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tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64285713525870065642014-03-18T07:39:40.478-04:00Tales of OdieNary MadnessFilm reviews, travelogues and life lessons from the files of The Odienator.odienatorhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-62032272321872689162014-02-11T13:56:00.001-05:002014-02-11T13:56:49.580-05:00One Stop Shopping: Noir City XII Dispatchesby Odienator

For convenience, here's all the Noir City XII dispatches in one location!

Noir City XII #1: A Bitter Little World, Complete With Zithers

Noir City XII #2: A Matinee of Mexican Noir

Noir City XII #3: Greedy Enough To Drive Dan Duryea To Drink

Noir City XII #4: Drunk Doctors and Lost Gats

Noir City XII #5: In Praise of Older Women

Noir City XII #6: The Grisly Death of Innocence

Noir City XII #7: The Last Stop On The Train To Darkness

odienatorhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-40575510361674631692014-02-06T14:54:00.003-05:002014-02-11T13:57:08.103-05:00Noir City XII #7: The Last Stop On The Train To Darknessby Odienator
(for all Noir City XII pieces, go here)

 The Castro Theatre, from its balcony

So here we are at my final dispatch from Noir City XII, a journey interrupted by an incredibly bad Super Bowl and a redeye flight directly into a New York City snowstorm. I missed the final two movies of the festival, but I'd seen them before. The last day focused on Hollywood's interpretation of the Far East, which is as good a place to start as any.

Fred MacMurray is just one of a long list of old movie stars I was introduced to by Disney movies. MacMurray may have been an absent-minded professor for Uncle Walt, but it's Ava Gardner who can't seem to remember anything in 1947's Singapore. Pearl smuggler Mack Gordon (MacMurray) begins the film telling us about Gardner's Linda Grahame, a woman he falls in love with in wartime Singapore. The Japanese invasion cuts their whirlwind courtship short on the eve of their wedding, leaving Gordon injured and Grahame presumed dead.

After the war, Gordon returns to Singapore to sneak a huge payload of stashed pearls past Richard Hadyn's Chief Inspector. While attempting to steal them from his old hotel suite, Gordon runs into Linda Grahame. She doesn't recognize her name or her fiancee--she's got the dreaded amnesia! She's now married to a wealthy plantation owner who took care of her while they were interred in a POW camp during the war.

Memory loss isn't Mack Gordon's only problem beginning with M; he also has to deal with Mauribus, his old shady business partner. Mauribus wants his cut of the pearls, and is willing to send his fabulous henchmen Sacha (George Lloyd) to intimidate and/or smack up Gordon. Sacha is a lot of fun, and he proves that people threw shade as early as 1947. (Watch his reaction when he bitchslaps the incapacitated Gordon).

Though gleefully convoluted, Singapore's ending packs suspense, changes of heart and a sweet bit of happiness that director John Brahm allows to play out in understated fashion. Gardner and MacMurray's chemistry carry the day, with the latter proving yet again how versatile an actor he was. Whether playing a Billy Wilder heel, a comic foil or the father of three sons, MacMurray was always great.

While watching this next feature, I thought of another MacMurray character, Double Indemnity's Walter Neff. On Argentina Noir Night, we find director Hugo Fregonese, whose brief Hollywood career included Joan Fontaine's Decameron Nights. For his native country, Fregonese made Aprenas un Delincuente (Hardly a Criminal), which tells the tale of a bank employee (Jorge Salcado) whose greed leads him to rob his employer. He discovers a way to outsmart the laws with a technicality that will allow him to get away with the money after serving a maximum of 6 years in prison.

Unfortunately, Salcado is way too impatient to wait this sentence out. Flashbacks show how deeply his greed goes (he's one rotten little bastard of a kid), and current-day scenes show him seeething as he thinks his own brother is trying to swindle him. This paranoia leads Salcado to escape prison, leading the police on a wild goose chase that can only end badly.

Fregonese's films, in Hollywood and Argentina, concern themselves with characters trying to escape situations. Like Walter Neff, Hardly a Criminal's anti-hero attempts to use his knowledge of legal loopholes to execute his crime. He and Neff come to the same conclusion: They don't get the money. To quote Neff: Pretty, isn't it?

The French coined the term film noir. Noir City XII said thank you with a Saturday chock full of French movies. The day began with the earliest film in the entire series, 1937's Pepe Le Moko. Pepe Le Moko holds a special place in my Looney Tunes loving heart for two reasons: Its title and its remake starring Charles Boyer provided the inspiration for this guy:

I've got Jean Gabin's name and Charles Boyer's voice...

Marilyn Monroe once sang that "the French are glad to die for love," and the uber-French Jean Gabin is more than happy to prove her right. As Pepe Le Moko, Gabin's suave jewel thief is the most famous cat in the Casbah. He's so cool that the entire Casbah in Algiers has his back. He's so cool that he hangs out with the inspector (Lucas Gridoux) who vows to catch him. They even have a bet on how and when Pepe will get caught. Pepe could easily have the inspector killed, but I sense he delights in outsmarting him.

Though Pepe has a way with the ladies, one of the "fairer sex" leads to his downfall. She's Gaby (Mireille Balin), a Parisian tourist who represents both lust and freedom to Pepe. He drops his gypsy lover Ines (Line Nono), who has been loyal to him since he entered the Casbah, and plans to run off with Gaby.

With all the dialogue about slapping and abuse, the French have some effed up ideas about gender equality in 1937. At least they adhere to that old adage that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. It looks like betrayal, but I found Ines' actions a deserved leveling of the playing field between the sexes.

The tres-French ending would be ridiculous if director Julien Duvivier and Gabin didn't play the ripe melodrama to the hilt. Gabin is so good that you surrender to his pathos. His fate is the true representation of Noir City XII's tagline: "It's a bitter little world...but it's beautiful too."

How many people does it take to kill one dirty old man? Before Quai Des Orfevres ends, you'll hear confessions by a jealous husband, his songbird wife and her loyal best friend, a woman who not only goes into the crime scene to retrieve someone else's fox stole, but who also takes the time to wipe off fingerprints.

We're firmly entrenched in the world of the great Henri-Georges Clouzot, director of the terrifying Les diaboliques and the spectacular The Wages of Fear (which also played here at Noir City XII). In 1947, Clouzot adapted this novel for actress Suzy Delair, who plays Jenny Lamour. Lamour is a performer who, in a bid to go to Hollywood, disregards her husband's concerns and gets flirty with the aformentioned dirty old man. After her plans go murderously awry, Lamour runs to her pal Dora (Simone Renant). Dora, who's apparently far more adept at cover-up than the novice Jenny, risks her freedom to retrieve evidence from the crime scene.

Meanwhile, Inspector Antoine (Louis Jouvet) investigates the murder. He suspects everyone, from Jenny to her hotheaded husband Maurice (Bernard Blier) to Dora. Maurice was last seen threatening to kill the victim, but Dora was last seen taking a cab to the scene of the crime. Clouzot's affection for tenacious, meticulous Inspectors is reflected in Jouvet's fine performance and the title of the film (which is Parisian slang for the police hq). He also gives Jouvet a memorable piece of comedy with that pesky fox stole Dora retrieves from the crime scene, leading to the film's best line.

Quai Des Orfevres also reflects Clouzot's love for screwing with the audience: He gives us so much information that it seems we're ahead of Inspector Antoine, then Clouzot pulls the rug from under us with a flourish of plot twist. This is lighter and funnier than the director's more famous classics, but deserves a place beside them nonetheless.

French Noir Night featured two movies by famous directors. One was an American making a movie in France, the other a Frenchman making a movie in America. The American, Jules Dassin, made Rififi, perhaps the quintessential caper film. Brian De Palma's Mission: Impossible reboot pays homage to it, and many other heists films owe it a debt. I've written about it before, so I'm going to focus on the other film.

It's only appropriate for this Jersey City native to end his Noir City dispatches with a film about Manhattan. I saw it every morning growing up, glistening just across the Hudson River, and I spent almost 20 years working there. Jean-Pierre Melville, director of classics like Bob le Flambeur and Le Samourai, casts himself as a French journalist in Deux Hommes Dans Manhattan (Two Men in Manhattan). He's investigating the disappearance of a French United Nations representative who missed an important vote. Moreau (Melville) knows the rep is a carouser, so he sets out to interview the rep's many mistresses. Perhaps he'll find the missing man with one of them.

Assisting Moreau is his buddy, Pierre (Pierre Grasset), a photographer straight from the trashier days of Confidential and the National Enquirer. Moreau awakens Pierre from the slumber brought on by Pierre's latest conquest (who seems oblvious to Moreau's presence). As the two Frenchmen roam the night in the city that never sleeps, viewers are treated to great black and white footage of the NYC of 1959.

Though shot in America, Two Men in Manhattan never loses its French-ness. There's a wonderful jazz performance (by Glenda Leigh), numerous scenes of macho, masculine behavior, men casting irresistable spells on women, sleek montages of the city streets at night and a suspicious car that shows up so many times that it becomes an intentionally funny running joke: one expects Jerry Lewis to pop out of it at any moment.

Director-screenwriter Melville is clearly in love with his location, and he infuses it with the same kind of idealized, occasionally misguided foreigner's gaze that Sofia Coppola brought to Lost in Translation. He also brings a touch of morality to the proceedings, staring from under Moreau's hooded lids at the sleazy sinner who inhabits Pierre. Melville and Grasset make a fine noir duo, and while their adventure isn't as dark and dangerous as many of the other Noir City features, it kept me riveted to the screen. Seeing my favorite city on the screen was the perfect end to my last Saturday night in Noir City.

