Late Night Meme: Stuff I Have That You Probably Don't

Just saw this on my friend Elaine's page, and I can't resist, even though it's supposed to be based on a "Friends List," and since this is a blog, this makes the whole thing basically unconfirmable.

Name a CD you have that you think no one else on your Friends List has. Situational Ethics, by rap duo 3582. I bought it thinking, "I wonder why I've never heard of these guys." Now I know.

Name a book you have that you think no one else on your Friends List has.  Since I often steal oddly-titled books when they're being unfairly used as decoration in restaurants, I have a huge list of these, but I'll go with Six Nuns and a Shotgun by Colin Watson.  (Unless my earlier blogpost about it caused someone to buy it online or something...)

Name a movie/DVD you have that you think no one else on your Friends List has.  I own a fair number of sort-of-obscure old movies (The Narrow Margin, The Man Who Cheated Himself, The Invisible Boy, Midnight), but I'm going to take a gamble and go with Man With the Movie Camera, an experimental Russian film from 1929 that has no plot and no dialogue; just images and music, sort of the ur-Koyaanisqatsi.  I had it loaned to me by someone who moved away before I could return it, and I find the music occasionally soothing.  I don't know what anyone else's excuse might be.

The QUESTIONS for the Horror or Western Trivia Quiz...

Since the Facebook Quiz function has more limitations than I thought (I thought I could get it to direct people to my blog for explanation, but no such luck), here's what the quiz is. The answers are here, in the Comments to the previous post.

Below is a list of 11 classic film stars, many of whom went out on rather minor notes. Each of these performers' last films was either a horror film or a western. Can you guess which is which?

(I'm referring to major US theatrical releases, and in every case the performer is listed in the credits.)

1. John Wayne
2. Marilyn Monroe
3. Joan Crawford
4. Bette Davis
5. Veronica Lake
6. Robert Mitchum
7. Jean Arthur
8. Fred Astaire
9. Rita Hayworth
10. Barbara Stanwyck
11. Jimmy Stewart

27 Dresses (Review)

Normally I don't post my Netflix movie reviews (which you can see just by joining Netflix and friending me), but since I managed to write 5,000 words yesterday AND watch the movie AND write a capsule review, in the interest of providing material for this site while I'm in temporary creative exile (13 more days!), here's what I said:

27 Dresses (2008; three stars [out of five])

A likable romantic comedy that feels like it was only one rewrite away from greatness. On the plus side, Heigl and Marsden are terrific, and, as romantic comedy plots go, the goings-on here are mostly plausible and the characters are full human beings. What a relief!

The bad moments come mostly when characters are forced to do generic comedy relief of a broader sort--Heigl yelling the "F" word and discovering she's standing in front of an anniversary party; Heigl falling after a dramatic (and totally uncalled-for) leap off a dock onto a boat; a recurring reference to "Benny and the Jets" that is forced to mean more than it probably should. All of these moments feel artificial, and the movie isn't quite comfortable with them.

Chief culprit here is Malin Akerman as Heigl's head-turning model sister, who is not only simply unbelievable (she's too short to be a model and, though pretty, is hardly plausible competition for the otherworldly Heigl), but is saddled with the most cartoonish character traits: saying "Hola, Paco!" to a Hispanic kid who has just spoken Brooklyn English to her face; not knowing what "shagging flies" means at a baseball game, and worse. How any sane businessman like Ed Burns could fall for her act beggars the imagination, and when this same ditz turns out to be the voice of mature reason--for one climactic paragraph and never again--it rings unusually hollow.

But the main story is smart, the premise is lovely, and if you like weddings, the 27 dresses are hysterically bad. Not a bad date movie all around, and I've got my fingers crossed that Heigl and Marsden will both do better next time around. In the meantime, I crossed my fingers all the way through, and basically I feel like my brain survived.

...And Now Mel Ferrer

It seems like every time I watch an old movie off of Netflix, someone in it dies. Earlier this year it was Jules Dassin, and then Richard Widmark. This time it's Mel Ferrer, who I saw only last night in Scaramouche, which is probably the single most pleasant surprise I've had in the last few months of movierentery. According to the AP, he's apparently most well known for being married to Audrey Hepburn, and did more as a producer than an actor (including Wait Until Dark, which is in my queue).

