), Ron Nasty (Neil Innes), Stig O’Hara (Rikki Fataar) and Barry Womble (John Halsey). Any resemblance to the Beatles, of course, is purely intentional.
Idle wrote the script and co-directed with Gary Weis (who made a number of memorable short films that aired on the first few seasons of Saturday Night Live). Innes (frequent Monty Python collaborator and one of the madmen behind the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band) composed the soundtrack, clever mash-ups of near-Beatles songs that are actually quite listenable on their own.
Mick Jagger, Paul Simon and other music luminaries appear as themselves, “reminiscing” about the band. There are also some funny bits that feature members of the original “Not Ready for Prime Time Players” (including John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd). Look fast for a cameo from George Harrison, as a reporter. Undoubtedly, the format of this piece provided some inspiration for This is Spinal Tap.
That’ll Be the Day-Set in late 50s England, Claude Whatham’s 1973 film (written by Ray Connolly) is a character study in the tradition of the “kitchen sink” dramas that flourished in 60s UK cinema.
David Essex (best-known for his music career, and hit, “Rock On”) plays Jim MacLaine, an intelligent, angst-ridden young man who drops out of school to go the Kerouac route (to Mum’s chagrin). While he’s figuring out what to do with his life, Jim supports himself working at a “funfair” at the Isle of Wight, where he gets a crash course in how to fleece customers and “pull birds” from a seasoned carny (Ringo Starr) who befriends him.
Early 60s English rocker Billy Fury performs some songs as “Stormy Tempest” (likely a reference to Rory Storm, who Ringo was drumming for when the Beatles enlisted him in 1962) Also look for Keith Moon (who gets more screen time in the 1974 sequel, Stardust).
Yellow Submarine– Despite being a die-hard Beatles fan, over the years I’ve felt somewhat ambivalent about this 1968 animated feature “starring” the Fab Four; or rather, their cartoon avatars, voiced over by other actors. While I adored the music soundtrack, I never quite “got” all the fuss over the “innovative” visuals (which could be partially attributable to the fact that I never caught it in a theater, just on TV and in various fuzzy home video formats).
But, being the obsessive-compulsive completest that I am, I snapped up a copy of Capitol’s restored version a few years ago, and found it to be a revelation. The 2012 transfer was touched-up by hand, frame-by frame (an unusually artisan choice for this digital age), and the results are jaw-dropping. The visuals are stunning.
The audio remix is superb; I never fully appreciated the clever wordplay in the script (by Lee Minoff, Al Brodax, Jack Mendelsohn and Erich Segal) until now. The story itself remains silly, but it’s the knockout music sequences (“Eleanor Rigby” being one standout) that make this one worth the price of admission.
Back in February of 2017, my dear mother passed away, at the age of 86. While she had been weathering a plethora of health issues for a number of years, the straw that ultimately claimed her (pancreatic cancer) was diagnosed mere weeks before she died. In fact, her turn for the worse was so sudden that my flight to Ohio turned into a grim race; near as I could figure, my plane was on final approach to Canton-Akron Airport when she slipped away (I arrived at her bedside an hour after she had died). And yes, that was hard.
Since I obviously wasn’t present during (what turned out to be) her final days, I asked my brother if she had any “final words”. At first, he chuckled a little through the tears, recounting that several days prior, she had turned to him at one point and said “I wish I had some wisdom to impart. But I don’t.” I laughed (Jewish fatalism-it’s a cultural thing).
Then, he remembered something. The hospice room where my mother spent her last week had a picture window facing west, with a view of a field, a pond, a small stand of trees, and an occasional deer spotting. Two days before she was gone, my mother, my father, and my brother were quietly enjoying this pastoral scene with the bonus of a lovely sunset. My mother broke the silence with three words: “Trees are important.”
I’ve been mulling over those words ever since. What did she mean? Indeed, trees are important. They are, in a literal sense, the very lungs of the Earth. As a metaphor, I must consider the foundational significance that The Tree of Life holds in Judaism. Was she “imparting wisdom” after all? Had she, at the end of her journey, reached what Paddy Chayefsky once called a “cleansing moment of clarity” about The Things That Really Matter? Granted, it may not be as cinematic as “Rosebud”, but it’s at the very least a kissin’ cousin to a Zen koan. If I’d been there, I might’ve responded with something profound, like “Nicely put.”
Those memories came flooding back to me like the hot kiss at the end of a wet fist during the opening scene of Godfrey Reggio’s Once Within a Time (in theaters), when a central figure in the narrative first appears …Gaia, Mother Earth, Great Mother, Tellus, the Log Lady (her names are legion). I couldn’t fathom where this was going, but intuited that She was going to be Important.