See you noir lovers next year, for unlucky Noir City XIII!

I clean up nicely here in Noir City, n'est-ce pas?
odienatorhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-10754812000132610572014-02-02T14:41:00.002-05:002014-02-11T13:57:22.745-05:00Noir City XII #6: The Grisly Death of Innocenceby Odienator
(for all Noir City XII pieces, go here)

Perhaps the biggest score of Noir City XII was 1953's El Vampiro Negro (The Black Vampire), an Argentinean remake of Fritz Lang's M. Brought to Czar of Noir Eddie Muller's attention by film historian Fernando Martín Peña (who also ran the subtitles on several of the films from Argentina), a newly struck, gorgeous 35mm print of El Vampiro Negro received its first American showing at the Castro Theatre. It deserves more widespread attention, and numerous repeat showings. This may be the most harrowing picture I've seen at any of the 6 Noir City festivals I attended.

Starring the "Marilyn Monroe of Argentina," Olga Dubarry, El Vampiro Negro adds a maternal angle to M. Dubarry plays Rita, a performer who endures less than ideal employment circumstances to make enough money to support her daughter. During a dressing room costume change, she sees a man in the shadows dump a child's body into a sewer. This man is a killer on the loose whom the police dub "The Black Vampire." Though Rita's screams are heard by numerous patrons of the nightclub, her colleagues and bosses tell her not to report her eyewitness account to the cops.

The homicide division, led by Dr Bernar (Roberto Escalada), makes it easy to understand Rita's trepidation; Bernar have a tendency to arrest anybody who shows up with information. Bernar's intensity is partially due to his feelings of helplessness at home. His wife suffered a paralysis that left the couple unable to have children. Catching The Black Vampire is a way for him to feel a protective parental instinct. Bernar realizes Rita is hiding something, and his interrogation takes an unsavory turn that imbues his character with a refreshing, sad complexity.

This type of character complexity is woven into El Vampiro Negro by screenwriter-director Román Viñoly Barreto. A scene between Rita and Mrs. Bernar late in the film is a haunting dialogue exchange between Dubarry and Gloria Castilla. Dr. Bernar is trying to take Rita's daughter away because of her nightclub job, and Rita appeals to his wife. Both actresses play on the theme of motherhood and how the loss of a child (and the loss of the ability to conceive) affects women. Barreto makes the interesting choice of leaving us out of the most damning part of the conversation, opting instead to play the aftermath out between the married couple.

A respect for contradictory, human personalities makes El Vampiro Negro so compelling. This respect extends to the child killer, Teodoro, a professor whose lousy luck with women has fueled his murderous tendencies toward little girls. Like Peter Lorre before him, Nathán Pinzón plays the murderer as a man fully conscious of his horrific desires but unable to control them. The sight of blood satiates his passions, and at times he resorts to self-mutilation to keep the demons at bay. But the demons usually win, and when Rita's daughter is taken by Teodoro, the audience is suitably terrified. We've come to know Rita, to like her and even be angry at her withholding her witness testimony earlier, so this development has a sick, karmic energy.

The child-in-peril motif can be a lazy way to generate suspense, but Barreto doesn't go for easy shocks. Teodoro responds to Rita's daughter in an unexpected fashion, which may be even sicker than what the audiences fears.

If you've seen M, you have some idea how El Vampiro Negro ends. A community of the less-fortunate bands together to confront Teodoro, and Pinzón passionate, pitiful declarations are as brilliantly rendered as those of his predecessor, Peter Lorre.

Shot stunningly in black and white by Aníbal González Paz, El Vampiro Negro is the rare remake that's as good, if not better, than its source. Movies like this are the reason one goes to Noir City.

Spain's Noir City contribution to the cinematic slaughter of the innocents is Muerte de un Ciclista (Death of a Cyclist). It begins with the titular event, where adulterous lovers Lucia Bosé and Alberto Closas run over a cyclist on a deserted road. Bosé convinces Closas to leave the victim to die (it's a sadistic touch that we see this development through the victim's eyes). The lovers are soon blackmailed by Carlos Casaravilla, whose Rafa character is the kind of sexually ambigious, vicious wit Clifton Webb would have assayed if this were a Hollywood studio release.

What Rafa has seen (or hasn't) is unclear to Bosé, but this being a noir, the guilty are strangled more by the thought of the noose than the actual rope that creates it. It leads to the pitch black jolt of irony lovers of noir expect, a throwback to the opening scene that reminds us that karma is cyclical. Or in this case, bicyclical.

Sir Richard Attenborough directed Gandhi, but before he helmed that hideously boring, Oscar-winning biopic, he threw salt into viewers' eyes as the lead villian in Graham Greene's Brighton Rock. I include it in this entry not because innocence dies here, but because this was one instance when I wished it had. Somebody needed to shake some reality sense into the innocent character in this movie.

A few entries ago, I talked about the character I referred to as "the incredibly stupid, young girl in love." Brighton Rock has the quintessential version of this, a teenager named Rose (Carol Marsh) who falls madly in love with Attenborough's Pinkie. Contrasting her is the more experienced, jaded Ida (Hermoine Badderly), whose brassy, baudy nature hides a tenacity to protect Pinkie's paramour and expose him as the murderer he is.

Attenborough is fantastic, as is Badderly. But I could never warm to Rose, a girl who is willing to blow her own brains out as the ultimate act of love for a heel. She made me want to pull out my hair, but Greene and his co-writer, playwright Terrence Rattigan, have more sympathy for her than I do. Greene's Catholic sensibilities give Brighton Rock a far more charitable bent toward Rose. Greene's sensibilities also show up for Pinkie--Greene gives him a phone number that ends in 666. These two elements merge in the final scene, where a phonograph record does what all phonograph records eventually do. It starts skipping just when the song was getting good. This is proof that Noir City's black heart occasionally beats red.

Next up: Saying goodbye with France and Hugo Fregonese (who's driving me crazy).
odienatorhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-50038524546373924612014-01-31T19:40:00.003-05:002014-02-11T13:57:30.565-05:00Noir City XII #5: In Praise of Older Womenby Odienator
(for all Noir City XII pieces, go here)

I've always been into older women, and there's a special section of Noir City XII made just for me. The more experienced ladies get their props from the Norwegians, the Argentine, and the British. If only they got their due from the Hollywood of today...

But I digress.

Since today's dispatch is all about the more experienced ladies, I'll begin with the first woman to direct a noir. You may recall Ida Lupino helmed The Hitch-Hiker, but she did so in 1953. Besting her is Norwegian Edith Carlmar, whose 1949 adaptation of Arne Moen's novel, Døden er et kjærtegn (Death is a Caress) made up one half of Noir City's Double Dose of Death night. Those Norwegians have a different take on the genre, though the outcome is no less dark.

For starters, there's nobody for the illicit lovers to off. When Sonja Rentoft (Bjørg Riiser-Larsen) and Erik Hauge (Claus Weise) begin their adulterous affair, Mr. Rentoft could care less. He quickly provides a divorce and runs off to America. Erik's fiancee, Marit (Eva Bergh), is left out in the cold but plans no revenge. And Erik's co-workers at the garage where he and Mrs. Rentoft first meet are all envious and supportive of Erik's adventures. There's no blackmail or secrecy to be found in Norway!

There's also no Hays Code in Norway, so it's blatantly stated that people are screwing their brains out in this picture. Erik has carnal knowledge of Marit despite the fact they're unmarried, and he's perfectly willing to be cougar bait for Sonja Rentoft. Since this is directed by a woman, it is made clear that the female characters are getting theirs too. "The sexual bliss is ecstatic," reads the blurb over at the Noir City website, and that bliss is for both parties. People are also open about affairs and sexual attraction.

Though it has none of the usual noir motives, Death is a Caress sneaks its true noirish intentions into its title. Erik and Sonja's relationship plays out like a normal dramatic relationship, and therein lies the kiss--I mean the caress--of Death. Suspicion abounds. Lovers tire of one another before realizing they're trapped in marriage. It's all the more suspenseful because it lacks the juicy dramatic artifice of pulp, at least until the bloody stabbings and strangulations plummet us straight down to the hellish depths of good noir.

The Brits fit into this dispatch with 1947's It Always Rains on Sunday, an Ealing Studios drama starring Googie Withers as a married woman whose former lover has just escaped from prison. Robert Hamer helms this kitchen-sink drama/slice-of-life noir adapted from Arthur LaBern's novel. The film unfolds like a novel as well, with Withers dealing with her new husband's idiosynracies and his angry daughters while also harboring the escaped convict for whom she may still carry a torch. The daughters have their own subplot, and it's sometimes several minutes before we return to Googie and her fugitive.

But when we do, Ms. Withers' character is in charge of the situation. Though dangerously still in love with her ex, she's unwilling to let him destroy the stable married lifestyle to which she has become accustomed. Withers plays it smart, even when finally succumbing to her baser instincts. I liked how the film shows all corners of its characters' universes rather than treating them as asides in service to the main plot. There's a meandering quality to It Always Rains on Sunday that doesn't take away from its central crime story. Instead, it enriches it.

