Out of Focus

Shadows, Lies, and Private Eyes – The Film Noir Collection, Vol. 1 is a five DVD set of some of the best and most-important films noir. I’m personally excited by the “Vol. 1” in the title since that indicates future similar collections. This set includes new transfers and commentaries on each film, and the selection of titles includes wonderful choices, especially for those people who might not be familiar with this intoxicating style of American filmmaking from the 40s and 50s.

The highlight is obviously Out of the Past, a film many consider the definitive example of film noir. (Personally, my vote goes to the earlier Double Indemnity, but that may just be my Billy Wilder bias showing.) Jacques Tourneur‘s film (which I was lucky enough to see on the big screen at the Walter Reade a year or so ago during a series honoring the director) only gets better with age and includes some of the best performances ever given by both Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas — and that’s saying something — along with Jane Greer in a role which helped define the notion of the classic femme fatale. There’s no Hollywood ending here, but a more exhilirating and exciting film is hard to find.

The set also includes Murder, My Sweet, a fantastic adaptation, although it takes some liberties, of Raymond Chandler’s classic novel “Farewell, My Lovely,” a benchmark in the evolution of detective fiction. Most people recognize the character of Philip Marlowe from Humphrey Bogart’s performance in The Big Sleep. Dick Powell was definitely no Bogie, but his Marlowe includes a different sort of complexity that Bogart’s lacks. Powell was mostly known for song-and-dance films before Murder, My Sweet, and his physical appearance is certainly far less ragged and tough-guy than Bogart’s. But it works, and throw in Claire Trevor as the wicked Helen Grayle, and you’ve got a highly entertaining 1940s detective thriller.

The set also includes three other seminal noirs. I’ve actually never seen Gun-Crazy a/k/a Deadly Is the Female, but I’ve repeatedly heard it called one of the lesser known gems of the noir period. It fits into a segment of noir films that were more akin to B-Movies, but no less important. It doesn’t include any big-name stars, and its director Joseph H. Lewis often made more than one film a year (meaning quickly and cheaply), but if you’re a noir fan like me, you should be itching to see it. The Asphalt Jungle, on the other hand, is a famous crime drama from a great director, John Huston. I’ve never loved this movie — it just didn’t grab me in the same way as so many others from the period — but it’s definitely worth seeing if only to realize the influence it had on future heist films such as Jules Dassin‘s great Riffifi or, one of my favorites, Jean-Pierre Melville‘s fantastic Le Cercle Rouge featuring its noted robbery sequence which goes on for well-over 20 minutes … without sound. And finally, also included is The Set-Up, Robert Wise‘s treatment of an over-the-hill boxer who won’t give-up even when even when everyone else has lost faith in him. Until Raging Bull, The Set-Up was quite possibly the best boxing film ever with a powerful lead performance by Robert Ryan.

These five DVDs present an interesting example of the range of films to which the “film noir” mantle is often applied. They were released yesterday. I’m ordering my set right now.

I was unable to write about Marlon Brando this weekend. The last time I logged on to a computer was when I read the news about his passing. It’s sad that in recent years, Brando had become more of a caricature due to his physicality and reported eccentricities. For years it has been easier for people to mock Brando than to celebrate him. And even with all the obits and appreciations written about him everywhere this weekend, the cry of “Stella,” or the nasally “I coulda been a contenda” will remain permanent fodder for stand-up comics.

Everyone has said this already, but I’m just throwing in my vote as well. Whether or not Brando was the best actor of the 20th century, he was absolutely the most important. His performance as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire is the perfect combination of material and performance. That cry of “Stella” has become iconic not because of how funny he sounded but because of Brando’s ability to use one word in one moment to express the entire range of an incredibly complex character. Sure we have to thank possibly the greatest American playwright of the 20th Century for creating the world and characters of Streetcar, but Brando’s performance created something that every actor who has attempted Stanley since can only hope to emulate. Before Streetcar and Brando, tough guys did not emote. They were heroes or villains. They were determined, angry, always on-guard. They were rarely animalistic and brutish, yet somehow sensitive. And they were most certainly not utterly dependent on their women for things other than cooking and cleaning. Jimmy Stewart and Spencer Tracy were brilliant actors, everymen who could play almost every man … but they were not Brando, and they did not have the influence on every actor who has since stepped onto a stage or in front of a camera — whether they buy into “the Method” or not — that Brando has had.