All I know about him is he's terrific in this film. Scaramouche has Stewart Granger on a quest in Enlightenment-era France to revenge himself on the man who killed his best friend--the incredibly snide Mel Ferrer, who is such a great swordsman that he can kill anyone he duels with, and can therefore dispatch people simply by taking offense at them and demanding satisfaction. On the lam after his friends' murder, Granger becomes a commedia dell'arte performer (Scaramouche--a good choice, since Pantalone doesn't quite have the same adventurous ring) and polishes his swordplay skills by day while performing at night.

Everything about the film works, if you're willing to give it a little slack for being from 1952. The cast is uniformly terrific, with the always-alluring Janet Leigh paired as romantic rival with the stunning Eleanor Parker. Don't know her? Neither did I. A word about that. Eleanor Parker, who never seems to have come into her own as a star, is so gorgeous that, although it's tempting to call her the poor man's Maureen O'Hara--same flaming red hair, same stubborn jaw, and (here) the same tendency to swing pots at her man before he picks her up, kicking and flailing in standard 1950's retro-caveman style--I think she's actually even prettier than Maureen O'Hara...and this film doesn't actually require O'Hara-level acting anyway. She was a really good choice.)

The plot is chock-full of amiable melodrama--mistaken identities, mysterious births, folks leaping off of balconies or galloping like mad--and there really isn't a dull foot of celluloid to be found anywhere. And, as any reference will tell you, it's absolutely famous for its six-minute climactic fencing scene, which has to be seen to be believed. (And don't let that distract you: there are seven duels in the film, and they're all great and all different.)

But for me, what makes the film most fascinating is its obvious influence on that other famously great swordplay movie, The Princess Bride. There are so many parallels it'll make your eyes cross--the guy working to train himself to defeat a great duellist; the battle where the characters talk about strategy while they fight; the way the bad guy stabs his victim in the left and right arms in the beginning, and how this is mirrored in the final battle. Even Mel Ferrer's face seems to have been borrowed by Chris Sarandon in an attempt to work in yet another allusion.

It's not a feminist film, and the humor is at middlebrow 1950's levels, but as a representative of the swashbuckling genre, I'd rank this at the very top, right next to The Mark of Zorro and The Sea Hawk. So find it somewhere tonight and enjoy.

By the way, the next movie in line is 1948's The Three Musketeers, and it looks like everyone in the cast is already dead--Gene Kelly, Van Heflin, Gig Young, etc.--with one exception: Angela Lansbury. Let's hope this connection between my Netflix queue and the Entertainment-section morgue notices is just a coincidence. If I wound up killing Angela Lansbury, I'd never forgive myself.

P.S. The DVD of Scaramouche has a little overview of the film given by Mel Ferrer, so that's not a bad bonus in light of today's news. He aged very nicely.

Things I Love About New York: The New York Public Library

Taken in front of the 42nd Street branch of the New York Public Library. (Duh.) While I was taking this picture, I overheard some college kids behind me. One said, "Ooh! The New York Public Library! I remember that from..." and then someone else said "Let's..." and there was a confusion of voices. But the final word came from a different voice that said, "No. Let's only take pictures of places where good movies were made."

Since I doubt they were meaning to insult Breakfast at Tiffany's or Ghostbusters, I can only assume they were talking about this film.

...And Now We Lose Jules Dassin, Too.

Director Jules Dassin died on April 1st, dammit. Like Richard Widmark, it's not a shock--he was 96--but it's really a shame. Thanks to my own forays into film noir, I ran across Mr. Dassin many times and became a big fan. Not only are his films among the best--Night and the City and Rififi in particular, for my money--but if you get the Criterion prints, they always have interviews with Dassin, and he's one of the greatest interview subjects I've ever seen on a DVD: Completely candid, full of interesting stories, and usually very warm and funny. That's the kind of old guy I want to be!

If you're interested in the guy himself, I recommend renting The Naked City, which was his last American film. The Criterion edition contains the interview that got me hooked. (Of course, if you haven't seen Night and the City yet, that'll give you both Widmark AND Dassin. And come to think of it, Dassin himself actually has an acting role in Rififi, so that's another option.)

By the way, although he was best known for Night and the City, which was filmed in Paris, and although he lived in France and Greece (he was self-exiled, thanks to McCarthy's blacklist), he was, in fact, an American from Connecticut. I'm glad to lay claim to the man.