Perhaps the most entertaining older woman thus far here at Noir City is Aunt Rosa, the blind matriarch in the second half of the 1952 Argentinean film No Abras Nunca Esa Puerta (Never Open That Door). Despite its horror movie title, this is a two-part anthology based on stories by famous noir author Cornell Woolrich. Woolrich is a favorite of Noir City denizens (movies based on his work pop up at the festival every year). Never Open That Door demonstrates why.

The first tale has a Frederick Knott quality to it. A wealthy woman finds herself at the mercy of a blackmailer. When the blackmailer forces her to remove all her funds from the bank, it leads to her suicide. Her brother takes matters into his own hands, working from the first-hand knowledge of how the blackmailer uses the telephone to contact his victim. It leads to a vengeful murder and a darkly comic ending centered on a ringing phone.

The second tale is a bit of a heartbreaker, though in Noir City that's always going to be tempered with the reminder that the audience may be the only ones with hearts to break. Aunt Rosa shows up here, with her helpful niece. Rosa's son, Daniel has disappeared for 8 years, without so much as a note saying if he's OK. Rosa repeatedly hopes and prays for her word from her son, and just like the son in The Monkey's Paw, Daniel returns as a new entity in the same body. Except in Woolrich's world, Daniel's a hardened criminal.

Director Carlos Hugo Christensen uses silence to great effect in this section. Aunt Rosa is blind, but she knows her house and she uses her other senses preternatually. Genuine suspense abounds as Christensen and Woolrich lead this woman into terrifying, dangerous situations as she tries to outsmart her son's gang. The actress who plays Rosa is convincing both as a blind woman and as a mother who realizes that the son she loves and misses so much is now irredeemable.

Aunt Rosa's tale ends on a bittersweet note that thankfully spares her while allowing the audience the full ironic brunt of the outcome. Before that happens, however, we're treated to Aunt Rosa in action. Noir City's audience once again erupted in cheers when Christensen's camera revealed blind Aunt Rosa pointing a gun to protect her homestead. And not for a moment did we think Aunt Rosa would be a bad shot if she had to use that heater. Bad-ass Blind Ladies Who Pack Heat are just another type of character you'll find here in Noir City.

Next up: Cyclists beware, the director of Gandhi turns out to be a ripe bastard, and Hugo Fregonese is driving me crazy.
odienatorhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-30069132642919556702014-01-31T13:46:00.001-05:002014-02-11T13:57:37.996-05:00Noir City XII #4: Drunk Doctors and Lost Gatsby Odienator
(for all Noir City XII pieces, go here)

Long before Hugh Laurie's Dr. House, Noir City was full of self-medicated doctors--and they had better reasons for their addictions. The Castro Theatre bore witness to two such physicians, courtesy of writer-directors Akira Kurosawa and Wolfgang Staudte.

Let's start with Staudte. His film, DIE MÖRDER SIND UNTER UNS (The Murderers Are Among Us) is easily one of the best noirs I've seen. Made just a year after the end of WWII, this German film was financed by the Soviets and made a star of its female lead, Hildegarde Knef. Despite having his darker, more vengeful ending changed, Staudte's movie is a stunning condemnation of Nazi atrocities, made all the more powerful by the timeframe in which it was produced. In addition to its compelling story, Murderers serves as a time capsule of what postwar Germany looked like in 1946, and what services were available to its inhabitants.

Wilhelm Borchert stars as a doctor prone to drinking himself into a stupor before staggering home to the disdain of his neighbors. The war has made Dr. Mertens a barely functioning wreck, but for much of The Murderers Are Among Us, his role is left undisclosed. Staudte shoots him like a ghost walking through the rubble of Berlin en route to a drink or a night club. Even drunk, Mertens somehow manages to find his way back home. This familiarity with his surroundings will come into play later, while he's plotting his revenge.

Disrupting the doctor's routine is the return of Susanne (Knef), a concentration camp survivor who used to occupy the doctor's apartment. Since technically she still has a lease, Mertens is forced to find other arrangements. Susanne offers him half the apartment, much to his chagrin (he'd prefer if she left), but he acquiesces to the living arrangement.

As they share the apartment, Susanne returns to the rituals of daily life. She washes Mertens' clothes and cooks for him. There's comfort in returning to old rituals after her time in the camps. But the doctor, who was in a far better position than Susanne during the war, repels all notions of a return to normalcy. He remains dead inside until Susanne finds a letter given to Mertens by his former war captain. The letter was to be delivered in the event of the captain's death.

Mertens tells Susanne to let sleeping dogs lie, but as he warms to her, he agrees to let her deliver the letter to his late captain's widow. Upon delivery, Susanne discovers that Captain Brueckner is still alive. This development sends Mertens on a downward spiral of revenge. He sets out to kill his former superior officer.

His first attempt is foiled by a great scene where the doctor rediscovers the joy he once felt in his medical calling. But this is a pitch-black noir, so expect that respite to be short-lived.

What Brueckner did, and whether the doctor was complicit, I'll leave for you to discover. When you do, notice how Staudte shoots the scenes of confrontation between Mertens and Brueckner. In the climax, Brueckner is framed in Mertens' shadow as the shadow grows to gargantuan proportion. Other noirs have done something to this effect, but the imagery Staudte composes pushes this scene to the top of the list of great noir moments. After all, noir lives and dies in its shadows.

Akira Kurosawa and his favorite actor, the great Toshiro Mifune, got their own noir night at Noir City. Mifune brought his trademark intensity to both sides of the law in 1949's Stray Dog and 1948's Drunken Angel. The former marked the duo's first collaboration, and the latter finds them already settling into the groove they'd reside in for 16 films.

Drunken Angel casts the equally great Takashi Shimura as the titular character, a doctor whose bedside manner is intense and comically mean. Into his office comes Matsunaga (Mifune), whose yakuza ties are responsible for the bullet in his hand. Dr. Sanada brutally removes the bullet without anaesthesia ("none of that for your type," growls Sanada), but briefly softens after discovering Matsunaga has tuberculosis. When Matsunaga stubbornly refuses to stop boozing and whoring so that he can recover, Dr. Sanada returns to his normal level of screaming and lecturing.

Kurosawa plants one of the great cinematic grumps in a tale of redemption and hope. Using the filthy, polluted swamp stagnating in the middle of town as a symbolic metaphor, Kurosawa tackles the postwar return of organized crime, and how power can be as deadly a disease as tuberculosis.

Sanada constantly threatens Matsunaga, but as the former colleague who sent him to Sanada knows, Sanada is a tenacious pitbull when it comes to trying to save his patients. He takes on more powerful men, and equally tenacious women, to get his job done. Mifune is an intense actor, but he's matched note for note by Shimura. When a doctor is scarier than the Yakuza, you'd better follow his prognosis to the letter.

1949's Stray Dog reteams Shimura and Mifune, this time as a seasoned and a rookie cop respectively. In the opening scene, Detective Murakami (Mifune) loses his gun to a pickpocket on a crowded bus. This puts him on a rollercoaster of guilt, grief and anxiety. The rollercoaster speeds up when Murakami's gun is used in a series of crimes. Detective Sato (Shimura) warns Murakami that the gun situation will burn him out if Murakami keeps reacting at this level. The far wearier Sato has been down this road, and though he is a good mentor and assists Murakami in trying to crack the case, he can't change Murakami's emotion-filled approach.

Kurosawa uses the stolen gun as an embarrassing neutering for the cop and a symbol of masculinity for the criminal who uses it. He shows how crime wears down those who swear to protect society. An early scene of Murakami falling deeper and deeper in despair seems to go on forever, to the point where you wonder if Mifune will collapse under the stress. A later scene where he does crack is one of the most powerful moments his beloved director has filmed for him.

Stray Dog also presents a theme that Noir City will revisit: The incredibly stupid young girl in love. Between this film and Brighton Rock (which I'll cover later), I'd had my fill of this character. Despite being played superbly by Keiko Awaji (who passed away on January 11, 2014), you'll want to choke her immature showgirl, especially when you see how much pain she causes Murakami. Maybe I'm being a tad harsh, but you know how I prefer my women here in Noir City.

Next time: Death by cars and caresses, and how a more experienced dame deals with being stupidly in love with a killer.
odienatorhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-14887375599998908762014-01-28T20:15:00.000-05:002014-02-11T13:57:48.124-05:00Noir City XII #3: Greedy Enough To Drive Dan Duryea To Drinkby Odienator
(for all Noir City XII pieces, go here)

Ah, Lizabeth Scott, how I love thee.

You were with me at my first Noir City, where I wrote about the opening night feature, Pitfall. And here you are on Saturday night starring in Too Late For Tears, the 1949 Roy Huggins movie painstakingy restored by The Film Noir Foundation. Courtesy of their hard work, the denizens of Noir City can see all your avaricious glory in a newly-struck 35mm print!

And what avarice you have in this film, my dear.

You're Jane Palmer, wife of the soon-to-be-doomed Alan Palmer (Arthur Kennedy). While out for a drive, some speed demon throws a huge bag of money into your car. Alan wants to get rid of it, but you convince him to keep it for a week, so as not to "make any rash decisions."Alan checks it in at a train station coat check, which always seems to be a safe place to hide stuff in these movies.

Meanwhile, your love of the money grows as your love for straight-arrow Alan decreases. Those fancy duds you brought and hid under the sink get you into deep trouble with a different man, Dan Duryea's Danny Fuller. It's his money, and while you try every trick in the book to slip the truth by him, Danny Boy's not buyin' it. You somehow have to get that coat check ticket, though you have other ideas in mind about exactly how much you plan to give back.