My favorite Brando performance and movie, just barely nudging ahead of Streetcar, is Terry Molloy in On the Waterfront (and shame on you Karen for never having seen this movie — screw Netflix, head to Blockbuster, or better yet, TCM will show the movie this coming Saturday at 8 PM). No, that’s not some obscure title or character — everyone mentions it as one of the greats. But there’s a reason. The highlighted “User Comment” on the IMDb page starts with “Not the most compelling film ever….” Bullshit. On the Waterfront is absolutely one of the most interesting and gripping movies I’ve ever seen from start-to-finish. Brando alone is enough to make the film watchable. Karl Malden, Eva Marie Saint and especially Lee J. Cobb add performances that turn this film into a master’s class in film acting. It’s not a complex story, yet it’s filled with complexities. And Elia Kazan’s direction is spot-on perfect. Quite simply, On the Waterfront is one of the best American movies ever made that manages to be a timeless story even though it is very much rooted in its specific era.

Few actors have as many iconic characters as Brando. Even those that may not be remembered with the reverence of a Stanley, Terry, Don Vito Corleone from The Godfather or Colonel Kurtz from Apocalypse Now are memorable and important. For better or worse, no one would or could play Marc Antony in Julius Caesar or Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls like Brando. His portrayal of Val in Sidney Lumet‘s The Fugitive Kind opposite a very young Joanne Woodward and the great Anna Magnani approaching the twilight of her career is one of the few magnificent elements in this unfortunate adaptation of one of Tennessee Williams more underrated plays, Orpheus Descending. Even as Jor-El in Superman or satirizing himself as Carmine in The Freshman, Brando brought an honesty to every character that few actors since have been able to accomplish.

Brando will be missed, even though he hasn’t been that prolific in recent years and the mystery of his personality and reclusiveness became bigger news than his abilities. Thankfully, we will always have his films to watch and rewatch; we will always have the gift he gave us to take a peek into some of the darkest places of the human soul and see that part that may be inside all of us which we hope to never let out.

As usual, it took Turner Classic Movies all of about 15 minutes on Friday to revamp a day of their schedule to honor Brando. Unfortunately, it looks as if TCM must be missing the majority of great Brando films from its library, otherwise, I’m not 100% sure why they selected the five films they have. Nevertheless, as I mentioned earlier, TCM will broadcast On the Waterfront this Saturday 7/10 at 8 PM (Eastern) to kick off its tribute. The schedule that follows includes another major Brando performance in The Wild One, Superman: The Movie, The Teahouse of August Moon, and Julius Caesar.

I was in the mountains of North Carolina this holiday weekend with my girlfriend and a few members of her family. Her sister really wanted to see Fahrenheit 9/11, and because she has a 6 month old baby, figured this would be her only chance to see it — she could leave the kid with her parents. Thanks to the distribution triad expanding the film’s release to twice as many theaters, that meant that even the Regal Cinemas in Boone, NC was showing Michael Moore’s film. And inside that theater, at 2:30 PM on Sunday, July 4, a crowd of about 200 people (my estimate of number of seats in the just-about-full theater) decided to spend their Independence Days watching what plenty of their neighbors in this “red state” probably call the most unpatriotic of films.

Yeah, I saw it again. It wasn’t exactly by choice; but there wasn’t anything else at this theater I hadn’t seen, and I thought it might be interesting to watch the film with an audience that most likely was fairly different from the one with which I saw the movie at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas on the Upper West Side.

