Profile: Oh, Rita

I've always been fascinated with Rita Hayworth. An amazingly beautiful woman who had a low self esteem. It's one of those things that baffles me. It always fascinates me when beautiful people are self conscious. I think it's a thing that makes most average folks like me scratch their head. Plus, she was married at one point in time to Orson Welles and then Prince Aly Kahn. That's just nuts!

So, I was watching Affair in Trinidad (1952) earlier and was still blown away at her incredible beauty. The film itself is mediocre. It is called a rehash of Gilda (1946), but I also see quite a bit of Hitchcock's Notorious (1946) running through its veins.

Too much yacking. I just wanted to run some photos of this beautiful woman.





















She used to say, "Men fell in love with Gilda, but they wake up with me." It's funny, sad and shows that there was a very complex woman all in one small statement. She does not fail to continue to impress.

24 Frames: Nazi Chic

It appears that the Nazi is the flavor of the month. Not that it is box office gold, but there seems to be a trend towards utilizing the superior race in recent months. It seems our goose stepping haters are becoming even more overexposed than zombies, which is tough to do.

First the Obvious:

Valkyrie: A flick that hosts a bevy of der Führer's boys traipsing around secretly to try and kill the boss. Tom Cruise stretches himself by wearing an eye-patch.

The Reader: Ralph Fiennes discovers that when he was a fifteen year old boy sleeping with Kate Winslet, that she was actually a Nazi. Personally, I don't care if Kate Winslet is a top Al Qaeda agent. If I get the chance, I'm sleeping with her.

Defiance: Jews strike back in this true story about three Jewish brothers who build tree forts in the forest and protect the tribe from Nazis and Russians. This is a pretty unremarkable film with lots of talent.

Lesser Known:

Good: Viggo Mortensen twiddles his thumbs and may have to betray a Jewish friend when he is cajoled into joining the party. Viggo actually looks pretty good in the uniform. Gulp!

Adam Resurrected: Jeff Goldblum gives a tour de force performance as he degrades himself to survive the concentration camps by becoming Commandant Willem Dafoe's pet. Dafoe could actually pull off the toothbrush mustache had he chosen to.

The Boy In The Striped Pajamas: Two boys on opposite sides befriend each other and party members say they had no idea what the camps were for. David Thewlis plays Nazi daddy.

WTF!

The Spirit: For no reason what-so-ever, there is a scene with Sam Jackson dressed like a nazi. We unfortunately do not get a line of dialog declaring, " I have had it with these mutha fuckin' Jews on this mutha fuckin' plane." Then again he might, anyone who saw the film can tell me. If anyone saw the film.


The future is holding even more Nazi's for us. Quentin Tarantino will be shooting at them with his Inglorious Basterds and there is a Nazi Zombie called Dead Snow coming from Norway. A movie I couldn't care less about... Unless Kate Winslet is cast in it.

The Eclectic Choice: Island Of Death

Island Of Death (1975)
dir. Nico Mastorakis

I'm not recommending this movie, so watcher beware. That being said, this is an exploitation movie that is out of its mind. This is one of those movies that makes you wonder, "What the hell were they thinking when they wrote it? What the hell were they thinking when they shot it? What the hell is this?"

A husband and wife go to a small Greek island. They are religious wackos and kill start knocking of people that they deem impure. They also take photos while committing these crimes because they get off on it. The movie contains bestiality, golden showers, incest, racial slurs, and all sorts of hate crimes. Oh and all of the things I just listed are committed by out married couple. The acting is horrendous and the film lasts about half an hour too long, but it's not valueless. There is some nice compositions and some fun moments if you are into exploitation movies. If not then stay away.

I wouldn't buy it, but I would be curious to have a conversation with the person who does.