So, it looks like Danny's in charge here. In fact, on the poster for Too Late For Tears, he's slapping you around and quoting one of the memorable great lines Huggins wrote for him. But we here in the audience know better. We've seen your work. Danny is soon in over his head, first helping you dispose of the conveniently murdered Alan, then falling for your considerable wares against his better judgment. Your heartlessness is as big a turn-on for Danny as it is an enabler. Only a character as greedy and cold as Jane Palmer could drive Dan Duryea to drink.

Danny gets all the great lines and one helluva drunk scene, but at some point he'll most certainly also get the hook. And he's the least of your worries! There's also your sister-in-law Kathy (Kristine Miller) and Don Blake (Don Fiore), two people who grow way too suspicious about Alan's sudden disappearance. While Kathy is familiar, Don is a wild card whom you've never met. He proclaims to have flown with Alan during the war, but you've never heard of 'em. Does he also have a tie to the money?

And what about your first husband, the rich guy who committed suicide under "mysterious circumstances?" "After knowing you," Danny says, "I can believe your first husband killed himself!" Or did he kill himself?

Ms. Scott, viewers of this delectable feature of yours will learn all there is to know about how clever Jane Palmer is, and how adept you are at playing her. Writer Roy Huggins would later go on to create some of television's most memorable crime dramas, but before he did, he gave you this meaty role and all but one way to outsmart the other players in your universe. For that, and for you, I am eternally grateful.

Quick! Who is the only actress to have directed an American film noir feature? If you said Joan Crawford, you've got one sick sense of humor, you SOB! I like you! But you're wrong. Said movie is The Hitch-Hiker, and its director is the actress who "got all the parts Joan Crawford turned down," Ida Lupino.

You knew damn well I wasn't posting this entry without a picture of Ida.

Lupino got her directorial start as a director-for-hire, but in 1953's The Hitch-Hiker, she takes over the entire filmmaking process. In addition to directing, she co-wrote the screenplay with then husband Collier Young. This being a noir, you'd expect Ms. Lupino to select something as hard and unforgiving as some of the characters she's played. The Hitch-Hiker is based on the true story of Billy Cook, who murdered several people unlucky enough to pick him up on a California road. Lupino cast William Talman as the thinly-veiled Cook character, and Edmond O'Brien and Frank Lovejoy as the guys who violate the rule that, unless it's Claudette Colbert on the side of the road, NEVER PICK UP A HITCHHIKER.

Lupino's camerawork is claustrophobic as hell. Most of the picture takes place within the confines of the car. Whenever the characters exit the vehicle, it's usually for Talman to play sadistic games of violence with them. The tension rarely lets up, and Talman's speeches about how little he cares for humankind are chilling. (How he could never outsmart Perry Mason in all those episodes I'll never understand.) O'Brien and Lovejoy make for good Everymen.

Even though we know the outcome (Billy Cook got the gas chamber at San Quentin in December, 1952), The Hitch-Hiker remains a taut, nasty piece of work from the woman who, as I've always acknowledged, scared the shit out of me in her movies. Now she's doing it from behind the camera as well.

Next time: Drunken Angels, Stray Dogs, and Murderers Among Us.

odienatorhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-57006677825777109842014-01-28T17:24:00.001-05:002014-02-11T13:57:55.173-05:00Noir City XII #2: A Matinee of Mexican Noirby Odienator
(for all Noir City XII pieces, go here)

Every year, there's at least one moment that sends Noir City audiences into a tizzy of raucous applause. The Mexican noir, Victimas del Pecado (Victims of Sin) provided Saturday afternoon's roof-raising cheer. This film is part of the cabaretera genre, which reverses the usual gender roles of noir while filling the screen with cabaret-set musical numbers. Toss in a long-suffering dame and buckets of melodrama, and you have a movie that screams out for a Ross Hunter-produced remake, shot in garish Technicolor. If Hunter had miraculously gotten this material past the Hays Code, he would have had no choice but to import Victimas del Pecado's leading lady, the fabulous Ninón Sevilla.

Ms. Sevilla in action

Sevilla plays Violeta, a performer at Cabaret Changó. In the cabaretera film, it's the woman who falls victim to the homme fatale, and we root for her to persevere against all odds. Victimas del Pecado won't make it easy for Violeta: She survives prostitution, prison, poverty, and a beating far too severe for any American movie made in 1951. But she's hardly the victim in the title. That honor goes to the adorable little boy surviving on the street while awaiting Violeta's return.

The sultry Cuban dance stylings of Señorita Sevilla are a huge hit at the Changó, a place where the private dancing is overseen by a vicious pimp named Rodolfo (Rodolfo Acosta). When one of the performers shows up with Rodolfo's infant son, he cruelly makes her choose between him and the kid. Shockingly, she tosses her baby into a trash can. Violeta rescues him, claiming him as her own. A kitchen sink full of trouble gets thrown at her the second she picks up that kid.

Victimas del Pecado was directed by prolific Mexican filmmaker Emilio Fernández. Known to American audiences as Mapache in Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, Fernández's direction reminded me of a different Sam, Sam Fuller. The shot of a police line-up of angry streetwalkers who have just rescued Violeta from the aforementioned vicious beating is pure Fuller; these tough broads wear their bruises with pride as the camera pans by to congratulate their heroism. And when the great Cuban singer Rita Montaner is fired from the Changó, she gives a fiery speech that incites the patrons to riot. Mr. Fuller would approve.

Fernández embraces the grunginess of his film, infusing it with over-the-top doses of melodrama that buoy the emotions of its surprisingly happy ending. When Violeta falls for Santiago (Tito Junco), another pimp who doesn't mind she's raising someone else's kid, it sets up a showdown between good pimp and bad pimp. When that ends tragically, and Rodolfo claims his son for criminal intent, Violeta becomes an angel of vengeance, a Mama Bear who rescues her son the way Richard Roundtree's Shaft would have. When Ninón Sevilla crashed through a window, fire in her eyes and guns-a-blazing, the rafters of the Castro shook with whoops of audience approval. This is how a Mama protects her boy in Noir City.

Also from Mexico in 1951, En La Palma De Tu Mano (In the Palm of Your Hand) is a twisty little treat that pits a rich, murderous widow against a con artist posing as a fortune teller. With his smoke-filled crystal ball, Professor Jaime Karin (Arturo de Córdova) brings the Miss Cleo for gullible, superstitious Mexican women who pay handsomely for his services. Helping the professor get the best dirt for his "predictions" is his beautician wife, who provides more practical services for Karin's clientele.

Through gossip at the salon, Karin discovers that a millionaire has gone to the great Swiss Bank Account in the Sky. Karin targets the widow, Ada Romano (the gorgeous, icy Leticia Palma) in the hopes of swindling her. Had Karin an inkling of actual second sight, he'd know to target a different rich dame. Not only has Mrs. R. murdered her husband, she's setting up Professor Karin to help her knock off the co-conspirator nephew with whom she's been sleeping.

Director Roberto Gavaldón crafts a riveting tennis match between Karin and Romano, with the tide turning in either's favor numerous times. We're never sure who has the upper hand, though if you're any student of noir, you've got a good chance of predicting the ultimate victor. Professor Karin, as despicable as he is, keeps on the good side of audience by executing an occasional good deed. Mrs. Romano fascinates us by alternately playing the role of predator and prey.

Cordova and Palma are both excellent, two nearly-perfect foils who deserve each other, but En La Palma De Tu Mano serves its coldest slice of justice by putting its most innocent victim on a slab in the morgue. The shocking karmic bitchslap is felt both by the character to whom it is dealt, and by the audience. So far, this has been the coldest ending dispensed on us hardened viewers.

Last but certainly not least is Hollywood's take on Mexican noir, 1949's Border Incident. Made at MGM during a time when Leo the Lion was starting to cast his gaze at darker fare, Incident looks at Mexican migrant workers illegally entering California to work during harvest season. Directed by Anthony Mann years before the famous Westerns that would define him, Border Incident stars Ricardo Montalban in a rare role as an actual Mexican (in an interview with Eddie Muller, Montalban lamented "Hollywood cast me as everything but what I actually am--a Mexican!"). The pitchman for Corinthian Leather is matched with George Murphy, whom I knew primarily from his hosting duties on the MGM Parade.

Casting two MGM musical stars in a hard as nails noir seems odd until you bear witness to what Mann puts on the screen. Brilliantly shot in darkness by John Alton (who'd win his cin-tog Oscar two years later for An American in Paris), Border Incident sends Murphy and Montalban undercover as a crook pitching fake immigration documents and a Mexican attempting to illegally hop the fence respectively. Splitting screen time between the duo, the film creates two separate but equally fascinating threads. As the threads slowly begin to knit together, Border Incident gets nastier, culminating in a harrowing, brutal death for one of its leads.

The timely plot is somewhat undercut by a goofy, though common for 1949 movies, narration that shows up in prologue and epilogue form. Still, Mann and company deliver a noir that's as pitch black as its stunning cinematography. The one time Hollywood let Ricardo Montalban be that which he was, he turns in one of his best performances.

Next up: Nighttime is the right time for Restorations.
odienatorhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-16509797690550537702014-01-26T16:26:00.003-05:002014-02-11T13:58:03.399-05:00Noir City XII #1: A Bitter Little World, Complete With Zithers
by Odienator
(for all Noir City XII pieces, go here)

The tagline for Noir City XII is "it's a bitter little world," and no better words sum up the experience of watching 27 noir films with fellow diehard fans. The Castro Theatre is once again the venue, a drier, sunnier than usual San Francisco the locale.