But it wasn’t. Not really. That was evident from the very beginning when Wolfowitz and his comb received gut-busting guffaws. Of course, it’s easy to split this country into red and blue states politically while forgetting that in every state there is a minority — and often a large one — that disagrees with the color. Take North Carolina for example. Bush handily won the state with over 56% of the vote. But there was still 43% that went to Gore. In popular vote tally, it was the difference between 1,631,163 for Bush and 1,257,692 for Gore. (Figures from InfoPlease.) So finding a couple hundred people out of that 373,471 difference might not be all that difficult.

I did notice a couple things in this second viewing, however, that I either forgot to mention before — yes it is possible — or I hadn’t noticed. For example, one of my favorite moments in the entire movie is Moore’s treatment of Bush’s now infamous landing on an aircraft carrier to announce that “major combat operations” in Iraq were over with that “Mission Accomplished” banner hanging off the control tower in the background. I wonder if using the song “Believe It or Not” was too obscure a reference for some people, especially those more recently of voting age who were not watching William Katt’s uncoordinated, bumbling attempts at flying (and falling) in the silly but fun The Greatest American Hero. If you were like me, who at 10 years old watched that show religiously, hearing the theme song instantly changed Bush’s flight suit to the red alien suit worn by our hero and made that entire prefab celebration even more ridiculous (especially in hindsight) than it already was.

Particularly striking to me during this second viewing was how much more powerful Moore’s beginning of the movie really is; even more so than I had believed before. Moore had received a lot of criticism over not showing the planes hitting the Twin Towers, instead just playing the sound over a black screen. Critics of the film claimed that Moore didn’t want his audience to actually see the images because it would remind them of the horror of the event and therefore rile up their patriotism and bloodlust and, obviously, support for the Iraq war. Of course, this is total bullshit. As I mentioned in my previous post, the sound and black screen produces a much more dramatic and powerful moment than actually seeing the pictures again could have ever done. I also said that the black screen lasted for a few minutes as did the montage of Manhattan onlookers crying and screaming … and looking up.

Wow, was I wrong about the timing. The black screen: 30 seconds. Maybe a full minute. The post-crash montage: the same 30 seconds to a minute. But the moments are so powerful and moving — at least they were to me. They brought back a flood of memories: where I was, what was I doing, what was I thinking? Utter disbelief; originally thoughts of “How will they fix that?” to my later nightmares of imagining what it must have been like to sit in a window office and see this enormous plane coming right at you — someone had that terrible experience; what was he or she thinking? No wonder it seems like Moore is leaving you there forever — that day and the ones that followed less than three years ago can still be fully experienced with the slightest trigger, and Moore presents that catalyst masterfully.

Part of me wants to be done talking about this movie, and most likely, I won’t dwell on it too much further in this space. But I’m still waiting for anyone to contradict the majority of the facts and evidence presented by Moore in the film. I really want to read these arguments. Not the ones that say even with these connections, Bush has shown no favoritism to the Saudi government, or that simply complain about editing, because ultimately on some level, all of that is unimportant. It boils down to the issue of judgment and opening oneself up to the perception of impropriety. Everything in politics is based on perception. Why would we want a president who has produced enough evidence on film or tape to allow someone like Michael Moore to edit it all together into such a convincing argument against him and his actions?

Outside the theater in Boone, an older couple had a table set-up with signs asking everyone to register to vote. Were any members of this audience in a position to change their minds, people who could help turn North Carolina (the home state of the new Democratic Vice Presidential candidate, Senator John Edwards — way to go New York Post!) from red to blue? Let’s hope …

Hey kids. Yours truly is going to be gone the next few days (until Monday night, to be exact), and since I seem to be traveling to the mountains of North Carolina where one is supposed to relax and get back to nature, I have no idea whether there will be any internet access. (I’m trying to deal … it’s hard.) But in my continued quest to make TCM the most watched cable network, I thought it was my duty to inform you that this Friday night the world’s best movie channel will air one of the world’s all-time best movies.