Billed as “a bardic fairy tale about the end of the world and the beginning of a new one”, this visually arresting 52-minute feature (co-directed by Jon Kane) represents an 8-year labor of love for Reggio (now 83), who is primarily known for his “Qatsi trilogy” (Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, and Naqoyqatsi). He re-enlisted his Qatsi trilogy collaborator Philip Glass to score the project. Glass’ score is quite lovely (and restrained-I know he has his detractors) with wonderful vocalizing provided by Sussan Deyhim.
Ostensibly aimed at a young audience, the film (a mashup of The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Tron, 2001, and Princess Mononoke) utilizes a collage of visual techniques (stop-motion, puppetry, shadow play, etc.) with echoes of George Melies, Lotte Reiniger, Karel Zeman , Rene Laloux, George Pal, Luis Buñuel, The Brothers Quay, and Guy Maddin.
A small group of children are spirited away to a multiverse that vacillates (at times uneasily) between the lush green world, future visions of a bleak and barren landscape, and the rabbit hole of cyberspace; surreal vignettes abound.
A wolf pack gathers around and begins to bay at a huge smart phone displaying a scene from George Melies’ 1902 film A Trip to the Moon. A monkey wearing a VR headset swings along power lines in a post-apocalyptic landscape. In a sequence recalling “The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies” in Fantasia, emojis leap from smart phones, transform into amorphous figures (resembling Teletubbies), and begin to gyrate in unison. An oversized wooden marionette with a b&w photo of Greta Thunberg for a face lumbers about for a bit amongst the children, and Mike Tyson has a cameo that I couldn’t even begin to describe (I couldn’t get this high).
An occasional visual quote from Reggio’s earlier films suggests that this can be viewed as “a child’s guide to the Qatsi trilogy”. This is reinforced by reiteration of pet themes from those films; namely humankind’s callous indifference to nature’s delicate balance, and the ever-increasing encroachment of the technocracy on society (the latter which is all but complete).
Those themes seem a tad dark for a “children’s film”, but Reggio’s vision here is not completely devoid of hope for the future. On the other hand, neither does he tie everything up neatly, ending with a title card that asks: “Which age is this: The sunset or the dawn?”
So what does it all mean?
In a recent interview, Reggio said of his intention:
I wanted a piece without words, so that it may be perhaps accessible to a lot of people. Something that was at once linear and non-linear, ambiguous and clear. At the same time, I wanted to leave you, not with an answer, but with a question.
Not helping. Although…Reggio at least sheds some light on Mike Tyson’s appearance:
So let me make a long story short. The crew said: If you get him, we can’t afford him. Anyway, I got a notice from his partner saying meet us at Robert De Niro’s hotel downtown. Mike wants to talk to you. He’s got a few guys with him. So I talked to him for half an hour. Mike says ,“Motherfucker, you’re speaking right to my subconscious.”
A cleansing moment of clarity. As Ella sang, I think I’m beginning to see the light.
*This is a slightly revised version of an older post that (sadly) is relevant again.
Have you heard the reasons why? (Yeah, we’ve heard it all before) But have you seen the nation cry? (Yeah, we’ve seen it all before)
-From “War Weary World” by The Call
Oy. It’s been a trying couple of days…
The utter callousness of Musk's willful negligence to filter and/or moderate incendiary content on this platform has never been so evident as in the wake of today's events in Israel.
The wall-to-wall coverage is to be expected, but spot-checking the droning cable news anchors every couple hours, I don't seem to be gleaning anything that's actually been "breaking" regarding the Middle East situation since this morning (aside from hearts and minds). Enough.
Bertrand Russell said, “war does not determine who is right-only who is left.” That may be pithy, but he’s yet to be proven wrong.
I realize that the 24-hour news channels have little choice but to “recycle” a certain amount of horrific footage as a huge international story of this nature is developing, but I’m old enough to recall when such imagery was processed as deterrence to conflict and a call for diplomacy, rather than a base and puerile incitement for vengeance (not by those reporting the news but as some politicians and pundits have been wont to do).
What I find particularly heartbreaking is the plight of the non-combatants (on both sides) caught in the middle of the mayhem…especially the children.
But perhaps I’m just naive, what with my pacifist wishes and hippy-dippy poster dreams. It’s a complicated world, and I’m just a simple farmer. A person of the land. The common clay of the American West. You know…a moron. That’s why I’m just the movie guy around these parts.
That being said, I believe there’s something that the following movies, or more specifically their young protagonists can teach us about such matters.