This year, Czar of Noir Eddie Muller has given the proceedings an international flavor; there are films from Mexico, Argentina, Japan, Germany, Spain, Norway, Great Britain, France and the rest of South America. This is the first Noir City in the 6 years I've attended where I have not seen the majority of the films, adding an extra layer of excitement and anticipation to the proceedings.

Opening night, however, delivered two films I've seen before, Journey Into Fear and The Third Man.

Boasting a script adapted from an Eric Ambler novel by co-stars Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles, 1943's Journey Into Fear opened Noir City XII. Hitchcock's Uncle Charlie plays a man whose knack for going with the flow gets him entangled in espionage, murder and mayhem. Or something to that effect; Journey Into Fear barely makes a lick of sense because a third of it is missing. Decades before Harvey Scissorhands, Welles' studio, RKO, took a celluloid chainsaw to this feature, pruning a 101-minute cut down to 68 minutes. The resulting feature is a hot mess in term of coherency, but Welles and his Mercury Players compensate with expert showmanship and an amusing sense of the absurd.

Reportedly too busy making the unfinished It's All True in South America to finish directing this feature, Welles handed the reins to Norman Foster. His fingerprints remain on what's left of the movie, however, starting with the opening scene. A hitman named Banat (Jack Moss) preps for his next assignment in his room. A phonograph record serves as his mood music, at least until it starts skipping. The redundant sound bite plays for what seems like an eternity, etching itself into your brain before Banat kills the noise. This aural aggravation has a chilling payoff later in the film; its sudden offscreen appearance negates the false sense of security Journey Into Fear has lulled its hero into.

Howard Graham (Cotten) and his wife, Stephanie (Ruth Warrick), are Americans on a business trip/vacation to Istanbul. Graham is a ballistics expert en route to meet his Istanbul company representative Kopeikin (Everett Sloane). Kopeikin drags Graham around Istanbul, ending up at a club where Josette (Dolores Del Rio) is performing. During a magic act that goes horribly awry, Graham discovers that the Nazis are out to kill him. Trusting newfound allies in Turkey, Graham sets off without his wife to find safety. The reason he would trust these people was probably left on the cutting room floor.

After the murderous magic act, Welles shows up as Colonel Haki, the officer keeping tabs on the increasingly in-danger Graham. Welles' screen time is short but memorable. His intimidating physical presence is in direct contrast to his facial hair and attire. And his accent is as hilarious as the way he wears his giant trapezoid-shaped fur hat; he tips it on his head as if it were a pimp's fedora. Haki promises to protect Stephanie while Graham takes the Slow Boat to Batumi. Of course, Banat and his employer Muller (Eustace Wyatt) are on the boat with him.

The actors bring a joyous theatricality that keeps Journey Into Fear afloat no matter how piecemeal the plot becomes. The film follows suit by going big at the climax, which features the most ridiculously rendered rainstorm I've ever seen. As a downpour to rival the Great Flood batters them, Cotten, Welles and Moss traverse slippery building ledges, shooting at each other while avoiding sudden death on the ground below. The cinematography and architecture in these scenes reminded me of a giddy, gothic Hammer Studio picture. I half-expected Peter Cushing to show up on a ledge looking for Christopher Lee.

If RKO's butchering of The Magnificent Ambersons remains a travesty of cinematically epic proportions, their hatchet job on Journey Into Fear is a smaller crime. It almost feels like the filmmakers are rebelling against the editor's vicious scissors, outrunning them by sheer force of will, craft and performance. Cotten even looks as surprised and confused by what he's doing as we are. It makes for an entertaining and messy viewing experience, especially when factoring Dolores Del Rio into the equation.

Journey Into Fear was paired with another Welles-Cotten collaboration, 1949's far superior The Third Man. Co-produced by Alexander Korda and directed by Carol Reed (the first two filmmakers ever knighted by Britain), The Third Man is an unmatched classic. Its mere mention conjures up visions of post-war Vienna, Ferris wheels, the dangerously in love character played by the gorgeous Alida Valli, cuckoo clocks, sewers, odd camera angles and the greatest introduction of a villain ever filmed. Using dark cinematography and a cat long before Don Corleone, Welles' Harry Lime made his famous return from the dead to thunderous applause from the Castro Theatre audience.

Also garnering applause was that zither-crazed score by Anton Karas, a band member Sir Carol Reed hired after hearing him play in Vienna. Roger Ebert once called it the greatest film score ever, an opinion with which I respectfully disagreed. One of the many blemishes on my critical record is my utter hatred of The Third Man's score ("Shame on you, Mr. Henderson!!" Roger wrote in response to that revelation). It's enough to drive me to murder. However annoying I find it, I must admit that Reed and Karas flawlessly integrate it into The Third Man. Its cues influence imagery and cutting, and I can't imagine the film without it.

Graham Greene's screenplay is a brilliant mix of humor, horror and tightly constructed plot. Cotten's Holly Martins and Valli's Anna are two sides of the same coin. They're both in love with the cherished vision of Harry Lime they've elevated in their hearts and minds, and they deal with the shattering of this perceived image in different, yet equally stubborn ways. This makes the last scene of The Third Man a silent, visual masterpiece. Both characters are left to voluntarily stew in delusions of their own making. Suitable punishment for anyone living in Noir City.

Next time: Anthony Mann's Mexico, Ida Lupino's Nail-Biter and hot Mexican babes with guns busting through windows like Shaft.

odienatorhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-22729638767936569412013-04-07T14:42:00.002-04:002013-04-07T14:42:44.655-04:00Roger and Me
by Odie "Odienator" Henderson

My discovery of Roger Ebert was a by-product of my hyperactivity. I was one of those kids who could not tolerate his sugar. There's plenty of Super-8 footage of me hopping around and being a physical nuisance. I moved in fast motion, like Benny Hill minus the chicks and Yakety Sax. However, if my attention were engaged, I became focused with laser-like precision. Time, and my spazzing, stopped, and my universe became that which captivated me.

From an early age, the easiest way to get my attention was to tell me a story. I lucked out by being born into a family of storytellers. Since my Mom couldn't play Scheherazade 24 hours a day, she geared my focus toward books and her first love: movies. I also lucked out by growing up in the NYC area, where movies were a constant on the independent channels. TV may have rotted my brain, but it saved my kneecaps. For hours, I'd watch movies, and my Mom would tell me useful information, knowing it would glue me even further to the screen. I owe my movie love to my mother, and by extension, I owe my love of Roger Ebert to her as well.

 Roger came into my life on a boring day in the mid 1970's. I was dancing on the ceiling in my room when I heard Mom's voice bellowing through the house:

"Hey, Odell," she called from the living room of the first apartment I remember inhabiting, "there's a show about movies on. Come watch it."

I found myself in front of the TV, where two men sitting on opposite sides of a movie theater balcony were talking about a movie. I don't remember what that movie was. I do remember the more they talked, the more hypnotized I became. This was on PBS, so there were no commercials to break the spell. We had a black and white TV, a detail both Siskel and Ebert would have appreciated (they once did a black and white version of their show). In fact, I didn't know what color Roger's hair was until 1980 when we got a floor model Zenith color TV. TV type mattered not; I was hooked from that first show.

Roger and Gene looked like normal people—like newscasters to my young eyes—so I took what they said seriously. I loved when they fought, secretly hoping that Gene would leap from his chair and send the duo rolling down the aisle and over the balcony. (Years later, The Critic made my dream come true.) I loved that Roger talked with his hands, like the folks in my home state of New Jersey. And I was far too excited when they had the "Dog of the Week," complete with onscreen dog, or (if memory serves me correctly) when a skunk accompanied their bad movie pick of the week. Gene once selected a film where "the ads say you'll see a man turned inside out." He showed the poster, which was indeed a man turned inside out. I've often wondered where my love of trash came from, and now I think I have my answer. Cute animals plus killer commentary begat a fetish for the forbidden fruit of bad film.

Around this same period, I got the unusual notion that I wanted to tell stories myself, to not just engage in the fine oral tradition but to write them down as well. I can blame another PBS show for that—Zoom. Film became entangled in that desire when I learned that both Siskel and Ebert wrote about film in addition to discussing it over the airwaves. Since I lived In the NYC area, it would be years before I read anything by either of them, but that didn't stop me from devouring every single piece of film writing I could get my hands on, from Archer Winston to Kathleen Carroll to Pauline Kael to, bless his bitchy, venomous heart, Rex Reed. I was addicted to movies, addicted to writing, and my addictions would only get stronger.

Fast-forward to my adolescent years. Roger and Gene (in color) were on Channel 11, the same channel that satiated my love of Abbott and Costello, Douglas Sirk and Yankees baseball. Roger had also become syndicated in the New York newspaper, so I could finally partake of his prose. It read as if he were in the room with me, having a conversation. Roger Ebert was educating me about foreign films, arty-fartsy fare and blockbusters. But he was also telling me a story. There was no stuffy pretense to his words; he wrote in a relaxed, engaging style I wanted to emulate. This was odd at first, since I usually sided with Siskel. But great writing doesn't need to be agreed with to be admired or even cherished. I had found my writer idol.

Plus, Roger had won the Pulitzer, an award I kept seeing on the boring-ass books they gave us to read in high school. For reasons still unknown, I've always wanted to win the Pulitzer, which led me to my first actual interaction with Roger Ebert.