Actually, they happen to be showing The Wizard of Oz too — the theme of the night is shoes, believe it or not — but never mind that. You’ve seen Dorothy and Toto dozens of times. Far more important is at 11 PM Eastern (8 Pacific), TCM will show Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger‘s stunningly brilliant and beautiful 1948 adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, The Red Shoes. Simply put, this film is absolutely one of the best movies ever made, and should easily fit into almost anyone’s top 10. Pairing the film with The Wizard of Oz, as I’m sure it must have been before, is pure genius. The title shoes in this film and what happens to the heroine who wears them is a very different experience from Dorothy and her Ruby slippers. The Red Shoes is in some ways a Star Is Born tale; in this case, a young ballerina has to decide between being faithful to her the impresario who is helping her become a star and the young composer with whom she has fallen in love. The film’s climax during which the ballerina dances the ballet of “The Red Shoes” is one of the most mesmerizing and beautiful sequences committed to celluloid. There are only a handful of films I can think that I would recommend more highly than The Red Shoes. If you’ve never seen it, watch it or record it on TCM on Friday. If you don’t get TCM, rent it. Netflix has it, and as befits such a brilliant film, the DVD is a terrific Criterion release.

This is actually an interesting month on TCM, especially starting Monday 7/5 when they will broadcast a week called Sudden Endings”: the films of “stars who died before their time.” Creatively (or morbidly) enough, each night features stars who died a certain way. For example, the whole thing kicks off on 7/5 at 8 PM with Giant, the last film starring James Dean. That evening features stars who died in “Tragic Crashes,” like the great Carole Lombard. One Tuesday 7/6, the films feature actors who died due to “Unusual Circumstances,” including Marilyn Monroe’s last, The Misfits. And on Thursday, as part of night one of “Natural Causes,” they’re showing one of Steve McQueen’s best performances in The Cincinatti Kid.

Anyway, that’s it for me until next week probably. If I have the opportunity, I will be posting my reactions to Spider-Man 2 — probably the best super-hero/action film I’ve ever seen; and what I’m sure you’ve all been waiting for, my review of The Brown Bunny. Yes, folks, I caught a screening of Vincent Gallo’s latest on Tuesday night, in what is apparently the final theatrical release form. (It will be coming to theaters in NY and LA at the end of August.) And in case you were worried, the blow job is still in the film, so you will all have the chance to laugh at Chlo&#235 Sevigny while you suppress the vomit induced by seeing Gallo’s penis … at full staff.

See … you have something to look forward to! If I’m not back here before then, Happy 4th! And if you can’t figure out a way to celebrate this great country’s independence day, go take in a movie. This one would be especially appropriate.

Sit back, grab a beer/cocktail/coffee/soda/juice/water, put your feet up and relax. We’re going to be here for a while. I’ve gone back and forth about my reaction to Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 and exactly what I have to say. I hope you’ll bear with me, and I encourage everyone’s thoughts and comments, as long as they are actually thoughts and not simple rhetoric such as “Michael Moore is a liar.” As I mentioned in my post late last night, I wanted to approach the film as just that – a film. Not a polemic; not an op-ed piece; not a investigative journalism – just a documentary film, which does not mean that it needs to be balanced.

Well, that couldn’t happen. September 11, 2001 is still fresh in all our memories; the war in Iraq is ongoing, regardless of any turnovers of sovereignty — whatever that means considering that nearly 140,000 American troops are still there; and the myriad of issues addressed in this film, whether one agrees with Moore’s take on them or not, are at the forefront of everything we as American citizens – and more importantly voters, because history proves that while all the latter must be the former, the opposite is hardly true – need to investigate and contemplate between now and November 2, 2004.

