Saturday, June 30, 2012
Monte Walsh (1970)
Lee Marvin and Jack Palance star in this leisurely character study of two old cowboys facing the end of the Old West. While the entire cast is excellent, both Marvin and Palance are perfect as regular likable guys caught up in circumstances beyond their control. A nice little movie, with some good moments, but needing more energy and better action scenes. The movie often seems so intent on being "low-key" and "realistic" that it forgets to be entertaining. Rating ***
Friday, June 29, 2012
Manny Farber - Evenings-In take
http://evenings-in.blogspot.com/2005/04/manny-farber-film-critic-as-art-hunk.html
But to whom do tracts championing Hawks or the French New Wave sound radical now? Farber and film began to break apart in the post-60's era, and his late reviews sound puzzled by the advent of movies built by men educated on his precepts, but not his scruples. “Taxi Driver”? Farber's late career piece dedicated to this Scorcese/Shrader celebration of murder is ambivalent, appearing very near the end of "Negative Space," dripping palpable discomfort now as he witnesses his criticism's big influence on these guys, an influence as responsible for the bad parts in the flick as the good. Must have been bracing.
At this point in our Nation's cinematic life, Manny retreated from the critic's battle to inform and confront. He claims, believably, the break came when the public started embracing the mythic in earnest. The grand visions being manufactured by the New Hollywood (the old New Hollywood, of Coppola, Lucas, etc.), turned him off—and just when he thought film would break from the strictly small-time commercial, and give us the vast universe of the personal intelligence! Instead it decided to sell tickets, lots of tickets, and in unlocking this route to the mega-commercial with fake venerations of the commonly mythic, or mythically common, Hollywood lost Manny forever. More interesting to the Farb Man at the end were Herzog and Snow and Chantal Akerman (the names become less and less familiar the further we progress toward the end of his critical career, don't they? Wouldn't most "film fanz" of today shout, "Manny, lighten up! It's a story about a killer kabbie! Lean back and enjoy the ride!"). "
Was the problem that Hollywood started succeeding with brutal machines inspired in some perverse way by his own ideals? Or did he just lose interest, or get old? I think he recognized his interests had veered off into a scorched field of commercially useless art films, and he didn't like the idea of becoming irrelevant, "that old kook, that artist, Farber." It was great to play the prophet for a while, and then an apostle—but when nobody converts, you gotta change jobs fast. Becoming yet another irritating academic championing unseen art must not have appealed, so logically he gave up writing his elaborate criticism/poems for an audience so small and refined. He must have missed the bright lights, big city of the earlier days, and ultimately, he couldn’t stand to surrender all traces of populism. The goose was cooked once he saw "the public" wasn't going to follow him into these formalist art films and their aesthetic determinism. The fun for him must have always come in creating these masterpiece meditations with oodles of high art appeal as mere adornments for mass-media popular entertainments—a Marlowe-like detective, bent on discovering the transcendent art in the transient and commercial.
But to whom do tracts championing Hawks or the French New Wave sound radical now? Farber and film began to break apart in the post-60's era, and his late reviews sound puzzled by the advent of movies built by men educated on his precepts, but not his scruples. “Taxi Driver”? Farber's late career piece dedicated to this Scorcese/Shrader celebration of murder is ambivalent, appearing very near the end of "Negative Space," dripping palpable discomfort now as he witnesses his criticism's big influence on these guys, an influence as responsible for the bad parts in the flick as the good. Must have been bracing.
At this point in our Nation's cinematic life, Manny retreated from the critic's battle to inform and confront. He claims, believably, the break came when the public started embracing the mythic in earnest. The grand visions being manufactured by the New Hollywood (the old New Hollywood, of Coppola, Lucas, etc.), turned him off—and just when he thought film would break from the strictly small-time commercial, and give us the vast universe of the personal intelligence! Instead it decided to sell tickets, lots of tickets, and in unlocking this route to the mega-commercial with fake venerations of the commonly mythic, or mythically common, Hollywood lost Manny forever. More interesting to the Farb Man at the end were Herzog and Snow and Chantal Akerman (the names become less and less familiar the further we progress toward the end of his critical career, don't they? Wouldn't most "film fanz" of today shout, "Manny, lighten up! It's a story about a killer kabbie! Lean back and enjoy the ride!"). "
Was the problem that Hollywood started succeeding with brutal machines inspired in some perverse way by his own ideals? Or did he just lose interest, or get old? I think he recognized his interests had veered off into a scorched field of commercially useless art films, and he didn't like the idea of becoming irrelevant, "that old kook, that artist, Farber." It was great to play the prophet for a while, and then an apostle—but when nobody converts, you gotta change jobs fast. Becoming yet another irritating academic championing unseen art must not have appealed, so logically he gave up writing his elaborate criticism/poems for an audience so small and refined. He must have missed the bright lights, big city of the earlier days, and ultimately, he couldn’t stand to surrender all traces of populism. The goose was cooked once he saw "the public" wasn't going to follow him into these formalist art films and their aesthetic determinism. The fun for him must have always come in creating these masterpiece meditations with oodles of high art appeal as mere adornments for mass-media popular entertainments—a Marlowe-like detective, bent on discovering the transcendent art in the transient and commercial.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Rich Man, Poor Man (1976)
Stars: Nick Nolte (Tom), Peter Strauss (Rudy) Susan Blakely (Julie)
Pros: Falconitti character, Nolte, action scenes, supporting actors, Susan Blakely is hot
Cons: Peter Strauss and the Rudy character, too long, mediocre story and writing
Rich Man, Poor Man was as enormous hit on American TV in 1976, leading the Networks to produce other famous min-series such as The Winds of War and nighttime soaps like “Dallas” and Falcon Crest. Nolte is the main reason to see the show. The series comes alive whenever he’s onscreen and he fits his character perfectly. Blakely is effective and sexy - but asked to do too much as her character goes through wild/unrealistic changes of emotion and attitude. Strauss is a disappointment. While his part is dull, he does nothing to improve it, and is charisma-free. The supporting actors are good - especially Smith as the unforgettable villain “Falconitti”. The overrated Asner is adequate as the father.