Roger's mastery of the Internet and social media should have come as no surprise to anyone. He was on CompuServe back in the day, an accessible critic holding court over a forum. Drumming up my nerve, I posted some questions to him. I still have his response printed out. One of the questions was "What do you get when you win the Pulitzer?" Roger responded "you get $1,000, a plaque, and when you die, your obit will say 'Pulitzer Prize winning film critic Odie Henderson died today.'" The only Pulitzer I'll ever get came from Roger Ebert's CompuServe nominating committee. I can live with that.

I never dreamed I would one day write for my hero. The closest I had come before July 26, 2011 was The Movie Answer Man column. Like the Great Movies series, Roger made an institution out of this sidebar, a movie-based "advice" column. His occasional one-line answers were legendary. One day, I got a CompuServe message from him:

"You're going to be in this week's Movie Answer Man column," he wrote. "Please send me your location."

I screamed like a reject from Bye Bye Birdie.

Roger published my words, and those of numerous others, in his book Questions for the Movie Answer Man. He didn't just belong to his readership; his readership belonged to him too.

Roger and I both acknowledging our love of trash

In the documentary, Sleep Furiously, one of its Welsh subjects says "you've got to have characters to make a community." Roger clearly had this idea in mind when he created Our Far-Flung Correspondents. A motley crew of great writers from all over the world, the FFC's became fixtures on his site, proving Roger's theory that the cinema was universal and crossed cultural lines. It was yet another way Roger snuck in educational value, hiding it like broccoli under a ton of melted cheddar cheese.

He also created The Demanders, where my set and I wrote about Movies on Demand. When that experiment ran its course, Roger welcomed us into the Far-Flung Correspondents family, proving once and for all what the world already knew: My home state of New Jersey is a foreign country.

Demanders, Assemble!

To the FFC's and Demanders, Roger was more than a film critic. He was a pen pal too. We all wrote him for advice, for discussions, and for what we affectionately referred to as "shameless self-promotion," that is, news of our work at our other writing venues. Of that last item, we almost always would get the same response from our mentor and boss:

"Tweeting!/eom"

That one word response was always such a generous gift. Someone of Ebert's stature not only liked your work, but was willing to do a little "shameless promotion" for you. He also always thanked us for our work, supplying a supportive comment about his enjoyment of what we had written. I can't begin to explain how it made me feel.

Our correspondence spanned almost three years of E-mails. I cherish every word, from his advice on dealing with work politics, to his paragraphs on what it was like to read reviews of his book, Life Itself, to the lovely few sentences he crafted for my mother. I rarely wrote him about film. Instead, I told him about the crazy incidents that happened In my travels for work. He encouraged me to write him about this, and his response was always the same: "This is insane. You should blog this." He'd comment and ask questions—forever the journalist—and for that moment, I felt like Roger Ebert just belonged to me. He had that affect on everyone with whom he corresponded.

My last correspondence with Roger was him suggesting a movie for me to review. He was very good at matching his writers up with material, presumably to see our takes on it. Of a PBS nature doc he assigned to me, he wrote "If anybody can make raccoons interesting, it's Odie." "What in Sam Hell am I going to do with raccoons?" I asked myself. But it was a challenge, and I couldn't disappoint him. He brought out the best in us all.

I only met Roger in person twice, both times at EbertFest, the festival he created to bring filmgoers from all over to his hometown to experience and discuss films. (He had a habit of promoting that unity amongst filmgoers and film lovers.) "I tweeted you today," he wrote on his pad when I nervously sat next to him. "It's an honor," were the first words I spoke to a man who had been a fixture in my life since I was 6 years old. Truer words were never spoken.

I was at work when I heard the news. I was in the middle of doing a demo, an appropriate detail since Roger liked my tales of software demos gone wrong. I managed to finish my presentation, presumably because I was in shock. I still am, but I'm sustained by the outpouring of love I've been seeing on Twitter, in print, and from my fellow FFC's and friends.

My heart is broken, and will remain that way for some time. In hindsight, it feels as if Roger had meticulously planned his exit, leaving on his own terms and with memorable final pieces. He wrote a beautiful journal entry coining the phrase "leave of presence," and his final review was of Terrence Malick's To The Wonder. Malick's films wrestle with the huge concepts of life, death and nature, and Roger was a huge fan of the director's work. The timing is almost too coincidentally perfect, or maybe it's just my grief trying to find logic in the unexplainable.

I do not have a poet's soul. I am an Irish wake kind of guy. Remembrances for me are never funereal. I prefer to tell you the fun things I remember about those whom I've lost. Roger knew and embraced my refusal to be too serious, and his support of me and those like me provided validation and confirmation for us to find, use, and be proud of our own voices. I guess that is what this ramble of a piece is.

RIP to my idol, my hero, my mentor, my friend. The wound of your loss will heal, but the scar will always be tender.

odienatorhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-16626848507842791492013-03-23T14:01:00.002-04:002013-03-23T14:01:50.242-04:00Cleaning Up Some Unfinished Business
by Odienator

Just a quickie while I prepare the next entry for this blog:

I forgot to mention that I did a concluding piece for my Noir City 2013 coverage over at RogerEbert.com.

"Recently I found myself, for the fifth time, among the denizens of a place that celebrates my favorite cinematic genre: the historic Castro Theatre in San Francisco, home of the Film Noir Foundation's 11th Annual Noir City Film Festival. The 27-film retrospective, which ran Jan. 25 to Feb. 3, featured newly restored prints, thanks to the Film Noir Foundation, as well as obscure films that may not have been seen in decades. Each evening had its own subject, from the wildly popular Bad Girls Night and San Francisco Noir Night, to the newly created African-American Noir Night and 3-D Noir Night. San Francisco Noir is the most popular night in the Festival, though Bad Girls Night is always my favorite. Unfortunately, I missed Bad Girls Night this year due to Bad Odie Day at the St. Francis Hospital Emergency Room. Bad luck befalls all noir heroes, so this revolting development did not surprise me in the least.

"Of the 27 films shown, I saw 21. Here are five worth mentioning:"

You can find the rest of the piece, and a picture of me and Eddie Muller, the Czar of Noir, here.

While we're at Roger's, I reviewed Snoop Lion's Reincarnated:

"Reincarnated" opens with a huge puff of marijuana smoke, an appropriate image for a documentary starring the artist formerly known as Snoop Dogg. The newly christened Snoop Lion appeared on HBO's "Real Time With Bill Maher" a few weeks ago, and throughout his segment, Maher kept smelling his guest. You can bet your last money that Snoop didn't smell like April Fresh Downy. Somewhere between inhales, Maher told Snoop "you smoke too much weed in this movie!" Snoop agreed, and boy, he was not kidding. If the MPAA were remotely creative, their rating description for "Reincarnated" would be "Rated R for rampant reefer, pervasive pot, some shizznit and constant kutchie passing." This is the first movie that would benefit from being released in Smell-O-Vision."

And I also reviewed Don't Stop Believin': Everyman's Journey:

"Pineda has also had to deal with fan reactions, which has often expressed itself in the typical Internet modes of racism and insult. Even concertgoers have reservations about a foreigner taking over for a local hero. Diaz shows some choice comments from these naysayers, but she also shows how Filipinos flocked to see and hear one of their own. Journey has always had fans of every race and culture (they sold 80 million albums) but the numbers in the Philippines rose with their new acquisition. Outside a concert, a woman selling Arnel Pineda shirts and posters she designed tells us "when Journey found him, they inherited a nation."

Wanna have some fun seeing me get menaced? Try this piece on being Trapped in a Disney World ride!

"Considering that I can't seem to have a normal experience regardless of adventure or intent, I'm surprised at the paucity of my Mickey Mishaps. My most recent glitch happened two weeks ago. This time it featured one of our beloved Far-Flung Correspondents, 2012's Polish Film Critic of the Year, Michał Oleszczyk. He mentioned it during his Sundance coverage of "Escape From Tomorrow," a film shot guerilla-style in the same park where we spent three almost perfect days. The fascination of "Escape from Tomorrow," and how it was executed under the ever-watchful eye of the Mouse House, has been the talk of Sundance. As litigious as Disney can be, you may never see the surreal "Escape from Tomorrow." As a consolation prize for those unable to attend Sundance, I submit for your approval a tale called "Escape from Toy Story."

Lest I forget, my Black History Mumf 2013 output is all here:

The Opening Shot
Spike Does Mike: Bad 25
Get to Know Your Movie Negroes: Part V
The Content of Their Character Actors: Brock Peters
Notes on the 1951 version of Native Son
The Richard Pryor Retrospective Field Trip
The Poitier-Cosby Trilogy: A Piece of the Action
Causing Trouble With Odienator: The Princess And The Frog
One Drop of Black Cinema: Sid Haig
Happy Valentine's Day: Waiting to Exhale
Negroes for Rent: The Toy
Three The Hard Way's Stars Team Up Again
President's Day Double Feature: The Jackie Robinson Story
President's Day Double Feature: The Bingo Long Travelling All Stars & Motor Kings
Penitentiary Review
A Different World Appreciation
Cornbread, Earl, and Me, or Furious Styles' First Movie
Happy Oscar Day! Live and Let Die Review
A Raisin in the Sun Appreciation

Like I always say: I may not be here often, but I am by no means sitting on my ass.odienatorhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-30265790860935096132013-02-23T15:24:00.000-05:002013-02-24T01:14:44.931-05:00Odienator's Ostentatious, On-The-Money Oscar Oracles 2012
by Odienator

Oscar night is upon us yet again, which means it's time for Internet bloggers to make fools of themselves by second-guessing a body of people who use darts to select winners. This year, I considered doing just that, but I kept hitting the wall instead of the Oscar ballot I printed out. One dart went into an electrical outlet. Sorry for the power outage, neighbors!