Still, I want to try to address the filmmaking, because the technique and artistry utilized by Moore is brilliant. I’m sorry to say I completely disagree with Filmbrain’s assessment in which he says “Moore hasn’t created an aesthetic around his message.” Of course he has. His very ability to manipulate the laughs and tears from the audience comes from this aesthetic. Deliberately juxtaposing Bush-isms with contrary images or recreating the opening credits of Bonanza while replacing Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, Pernell Roberts and Dan Blocker with Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney and British Prime Minister Tony Blair is most definitely creating an aesthetic and not just a montage. His hysterical presentation of selected members of the “Coalition of the Willing” does the same thing

But so what? That’s what filmmakers do. All filmmakers, I would argue. And in fact, all filmmakers with a point to get across propagandize, whether they are documenatarians or fictional storytellers. The word “propaganda” carries a negative connotation these days due to how propaganda has often been used but that is not really a part of its definition. According to Merriam-Webster, “propaganda” carries the following three definitions:

Continue reading “FAHRENHEIT 9/11: THE TEMPERATURE AS I SEE IT”

I just got home from the 10:05 PM show of Fahrenheit 9/11 at the Lincoln Plaza. I started writing a full critique in the form of a long post and then I just realized that along with being very tired, I need to let things settle a bit more. The post I started to write … I scrapped it (something I never do), and I’ll try again tomorrow.

But as a preface, I just wanted to note that I went into the film wanting very badly to separate the movie from the politics. It is something that I generally believe I am able to do, as I hope I managed to at least some degree in my discussion of The Passion of the Christ. But I found it nearly impossible to approach Fahrenheit 9/11 in a similar manner. Michael Moore’s abilities and talents as a filmmaker are exactly the things that manipulate the audience enough to be emotionally moved by this film and therefore open up to its politics. I make no secret of my own liberal tendencies, but I also consider myself closer to the center than Moore, and I’ve been in plenty of political arguments discussions with people pointed far further left than myself. And while I left the theater agreeing with at least 90% of Moore’s argument, there are also several moments in this film that I think unfairly manipulate the audience in a direction that it doesn’t need to go; moments that are pure Bush-bashing for reasons unnecessary to the arguments and discussion at hand, but will make the audience laugh.

Anyway, I’ll get back to this tomorrow when I can discuss it more coherently. Meanwhile, I also want to preface whatever I write tomorrow with one other point: aside from the David Denby review in The New Yorker, I actually stayed away from reading any criticisms either by the paid critics or by people who actually know what they’re talking about when it comes to film criticism, such as fellow bloggers Filmbrain and Karen Cinecultist (except when it comes to Buffalo ’66 of course, in which case they’re just wrong!). I did hear plenty of commentary on the radio and TV news about the film, and if anything shocked me about the movie, it was realizing how much there was in the movie that I hadn’t heard discussed; that has gone unmentioned and more importantly not refuted.

OK … time for sleep.

Hard-hitting news-magazine Access Hollywood sent out a media alert today in order to notify the press, and therefore the world, of the show’s big-time exclusive. It seems that the usually Salinger-esque John Stamos agreed to an interview that will air tonight. For the first time, Stamos answers the two questions over which we’ve all lost sleep: How did the greatest love this world had ever seen fail? And what does Uncle Jesse think about poor MK Olsen’s recent trip to rehab due to her never gaining a pound since her halcyon days as half of baby Michelle Tanner?

Certainly, in order to keep-up the suspense, the press release offers only glimpses at Stamos gripping and emotional response. He claims he and his ex-wife Rebecca Romijn-Stamos are having a hard time being separated, but apparently, “we just needed some time apart.” I think the rest of us can understand that feeling. At least, it’s all very amicable and emotional: “We talked yesterday and we were both crying on the phone.”