Based on the Irwin Shaw novel, the story isn’t art but a glorified soap opera. Starting out strong it falters in the last third. The series (and novel) try to make a grand statement about “Post war America” but accomplish nothing more than: "America is corrupt, everything stinks and unracist good guys should move to France."
Summary: Not as good as I remember but still OK. Fast-forward when Strauss appears without Blakely or Nolte. Rating **1/2
Sunday, June 10, 2012
The Help (2011)
Plot: In 1963 Mississippi, a white society girl turns everyone's lives upside down when she interviews the black maids/nannies working for prominent families.
Pros: Acting by Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer. Houses lovely to look at
Cons: Predictable story and characters, Direction, Black characters given too little screen time
A dumb chick flick movie about segregation, black maids, and their white bosses in 1963 Mississippi. While Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer are excellent as the black maids, (if only the movie had been just about them!) the main focus is on the white actresses, especially our heroine "Skeeter" (Emma Stone). Everyone is a predictable caricature; the snobby cold-hearted racist, the pure-at-heart heroine who KNOWS racism is wrong, the over-controlling boyfriend who's put in his place, etc.
Pros: Acting by Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer. Houses lovely to look at
Cons: Predictable story and characters, Direction, Black characters given too little screen time
A dumb chick flick movie about segregation, black maids, and their white bosses in 1963 Mississippi. While Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer are excellent as the black maids, (if only the movie had been just about them!) the main focus is on the white actresses, especially our heroine "Skeeter" (Emma Stone). Everyone is a predictable caricature; the snobby cold-hearted racist, the pure-at-heart heroine who KNOWS racism is wrong, the over-controlling boyfriend who's put in his place, etc.
Another variation on the great boomer morality play where we get to boo the evil white segregationists, cheer the noble (mostly) underdog blacks, and identify with our plucky, white, proto-feminist, liberal heroine. The direction adds to the air of unreality by making 1963 Mississippi so colorful, bright, and clean it seems like Disneyland. Are white liberals ever going to tire of revisiting those great wonderful days of Segregation? I hope so. Of course, I'm not the target audience for the film and only saw it as a favor. Rating **
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Un-American Westerns
Per the New York Review of Books:
"The highly popular Broken Arrow (1950), notable for preaching peaceful coexistence between white settlers and their Apache neighbors, was written by (but not credited to) blacklisted red Albert Maltz; released the same year, The Devil’s Doorway, a less commercially successful but more militant brief on behalf of a mistreated Shoshone cavalryman, was written by Guy Trosper (designated a fellow traveler by the FBI) and, unlike Broken Arrow, praised for its political perspicuity by the Daily Worker, which recognized it as an allegory on the situation of African American veterans.
Addressing another aspect of the American West, two blacklisted Communists Lester Cole and Marguerite Roberts, worked at various times on the script for the long-germinating Viva Zapata!, set during the early-twentieth-century Mexican Revolution and celebrating the radical agrarian reformer Emiliano Zapata—although it was ultimately directed, from John Steinbeck’s screenplay, by a former Communist desperate to avoid the blacklist, Elia Kazan. Kazan strenuously promoted Viva Zapata! as an anti-Communist movie until the late ‘60s when he saw it as having a special significance for “disgruntled and rebellious people” throughout the world—a proto–Spaghetti Western."
"The highly popular Broken Arrow (1950), notable for preaching peaceful coexistence between white settlers and their Apache neighbors, was written by (but not credited to) blacklisted red Albert Maltz; released the same year, The Devil’s Doorway, a less commercially successful but more militant brief on behalf of a mistreated Shoshone cavalryman, was written by Guy Trosper (designated a fellow traveler by the FBI) and, unlike Broken Arrow, praised for its political perspicuity by the Daily Worker, which recognized it as an allegory on the situation of African American veterans.
Addressing another aspect of the American West, two blacklisted Communists Lester Cole and Marguerite Roberts, worked at various times on the script for the long-germinating Viva Zapata!, set during the early-twentieth-century Mexican Revolution and celebrating the radical agrarian reformer Emiliano Zapata—although it was ultimately directed, from John Steinbeck’s screenplay, by a former Communist desperate to avoid the blacklist, Elia Kazan. Kazan strenuously promoted Viva Zapata! as an anti-Communist movie until the late ‘60s when he saw it as having a special significance for “disgruntled and rebellious people” throughout the world—a proto–Spaghetti Western."
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