From my Netflix account:

THE NAKED CITY ****
Too dated for mainstream tastes, but for anyone with a taste for classic cinema or a love for New York City, this is essential viewing. It's the Ur-Law & Order, with 107 vintage location shoots. Although the acting itself is pretty thudding, and the police-procedural-noir (shades of Border Incident or T-Men or He Walked By Night) is rather talky and detached by modern standards, the film delivers in spades in its location work and cinematography, the mystery itself is interesting, and the EXTRAS on this Criterion Disk are terrific: not only commentary by the screenwriter, but two brilliant deconstructions of the movie by academics (one an expert in noir, one an expert in New York-based cinema), and a thoroughly charming onstage interview with the director, filmed in 2004. For film noir/police procedural fans, this is a truly great package.

RIFIFI *****
The granddaddy of all heist capers hasn't lost an ounce of muscle in fifty years. Sharp, brutal, and full of energy, it gives Paris a refreshing noir sheen (particularly in this beautiful Criterion print) and would be enjoyable even if you weren't also having fun noticing all the other movies that have cribbed from it since (Ocean's Eleven, The Italian Job, The Heist...). Doesn't have a commentary track, but the production notes are terrific, and Criterion amazes yet again: this is the THIRD disc of theirs I've seen that contains an interview with Jules Dassin, and it's a completely different interview, with almost no overlap with the other two (on The Naked City and Night and the City). Just plain heaven for crime movie fans.

R.I.P. Richard Widmark

Richard Widmark just died. He was 93, so I guess he had it coming. But it still makes me sad, because I've been on a noir binge, and so I saw him several times just last week. So long, pal! Those were some great hours we shared.

I haven't actually seen him in his Oscar-nominated performance in Kiss of Death (where he played "Tommy Udo." Why haven't I seen that in more crosswords?). But if you have and want something different (but still noirish), you can't do better, I think, than his role as the street hustler in over his head in Jules Dassin's Night and the City (the Criterion disk is one of their best)--though I'm also fond of Pickup on South Street (with the fabulous Thelma Ritter) and Panic in the Streets (with probably the first-ever public-plague plot, ages before The Stand or Outbreak, and with Widmark in a rare heroic role as a government health agent).

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go push an old lady down some stairs.

LATER: I just realized that I've reviewed a number of his movies over on Netflix, and I doubt anyone has read them. So I'm importing a few over here. Throw the guy a few dollars this week.

NIGHT AND THE CITY (1950) *****

This is a four- or four-and-a-half-star movie in a five-star package. This tale of a two-bit hustler (played by Richard Widmark) who dares to dream big and gets in way over his head has all the features of good film noir: crime, grittiness, interestingly unwinding plot, emotional stakes. But this film also has a nonstop energy, a terrific score, and some of the best noir cinematography I've ever seen. The extras, too, are uniformly terrific: smart commentary, a fascinating look at the differences between the British and US versions, and two interviews with the endlessly charming Jules Dassin. A must for any noir cinephile's shelf.

PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET (1953) ****

Some noirs are the real classic deal: morally ambiguous descents into violence and darkness (Out of the Past, Laura, Murder My Sweet) and some are more like hooray-for-bureaucracy crime dramas where the good guys are never in doubt (T-Men, Border Incident, He Walked By Night). On paper, Pickup on South Street seemingly wants to be one of the latter, but it's saved by Sam Fuller, who takes what could have been merely patriotic urban actioner and makes every scene a series of small fuses--of character, of dialog, of actual brutal violence. Even the plot is unusually discursive, and if you're the sort of person who likes to predict where scenes will go, you'll be surprised more than once. Thelma Ritter is as wonderful as usual, but the real standout for me is Richard Widmark. In fact, this is probably my favorite Richard Widmark role, where he gets to play to his hardbitten strengths without becoming a mere lunatic. The only reason this isn't five stars is because of the too-easy ending, which I don't know whether to blame on the studio or on the 1950s. (Same thing happened with Gilda; just pretend the last five minutes were a dream.) But that aside, gee is it fun.

Hmm. Looks like I never reviewed Panic in the Streets. (I just rated it: ****). Guess I know what I'll be doing tonight...

My Cinephiliac Media Diet

When I have TV, I find I generally watch two hours or so a night. Since I haven't had TV for some time, I've been relying entirely on Netflix for my media addiction. I have to say, I recommend it. I just looked at my Netflix rental history and realized, "This is what I've been watching instead of Letterman and The Daily Show." I think you'll agree that it's not a bad tradeoff. In the last thirty days, my movies have included the following, most of which I'm seeing for the first time (you'll notice that I recently went from a musical kick to a film noir kick):