And so I’m spotlighting three essential films that offer an immediate ground-level view of the effects of war, filtered through the eyes of innocents, uncluttered by any political machinations or jingoist agendas. Hey, feel free to invite your favorite war hawk over for dinner and a movie. Just make sure that they are taking notes:
Grave of the Fireflies– For years, the term ‘anime’ conjured visions of saucer-eyed cartoon characters in action-packed fantasy-adventures (generally targeting younger audiences). However, sometime around the mid-80s, the paradigm shifted when Japanese production houses like Studio Ghibli began to find international success with more eclectic, character-driven fare. One transcendent example is writer-director Isao Takahata’s 1988 drama, Grave of the Fireflies.
While it is animated, and its protagonists are children, it is not necessarily a children’s film; its unflinching approach and anti-war subtext puts it in a league with Roberto Rossellini’s Germany YearZero and Andrei Tarkovsky’s Ivan’s Childhood.
The story (based on Akiyuki Nosaka’s novel) takes place in Kobe in 1945, and concerns the travails of a teenage boy named Seita (voiced by Tsutomo Tatsumi) and his little sister Setsuko (voiced by Ayano Shiraishi), who are orphaned when their mother perishes in an Allied firebombing raid. After brief lodgings with a less-than-hospitable aunt, the siblings have to fend for themselves. Do not expect a Hollywood ending (I wouldn’t recommend it for children under 12).
One interesting commonality between Grave of the Fireflies and the aforementioned Rossellini film is that Japan and Germany were the aggressor nations in WW2. The pain and suffering of innocents caught in the crossfire doesn’t know from borders or ideology.
Son of Babylon– This heartbreaking Iraqi drama is set in 2003, just weeks after the fall of Saddam. It follows the arduous journey of a Kurdish boy named Ahmed (Yasser Talib) and his grandmother (Shazda Hussein) as they head for the last known location of Ahmed’s father, who disappeared during the first Gulf War.
As they traverse the bleak, post-apocalyptic landscapes of Iraq’s bomb-cratered desert, a portrait emerges of a people struggling to keep mind and soul together, and to make sense of the horror and suffering precipitated by two wars and a harsh dictatorship.
Director Mohamed Al Daradji and co-screenwriter Jennifer Norridge deliver something conspicuously absent in the Iraq War(s) movies from Western directors in recent years-an honest and humanistic evaluation of the everyday people who inevitably get caught in the middle of such armed conflicts-not just in Iraq, but in any war, anywhere.
While the film alludes to the regional and international politics involved, the narrative is constructed in such a way that at the end of day, whether Ahmed’s father was killed by American bomb sorties or Saddam gassing his own people is moot.
That message is distilled in a small, compassionate gesture and a single line of dialogue. An Arabic-speaking woman, also searching for a missing loved one at a mass grave site sets her own suffering aside to lay a comforting hand on the lamenting grandmother’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, I don’t speak Kurdish,” she says, “…but I can feel this woman’s pain and sadness.”
One thing I can say (aside that this emotionally shattering film should be required viewing for heads of state, commanders-in-chief, generals, or anyone else wielding the power to wage war)…I don’t speak Kurdish, either.
Testament- Originally an American Playhouse presentation, this film (with a screenplay adapted by John Sacred Young from a story by Carol Amen) was released to theaters and garnered a well-deserved Best Actress nomination for Jane Alexander. Director Lynne Littman takes a low key approach, but pulls no punches; I think this is what gives her film’s anti-nuke message more teeth and makes its scenario more relatable than Stanley Kramer’s similarly-framed but more sanitized and preachy 1959 drama On the Beach.
Alexander, her husband (William DeVane) and three kids live in sleepy Hamlin, California, where afternoon cartoons are interrupted by a news flash that nuclear explosions have occurred in New York. Then there is a flash of a different kind when nearby San Francisco (where DeVane has gone on a business trip) receives a direct strike.
There is no exposition on the political climate that precipitates the attacks; this is a wise decision, as it puts the focus on the humanistic message of the film. All of the post-nuke horrors ensue, but they are presented sans the melodrama that informs many entries in the genre. The fact that the nightmarish scenario unfolds so deliberately, and amidst such everyday suburban banality, is what makes it very difficult to shake off.
As the children (and adults) of Hamlin succumb to the inevitable scourge of radiation sickness and steadily “disappear”, like the children of the ‘fairy tale’ Hamlin, you are left haunted by the final line of the school production of “The Pied Piper” glimpsed earlier in the film… “Your children are not dead. They will return when the world deserves them.”