Anyway, enough shenanigans on my part. I've broken down the main categories into Who Will Win, Who Should Win, and the spoiler category called, in honor of the newly-married Gomer Pyle, "Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!"

Last year, I won the Oscar Pool. My crown will be taken this year, I am sure. But enough of my bragging. Unlike the Oscar show, I won't make you sit through 4 hours of Seth MacFarlane reminding you why you hate him before you get to:

Best Picture

In typical cockeyed fashion, the Academy allows up to 10 nominees but once again settled on 9. I think the expansion of this category results in some severe bottom-of-the-barrel scraping, but I digress. The nominees are:

AMOUR
ARGO
BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD
DJANGO UNCHAINED
LES MISERABLES
LIFE OF PI
LINCOLN
SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK
ZERO DARK THIRTY

Who Will Win: Argo
Who Should Win: Zero Dark Thirty
Surprise, Surprise, Surprise: Silver Linings Playbook

Had the goddamn Best Director category done its job, we'd be talking about a different Best Picture winner here. Not that Argo is a bad film—I loved it—but it would lack the sympathy vote I think will push it over the edge. Director Ben Affleck would win the Directing Oscar and this category would be wide open. As it stands, the odds of Argo winning are so good that not even the most desperate bookies will let you bet on it.

Had the goddamn Best Director category done its job and nominated Kathryn Bigelow, it would have made history (a woman nominated twice in 85 years—cue the exploding heads) and beat a path for Zero Dark Thirty, the best film on this list, to be Best Picture. One can have endless discussions about torture and intent, but one will have to have them someplace other than this blog. This would be my choice if I had a ballot. Sorry, Django! You'd be my second choice.

For the first time in 25 years, there's a film in this category I haven't seen before Oscar night. That film is Les Miz, and while some say it could play spoiler, 'tis doubtful. Les Miz's big win comes elsewhere. The other movie I've been hearing a lot about as a spoiler is Lincoln, but if I had a No Guts/No Glory choice, it would be for Silver Linings Playbook to take this top honor. It has a nominee in every acting category, plus best directing, writing and picture nominations. The last film to do that was Warren Beatty's Reds, which wound up with two of the acting awards but no Best Picture. That sounds about right for Silver Linings Playbook.

Best Director
Michael Haneke, Amour
Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild
Ang Lee, Life of Pi
Steven Spielberg, Lincoln
David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook

Who Will Win: Ang Lee, Life of Pi
Who Should Win: Ang Lee, Life of Pi
Surprise, Surprise, Surprise: David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook

Reds also won Best Director, which is why I put David O. Russell in as spoiler. If I were smart, I'd put him in as winner of this award. But I think Ang Lee has it sewn up. The backstory behind bringing Pi to the screen, and the amount of effort it took on Lee's part should push him over the edge. With Ben Affleck consoling himself with the DGA but not an Oscar nod, the category toughened to the point where I'm only about 60% sure of this prediction.

I didn't choose Haneke as spoiler because his film will win elsewhere. Nor did I opt for Spielberg as spoiler because he, like four other nominated people this year, has a chance to bring home a third Oscar. They won't give it to him for the same reason they won't give it to Sally Field or Denzel. But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

Best Actor
Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook
Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
Hugh Jackman, I'm Ready for my Close-up Mr. Tom Hooper
Joaquin Phoenix, The Master
Denzel Washington, Flight

Who Will Win: Daniel Day-Lewis
Who Should Win: Abraham Lincoln was a good ol' man…
Surprise, Surprise, Surprise: The only surprise will be if Day-Lewis loses.

This is the "bet yo' Mama" bet, that is, the surest bet of the 85th Academy Awards show. There's a shot Argo loses best picture, despite what the bookies say. The only way Day-Lewis can lose is Price Waterhouse sabotage. Hell, even Robert DeNiro's character from Silver Linings Playbook wouldn't bet against Lincoln—and his son's nominated here! Absent Lincoln, I could make a case for Denzel getting his third Oscar for FINALLY getting completely dirty in a role, but Lincoln's here. So Washington loses.

Best Actress
Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty
Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Emmanuelle Riva, Amour
Quvenzhané Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild
Naomi Watts, The Impossible

Who Will Win: Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Who Should Win: Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty
Surprise, Surprise, Surprise: Emmanuelle Riva, Amour

The Best Actress category has the youngest and the oldest Actress nominees in history this year. They are respectively Wallis, whose unusual, beautiful name is hard to pronounce, and Riva, whose unusual, beautiful name is pronounceable only because we've all seen that Sylvia Kristel movie. Riva contributes the most to her overrated film, saving it with her fellow actor, Jean-Louis Trintignant. Plus, she is an acting legend in the twilight of her life, so a case could be made for her snatching Oscar from the eager hands of the career-hot Jennifer Lawrence. Naomi Watts has gotten lots of praise for The Impossible (even from critics who hate the film), but this nod is her reward. The same holds for little Hushpuppy.

Maybe next time, kiddo.

Left in the dust is Chastain, who despite having one of the worst lines in recent memory ("I'm the motherfucker who found this place!") gives this category's richest, most interesting performance. I'd vote for the chameleon-like Chastain in a heartbeat here.

Like last year, the winner of this award will piss me off. My dislike of Silver Linings Playbook is old news, and as good as Lawrence has been even in dreck like The Hunger Games, I don't think she deserves an Oscar for this overwritten, clichéd role. Her father-in-law in Playbook is another story…

Best Supporting Actor
Alan Arkin, Argo
Robert DeNiro, Silver Linings Playbook
Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln
Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained

Who Will Win: Robert DeNiro, Silver Linings Playbook
Who Should Win: Robert DeNiro, Silver Linings Playbook
Surprise, Surprise, Surprise: Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln

The toughest call of the night. All five of these actors have won Oscars--DeNiro has two. Had either Christoph Waltz or Alan Arkin not won recently for Inglorious Basterds and Little Miss Sunshine respectively, this would be a dogfight between the two. I knew Arkin would get nominated after I saw Argo, but in a year with roles like Sam Jackson's house slave in Django Unchained, Arkin should have been shown the door here. Waltz is doing a variation on his Oscar winning role, the Pale Rider to his earlier High Plains Drifter, and while he's great, I would have voted for Sam. Hoffman is here because he got swept up in the two-for-one deal that put Phoenix in the Best Actor category; you can't honor one without the other. But he's well outmanned here.

That leaves Jones and DeNiro, two actors scoring their first nods in at least 20 years. I'd be inclined to give Jones the edge, but DeNiro has been working the publicity tour jovially, while Jones has been staring at cameras as if he were about to run everyone over with the trucks he shills for in commercials. Jones is excellent in Lincoln; he's given some great dialogue and situations to play. Robert DeNiro is not so lucky, but he manages to turn his role in Silver Linings Playbook into something magical. He plays several emotions, switching between them on a dime, and his story is a lot more interesting than the Benny and Joon main story. DeNiro kept me from walking out of Silver Linings Playbook, and I think the Academy will award him for it.

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams, The Master
Sally Field, Lincoln
Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables
Helen Hunt, The Sessions
Jacki Weaver, Silver Linings Playbook

Who Will Win: White Jennifer Hudson
Who Should Win: Sally Field, Lincoln
Surprise, Surprise, Surprise: Helen Hunt, The Sessions

Helen Hunt is really the lead, so as much as I loved her performance in The Sessions, I can't pick her here. I wish she'd been in the Best Actress category. At least she'd be away from the OTHER sure bet in the show. If you can bet your Mama on Daniel Day-Lewis, you can bet your Daddy on Anne Hathaway. Miss Hathaway goes from the Beverly Hillbillies straight into Dreamgirls territory, buoyed like her Dreamgirls predecessor by THE SONG THAT WILL NOT DIE. In Hathaway's case, it's I Dreamed a Dream, the song that got Susan Boyle a career and will get Hathaway her Oscar. Truth be told, I Dreamed a Dream is a horrible song made bearable by the fact it's the best thing in the Les Miz soundtrack. It's like that line in Eddie Murphy Raw: If you've been starving, a saltine will taste like a Ritz cracker. In Jennifer Hudson's defense (and I loved her in Dreamgirls), she got more scenes to act than Hathaway does. In Hathaway's defense, homegirl knows how to sell a performance. So she's got this.

Sally Field has won 2 Oscars, and I highly doubt the Academy wants to give her a third despite just how delicately balanced her work is in Lincoln. In this case, they like her, they really like her, but not enough to keep Hathaway's Fantine at bay.

Best Original Screenplay
Amour
Django Unchained
Flight
Moonrise Kingdom
Zero Dark Thirty

Who Will Win: Zero Dark Thirty
Who Should Win: Django Unchained
Surprise, Surprise, Surprise: Amour

This is a tough category. I was tempted to ignore Amour altogether, and put my spoiler money on Moonrise Kingdom. But I wondered if the older Academy folks would go for Anderson's idiosyncrasies. I don't believe they will. If they didn't give it to Quentin for Inglorious Basterds, they're not going to give it to him for Inglorious Blacksterds. This category is between Zero Dark Thirty and Amour. I couldn't make up my mind on Oscar's choice, so I flipped a coin. Heads, Zero Dark Thirty, tails, Amour. The coin handed on heads. So here we are.