Trouble in Paradise (1932) (hilarious and naughty)
The Singing Detective, complete series (1986)(brilliant but a tad overlong)
Night and the City (1950)(new top 5 favorite noir)
The Naked City (1948) (new top ten favorite noir, in a great DVD package)
Crime Wave/Decoy (1946)(surprisingly good double bill, with GREAT commentary by two crime writers who are obviously big movie fans)
Gypsy (1962)(I liked Auntie Mame way better)
For Me and My Gal (1942)(an actual serious, sort of somber musical! Nicely done!)
Summer Stock (1950)(someone kill Phil Silvers...)
The Great Ziegfeld (1936) (Hooray for William Powell!)
Burden of Dreams (1982) (Documentary about the making of Fitzcarraldo, which everyone should see)
The Civil War (1990)(Ken Burns documentary; the entire amazing thing)
Ratatouille (2007) (so visually beautiful it actually rivals Pinocchio)
Das Boot (1981) (my favorite war movie now)
The Grapes of Wrath (1940) (Not as grim as I'd feared all these years.)
Belle de Jour (1967) (So this is Bunuel. He's weird.)
Sunday in the Park With George (1986) (beautiful meditation on creativity)
The Music Man (1962) (corny, but the best song-per-minute value of any musical I've ever seen)
The Last Waltz (1978) (turns out I don't actually like The Band all that much)
The More The Merrier (1943) (Coburn and McRea and Jean Arhur! Thanks for the tip, Briallen!)
When We Were Kings (1996) (should be required viewing in American History classes)
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) (Wow! An absolute sensory overload, and profoundly touching.)

I also watched a documentary called Small Town Gay Bar, but that's a trifle compared to all of this greatness. In just a month, I feel like I've become 15% more cultured. Another month like this, and I'll be writing for Film Comment and peppering my conversation with terms like "mise-en-scene" and "Felliniesque." See what you've got to look forward to?

Oh, and currently at home I've got three more film noirs: Alphaville, Rififi, and The Asphalt Jungle, with Bob le Flambeur not far behind. Now where did I put my trenchcoat?...

The Puzzlemakers' World Crosses Its Fingers...

...as we await the popular reaction to the debut episode of Eli Stone. Please, America! Make it at least a one-season hit! Not that it's such a great anagram all by itself (how often do the words "noselite" and "solenite" appear anywhere?), but for those of us who love cryptic crosswords, this may be the loveliest hidden-word element to come down the pike in ages. Here are just a few possibilities:

Eli Stone features famous boxer (6)

Mulgrew, in Eli Stone, shows part of a menu (4, 4)

Poetaster and hotdogger Eli Stone exposes (11)

Phrase in an analogy Eli Stone has maintained (2, 2)

...and as part of an anagram, the title is staggeringly useful:

Make haste retooling Eli Stone, Mo! (4, 2, 4)

Certain philosophers mistakenly treated Eli Stone as art (13)

...and of course, if there's critical backlash:

Gag Eli Stone cruelly--he might be tied to a tree (11)

...and while I'm wishing, please let it go into reruns!

Where Eli Stone might be broadcast around six! (10)

Answers later in a separate post, I guess. Not that these are particularly difficult to parse for the cryptic-minded.

12

Still sick--not feverish or achy anymore, just feeling the post-pummeling aftermath, and it ain't pretty. I've actually done a ferocious amount of writing--I'm at 16 pages and the sumbitch is still growing--and I kind of want to hack it into some semblance of shape before I post any part of it. (Plus it would be nice to find good places to break it into bite-sized chunks.) Anyway: soon.

Yesterday I was reminded what I hate about being sick: the waste of time. You just sit around feeling awful, too tired to do anything useful, and in too much pain to sleep, and with nothing to do except keep feeling that way until you don't feel it anymore. Yesterday I did something I never do: I went to Blockbuster (a muzzy-headed five-block walk in cold rain) and rented half of Season 4 of 24. It was a money thing: I was trying to get maximum hours of viewing for my rental dollar (which means hour-long TV drama), and I didn't want anything I already have in my Netflix queue. 24 is perfect for this: I don't have it in my queue because it's terrible to see in parts: you really need just a huge block of episodes in a row--something that's true for almost every serial I've seen, from Veronica Mars to Lost to Heroes. My queue has shows that are basically episodic, without the Big Mystery Arc that has come to characterize so many shows: I'm waiting on Deadwood, Six Feet Under, Dexter, and I think Arrested Development.