As for Mary-Kate, Stamos lends some particular insight that in no way diminishes the seriousness of eating disorders or those who have them: “I just wish her well and I know Ashley is there with her and I think she is going to be just fine. If that is the worst thing that can happen to them, they are still ahead of the game.” I suppose when 18-year-old twins can afford large neighboring West Village lofts, a little thing like anorexia really isn’t that big a deal.

This picture comes from theater marquee advertising that the theater will not enforce the R-rating on Fahrenheit 9/11 is from Michael Moore’s website. I’m sure you won’t see any major chains doing anything similar (at least not officially), but it is a good reminder that the MPAA’s ratings are not legally binding, and basically theater owners have the right to enforce the ratings as they wish.

Fahrenheit 9/11 came in first after all, pulling in nearly $22-Million at the box office, according to early estimates. That’s more money in one weekend than Michael Moore’s last film, the Oscar-winning Bowling for Columbine pulled-in throughout its entire theatrical run, and until this weekend, Columbine was the top-grossing documentary in history.

I was sure that White Chicks would be this weekend’s BO champ simply because of being in three times as many theaters. The Wayans’ Bros. comedy came in second with a perfectly respectable $19.6-Million and a per screen average of just over $7,000. Fahrenheit, meanwhile, averaged over $25K per its 860+ screens, which puts it in the same company as major blockbuster openings. (By comparison, Dodgeball‘s $30-Million in almost 2700 theaters worked out to $18,000 per; Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban made $93-Million its first weekend in 3855 theaters for a nearly $32K average; and when The Passion of the Christ opened with nearly $90-Million in ticket sales in over 3,000 theaters, it’s average was around $27,000 per. Considering that many of Fahrenheit‘s screens were likely smaller art-house theaters – such as New York’s Lincoln Plaza Cinemas – that’s not bad company.) With Fahrenheit apparently selling-out everywhere through the weekend, it would be interesting to know what an even wider release might have meant. Did the distributors just nail the prefect number to equal demand, or had they been able to book the film on another 1000 screens, would we be looking at a $40-Million opening? That question will always remain unanswered, but we might get a little insight after the film finishes it’s first full week and second weekend in theaters. It is encouraging, however, that it seems like theaters nationwide did well with the film, as opposed to playing full in NY, Chicago, LA, San Francisco and empty everywhere else. But will it draw audiences who don’t already believe everything Moore is preaching? Only time will tell.

And just to finish up the line of “Aaron was wrong this weekend,” neither Dodgeball nor The Terminal had terribly huge drop-offs, and in fact, the apparently mild 27% fall for Spielberg’s film could indicate the movie has some legs. Of course, considering that it’s a bad movie, it distresses me that it’s obviously generating some positive word of mouth, but then again, at this rate, with only $40-Million after two weeks, it’s going to have a tough time getting to $100-Million with the competition becoming much tougher in July, and for a Spielberg-Hanks collaboration, that might as well be a flop.

Thank you to Gothamist for reminding me that the Bruno Ganz series starts this weekend at the Walter Reade at Lincoln Center. If you ever suffered through the blech City of Angels with Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan, please do yourself an enormous favor and rush over to the Walter Reade either this evening at 6:15, tomorrow at 4, Sunday at 8:15 or Monday at 3:15 to catch Wim Wenders’ masterpiece Wings of Desire. This is a brilliant, brilliant, BRILLIANT movie that should not be missed. I remember in 1990 when the critics polls about the best movies of the ’80s were released, and Wings of Desire was called the second best film of the decade, following only Raging Bull. I hadn’t seen the film at that point, but I did shortly thereafter and fell in love with it. It’s a beautifully lyrical film, an embracing examination of life and love, isolation and loneliness. Taking place in a Berlin that still had its Wall (which almost plays its own character in the film), seeing it now may have a slightly different impact in our post-Cold War world, but that doesn’t negate from the power and beauty of the overall experience. Seriously … go see it, on a big screen, in the great Walter Reade theater. Any film lover won’t be sorry.