Review: Frost/Nixon

Frost/Nixon (2008)
starring: Michael Sheen, Frank Langella, Sam Rockwell, Oliver Platt, Patrick McFayden, Rebecca Hall
dir. Ron Howard


Full disclosure: I am not a big fan of the films of Ron Howard. I feel like his movies are milquetoast and even though he specializes in classical Hollywood storytelling, they still lack any real energy and come off very flat. I do think he is a genuinely good person and the fact that I don't like him as a director bothers me a little. That is the truth. End disclosure.

Frost/Nixon is a decent little movie. It is not due to anything Howard does for the film, as a matter of fact I think he's a detriment to it. The movie is basically held together by the two lead actors who give solid performances. Part of this is due to the fact they've been playing them for so long. Frank Langella as Richard Nixon and Michael Sheen as David Frost orginated the roles in Peter Morgan's play of the same name and it shows. The ease in which they inhabit these characters in palpable. Langella especially as he portrays Nixon as a human bein and not the characture that we've come to recognize as Nixon. I would say it's the best portrayl of Nixon yet, But I still stand behind Philip Baker Hall's Nixon in Secret Honor (1984) as the best. I don't think it's any coincidence that both of these Nixons originated on stage.

Not having seen the play, I can't say how important the secondary roles are. In the movie they become throwaways that use good actors to little effect. Oliver Platt, Sam Rockwell and Patrick McFayden are the guys who help prep Frost for the bout and there isn't much for them to do other than look disappointed or victorious as the interviews are being taped. At least they are given lines. Other than Kevin Bacon who plays Nixon's confidant, all of the actors playing Nixon's team basically sit on a couch and make a variety of facial expressions during the interviews.

A point is brought up late in the film about how television is a real game changer when it comes to seeing what someone is thinking. A brief closeup at the right time can tell you more than any well tuned speech or verbose diatribe. It would have been nice if they could have shown rather then tell this. If it's a movie about tv, then find a way to visually make these points rather than have a disembodied voice tell us. It's kind of a let down considering how much time Howard spent in television and how that knowledge could have been used to really tell us something about the power of television.

In the end it's the lead performances that make the film. I really don't even feel comfortable using the word 'film' since it is so obviously a play trying to break out of it's constraints and become something much bigger. There are reasons why some stories work better on a stage and some work better on a screen. This is a story that could have really been something on the screen, but in the end makes me wish I'd had an opportunity to see this on the stage.

6.7 out of 10

Review: Waltz With Bashir

Waltz With Bashir (2008)
starring: Animated
dir. Ari Foleman

This is a really good movie that is just a pinch away from being a great movie. The pinch needed was a little bit of context. I'm not young, but I'm not a dinosaur either. I was 10 years old when the war in Lebanon was taking place. I was more interested in playing Star Wars, very few discussions about war atrocities on the playground unless you were a massacred jawa. So it took some time for me to understand the situation that was being presented to me in Waltz With Bashir. This was about more than a war is hell scenario. This was a story about guilt so deep that it decides to hide and suppress the memories that go along with it.

The film ceters around filmmaker Ari Foleman and his time spent in the Israeli Army during the war in Lebanon. He has forgotten all of his memories about the war, more specifically the Sabra and Shatila massacre, except for a single image which may or may not be a real memory. He follows that image and visits old friends who were in the war to solve this mystery of what happened there. It's the human story that kept me engaged and I was curious as to what the truth behind the memory loss would be. Oh and the whole thing is delivered as an animated story.

The animation works, for the most part. I thought the visual execution of war scenes and emotional space that the characters inhabit were engrossing and made the most of the decision to use animation. It was the smaller scenes of characters sitting across from each other talking that gave me pause. I'd notice movements that brought me out of it. Heads nodding or wrists bobbing like I was watching paper dolls and not human beings. A bit of an issue when these scenes are the key in building a struggle taking place inside our protagonist.

In the end it is a very satisfying film that brings up an interesting point of view about how we as individuals deal with guilt through memory. For a while I had pondered that trying to piece the history together might have something to do with the fractured memory of the narrator. Then I decided that it was about personal memories and not historical, so I tossed it out the window. In Foleman's native Israel, these are events that are part of their history, so the set up is well known. For a person totally lacking in the knowledge of this history, I needed a little set up. It is totally a fault of mine and nt the films, but unlike my recent viewing of Gomorra (2008), this time lack of knowledge did interfere with my viewing.