Anyway, I got Season 4. I would have rented Season 3 (never seen it), but 4 is literally the only season they had every disk of. (I think we're in a post-rental-store world; they don't seem to have been focusing on maintenance or even presentation.) I've been away for awhile, so I was suprised to see how conservative the show had gotten on me. "Oh, look--they're watching Fox News because this show is on Fox. Oh, look--they're torturing people and it produces reliable information in record time. Oh, look--there's the actress playing Chloe, who's dating Rush Limbaugh. Oh look--here's a commentary track where Joel Surnow mocks a hippie for bicycling." It's probably good for me to see stuff I'm not particularly simpatico with, but still--thank goodness they had a lot of explosions. It helped to drown out the shooting war in my mitochondria.

Today I came home from writing (I tend to write in cafes) and discovered I had three Netflix movies waiting. That's the good news. The bad news is that they were Das Boot, Sunday in the Park with George, and Ken Burns' The Civil War: Disk 2. In order, they are 209 minutes, 163 minutes, and 129 minutes long. And me with the tiredness. It's hard to know which one to flail impotently at first.

Media Diet Update and a Christian Lit Reference Question

Just a quick check-in.

First, I know I should have written more in How to Love God by now, but I just found out there's a new book out called The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality which would seem to be essential to my own. So I need to go into the city and read that someplace comfy. Also, I need an Epi-pen. (Note to self: always buy expensive drugs BEFORE you lose your health insurance!) Yesterday was spent mostly cleaning up around the house--I even cooked chicken! It was even moist when I was done!--and looking into various magazines to see where I might be able to send articles.

I was actually hoping to just take a week off and do nothing but laze around. My plan was to rent an Xbox 360 or something, get Mass Effect (I hear it's good without being impossibly difficult), and waste several days in a row in a fantasy world where I'm gainfully employed and can carry infinite possessions. I haven't taken a vacation in two years and I felt I was due. But remember how my identity got hacked and I had to cancel my debit card? Well, until the replacement comes in a week or so, I ain't renting bupkes. Instead, I spent an appalling amount of time yesterday writing puzzles--two for TimeOut New York, one for the Enigma (expect a new cryptic, you NPLers!), and one just for myself, so I could figure out how to write a grid in a Word program that tries so fucking hard to help you not do it, and how to save it as a PDF. The good news is, I think it worked! (Thanks for the helpful comment that led me to this realization.)

Thanks to everyone who's sent me job listings. I think I'm actually going to be off the market for a week or so, so I can take advantage of my leisure and write with the intensity I want. There WILL be something to show for it, soon, I promise.

In the meantime, I will say that I've learned another really nice thing about my friends. One of them is a member of some Hollywood guild or other, and as a result, she gets all the "For Your Consideration" movies mailed to her. [Name withheld so she doesn't get in trouble in case this is rogue behavior.] So thanks to her, I've been catching up with the Oscar race...for free! So far I've seen The Savages and No Country For Old Men. Nickel summary: The Savages, with its brilliant cast but quiet story, will get nominations but probably won't win anything, and because of the oddly meandering ending, No Country For Old Men, brilliant though it is, has no chance in hell of winning Editing. (By the way, I don't know why no one talks about the ending for No Country For Old Men as if it contains any spoilers at all. I was afraid it would be some sort of "And then it was all a dream, the narrator's been dead the whole time, and his girlfriend is really a man!" But it's the simplest of bad endings: it just keeps going long after the action of the story feels complete, and then it stops like an amputation. If you prepare for it, I think you'll like the film better.)

Up next: Away From Her (yay, Sarah Polley!) and There Will Be Blood. Also, I'm happy to report that next up in my Netflix queue is the 1936 film version of In His Steps, which is, as far as I know, the final version of Charles M. Sheldon's Christian classic In His Steps that has entered the culture. So now I think I really can write an article about the history of the fictional attempts to figure out "What would Jesus do?" For those keeping score, the resources I have are as follows:

In His Steps by Charles M. Sheldon (1895)
In His Steps (film) (1936)
What Would Jesus Do? by Glenn Clark (1950)
In His Steps Today by Marti Hefley (1987)

Is there anything I'm missing? I'm looking specifically for books that see themselves as offshoots of Sheldon's original. (In Clark, the grandkids of the original people are involved; in Hefley, the characters are all inspired by reading the book.) So Thomas Girzone's Joshua and other Jesus-today novels of that nature aren't relevant to my study. But if I'm missing anything I really need to know. Help!

By the way, if I had the guts and the wherewithal, I'd love to write a book of my own in this same tradition (only with a satirical bent, showing how impossible it is to live like a 1st-century person), but I know I suck at novels and would probably never finish it. Such a shame, too, because I have the perfect title: WTFWJD?