7.5 out of 10

(it would have been 8.5 if I wasn't such a dolt with world history)

Review: Revolutionary Road

Revolutionary Road (2008)
starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Kathy Bates, Michael Shannon, David Harbour, Kathryn Hahn
dir. Sam Mendes


I once had really high hopes for Sam Mendes. American Beauty (1999) has been maligned over recent years and I don't think it is entirely fair. It has problems, but it is also a bristling narrative that has ideas and themes about the roles we are suppose to play in society and how playing those roles can be extremely destructive to the human soul. With the help of Alan Ball's script, it took those ideas and made them quirky and bizarre and overall an emotionally charged experience.

Since then, Mendes seems to have spun down. His narratives have become extremely straightforward and the themes seem to ride along the surface and slap us across the face. Maybe it's the theater director in him, you have to make sure the people in the cheap seats know what's going on.

Revolutionary Road is another example of what happens if you can't live life the way you want to. It's set in the repressed fifties and plays out like a Douglas Sirk film missing all of the subtext. It's a solid drama, but doesn't really carry any emotional punch due to its lack of subtlety. Yes, we get it, DiCaprio is stifled by his lifestyle but can't move past it. Yes, Winslet is an incredibly liberated woman who knows that happiness doesn't depend on the house looking perfect or the roast being prepared properly. Oh, in case we don't get it, they send in Michael Shannon as a "crazy" guy to reiterate.

Shannon is quite good , by the way, for what he's given, as is most of the supporting cast. Winslet shows she's still a class act actress, if there has ever been any doubt. I have problems with DiCaprio at times. He's an odd duck to me because sometimes I feel like he totally inhabits the character and sometimes he plays it like , "This is how an actor acts!" I don't feel that way just about this film, but large portions of his work. I think he should stay away from period pieces in general, it's where he seems weakest, but that's just me.

Part of me wonders if I would have appreciated this film better if the TV show Mad Men didn't exist. It covers a lot of the same themes but keeps them realistic and under the surface instead of blurting it with melodramatic gusto. It gets under the skin instead of molesting you like Revolutionary Road tends to. Did I mind it? No. Will I watch it again? No, but it's a pretty dry season and for some of the energy that is Kate Winslet, it's worth checking out a matinee. Just be prepared for feeling down the rest of the day.

6.8 out of 10

On The Boulevard: Samuel Z. Arkoff

You know those stereotypes of cigar chomping movie moguls? Well, that's Sam Arkoff.

Arkoff was originally a lawyer and a shark at that. He decided to get into the movie biz and teamed up with James H. Nicholson and a very young gent by the name of Roger Corman. For those who don't know who Roger Corman is, he's the guy who helped turn b-grade movies into an empire and through that launched some of the greatest talent working in movies today. Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, John Sayles, Ron Howard are just a few of the heavy hitters. But this story is about Arkoff.

Arkoff and Corman formed what would become American International Pictures (AIP) and off to the races they went. They'd start off with some very successful adaptations of Edgar Allen Poe's works then move into helping define the beach party film and motorcycle gang extravaganza. Arkoff was one of the kings of exploitation and produced over 125 movies in his life, 18 with Corman. The company would fold in the early eighties, but Arkoff has helped leave a mark in low budget cinematic history.

Arkoff believed his success was due to what he humbly coined, "The Arkoff Formula". It defined what makes a sucessful low budget movie.

Here's the recipe:

1. Action (exciting, entertaining drama)
2. Revolution (novel or controversial themes and ideas)
3. Killing (a modicum of violence)
4. Oratory (notable dialogue and speeches)
5. Fantasy (acted-out fantasies common to the audience)
6. Fornication (sex appeal, for young adults)

With that kind of mind, how could you not have a star?