Best Adapted Screenplay
Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook

Who Will Win: Argo
Who Should Win: Lincoln
Surprise, Surprise, Surprise: Lincoln

This is an even TOUGHER category, especially with Argo's defeat of Lincoln at the WGA's. Life of Pi came from a seemingly unadaptable book, which may score it some points but not enough to take this category. Silver Linings Playbook has better shots elsewhere. That leaves Tony Kushner's epic dialogue vs. Argo's big Hollywood-style action. It's almost too close to call, which means this category could split and go someplace unexpected. I doubt it, though. If Argo is going to win best Picture, it's got to win something else in a major category. My heart says Lincoln, and my head says Argo. Always bet with your head.

Best Animated Feature
Brave
Frankenweenie
Paranorman
The Pirates Band of Misfits
Wreck-It Ralph

Who Will Win: Wreck-It Ralph
Who Should Win: Frankenweenie
Surprise, Surprise, Surprise: Brave

I liked all five of these with varying levels of enjoyment. But for Oscar voters, it's Pixar vs. Disney. With two movies in the category, it appears Disney has better odds. Pixar's Brave wasted its PR about being the first female-centric Pixar film by saddling poor Merida to a standard story. The main character is Toy Story-quality, but the script is in the basement that brought us Cars. Paranorman and Pirates are quirkier than what usually wins the category. Frankenweenie, my favorite of this list, has Tim Burton behind it and perhaps his labor of love will appeal to voters who think he's owed an Oscar. I'm going to stake my money on Wreck-It Ralph, my second favorite here, because it's won more awards than its competitors. A win here would be a first for the studio that pioneered animation.

This picture has nothing to do with my choice of Wreck-It Ralph.

This show is running way too long! The rest of the field:

Best Art Direction: It's between the Great Emancipator and Throw Anna In Front of the Train. I'm going with Lincoln.

Best Costume Design: Anna Karenina is my pick.

Best Cin-tog: Life of Pi will trump 10-time loser Roger Deakins' work on Skyfall. The latter I couldn't even appreciate because my theater had the goddamn 3-D filter on the camera, turning Bond's latest adventure brown.

Best Editing: William Goldenberg is guaranteed an Oscar, but for which movie? Zero Dark Thirty or Argo? I'm going to go with Argo. You know, best picture, best editing go together like rama-lama-lama you know the rest.

Best Foreign Film: Kon-Tiki could spoil, but I'm going with Amour.

Best Makeup: Because it held up no matter how close Tom Hooper put his camera, the winner here is Les Miz. If Hitchcock wins, I will shoot my television. They put Edward G. Robinson's lips on Alfred Hitchcock. NO!

Best Visual Effects: Life of Pi's 3D effects (which as usual I could not perceive) and its tiger, Richard Parker, will rule the day.

Best Original Song will go to that dreary ass, sleep-inducing Adele song, Skyfall. I hope Shirley Bassey tackles her and runs off with the Oscar while singing the Moonraker theme song. And Sir Paul McCartney blocks Adele from running after Shirley.

Best Original Score: I'm REALLY tempted to go with Life of Pi, but I'm going out on a limb to say Argo.

Best Animated Short: Paperman, which I saw but have NO recollection of, is the favorite in a category that rarely goes for favorites. My choice is Adam and Dog.

Best Documentary Short: Eenie-meenie-miney-mo…Open Heart.

Best Documentary: I've seen four of the five. The one I would vote for, The Central Park Five, is nowhere to be found. Out of this list, I'd vote for How to Survive a Plague. The Academy will go for the least troubling of the five, however, Searching for Sugar Man.

Best Sound Editing: Zero Dark Thirty is loud. Let's go with that.

Best Sound Mixing: Like a 70's sitcoom, Les Miserables was recorded LIVE LIVE LIVE! That has to count for something.

Happy Oscar Watching guys! Remember: Seth MacFarlane is NOT a valid reason to murder your TV. Bad Oscar choices, however, are perfectly good reasons to do so.

odienatorhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-77341039630964693222013-01-30T14:09:00.001-05:002013-01-30T16:23:33.719-05:00Noir City 11 #2: The Wicked Worlds of Whale, Wyler and Wilder
by Odienator

Life lessons are never in short supply here at Noir City: You learn a lesson, and it usually costs you your life. Cautionary tales abound, and I'm surprised how timely they remain. Gun Crazy's fixation on firearms felt ripped from the headlines, and the first of this installment's films literally was.

The Hunky, Evil Side of Beau and Jeff's Dad

Based on a 1934 murder case in nearby San Jose, Try and Get Me treads some of the same ground as a prior adaptation of this true story, Fritz Lang's Fury. Originally called The Sound of Fury, Try and Get Me depicts a town whipped to lynch-mob extremes by an overzealous reporter whose stories pander to the basest emotional instincts of his readership. In Fury, Spencer Tracy's character is innocent, losing his humanity as a result of his treatment by the murderous mob. In this version, the doomed prisoners are guilty, either by association or intent, and the outcome skews closer to the actual events.

Frank Lovejoy plays an out of work husband with an understanding wife and an incredibly obnoxious little boy. (This kid drove me batty; I wanted my mother to show up onscreen to beat his ass.) Feeling less manly because he can't provide, Lovejoy hooks up a job with flashy, well-to-do hunk Lloyd Bridges. Unbeknownst to Lovejoy, The Big Lebowski's dad is loaded with dirty money. Bridges and Lovejoy's initial meeting is more than a tad homoerotic, a hidden note not lost on the Castro Theatre audience. Bridges parades around shirtless, showing off a stunning physique that drew applause, then browbeats Lovejoy into being his criminal accomplice by attacking his masculinity. The duo start knocking off grocery stores and other easy monetary marks.

Lovejoy is happy with these payouts, which give his unsuspecting family material items and neighborly stature. Bridges is dissatisfied with the work-to-payout ratio, and convinces Lovejoy to try a harder crime. They'll kidnap a rich family's son, steal his car, and hold him for ransom. Or so Lovejoy thinks; Bridges has more murderous intentions. Lovejoy is terrified at first, but assists in the gruesome murder. Lovejoy's stricken conscious leads him to misplace a crucial key to the crime, and that, plus his emotional breakdown, leads to his capture. Bridges is caught soon after, because he picked the wrong week to quit hiding from the law.

Running parallel to this story is a European physicist's visit to a newspaper reporter in Lovejoy's town. The physicist becomes an interesting delivery mechanism for the film's message. Once the kidnapping killers are caught, the reporter goes all New York Post on them, writing a series of charged articles that try Lovejoy and Bridges in the court of public opinion. The physicist tries to reason with the reporter, as do the cops, but he's got to sell papers. Enough of those sold papers lead to mob mentality and more murder.

Try and Get Me is the third Cy Endfield film at Noir City, and one of the last films he directed before being blacklisted. Endfield's direction is masterful in the mob sequence, mixing the unsettling chaos and violence with shots of Bridges freaking out in his cell. Lovejoy and Bridges both give excellent, complimentary performances, but the one you'll remember is given by the fine character actress Adele Jergens. Playing a mousy, unintended victim of Lovejoy's criminality, she gives a haunting, complex performance. She elicits several emotions from the viewer, pity, concern, sorrow, rage and ultimately compassion. Compassion is eventually what Try and Get Me wants the viewer to feel, even if the target of said compassion is two murderous men.

A Thug Not Even a Mother Could Love

Compassion is the last thing to feel for Lawrence Tierney—and he'd probably belt you if you did. The quintessential tough guy actor stars in The Hoodlum, a movie so blisteringly nasty that it runs only 61 minutes—any longer would be intolerable cruelty. Tierney plays an unrepentant criminal who takes what he wants regardless of the outcome. He uses his good-hearted brother viciously by stealing his girl, using his legitimate business as the jumping off point for armed robbery, and eventually driving him to violence. The casting of the good brother adds an extra jolt of realism to the nastiness: He's played by Tierney's brother, Edward.

The film both begins and climaxes with speeches by Tierney's ma. Her first speech begs the parole board to release her boy; her last is a dynamite maternal beatdown, with words as tough as any horrible physical action perpetrated by her bad seed of a son. Tierney is irredeemable, causing death and destruction in pursuit of sex and money. Ma's realization of this, and her subsequent expulsion of the last vestiges of maternal love, give the audience the biggest reason to cheer. It's a tour-de-force by actress Lisa Golm.

Back To The Future and Trapped In The Past

Sunset Blvd. made its 4K Digital Restoration debut at Noir City, proving once and for all what I've always said about Norma Desmond—she truly IS a femme fatale. The print looked gorgeous, too, with its silvery black and white John F. Seitz cin-tog casting a spell over all those people out there in the dark. I've written plenty about Ms. Desmond in the past, so try my conspiracy theory piece Norma Knew What She Was Doing.

Pairing with Norma was Repeat Performance, a film I originally saw at my first Noir City. That night, the film's star, Joan Leslie, was in attendance. The original print of Repeat Performance obtained that year was in such bad shape that the screening was almost cancelled. Someone contributed their own private print of the film, and I got to see this amusing New Year's Eve based noir with a Twilight Zone vibe. Like Bette Davis' The Letter, Repeat Performance opens with Joan Leslie shooting her husband in cold blood. The flashback structure takes on an otherworldly tone; courtesy of a wish, Leslie suddenly starts living the previous year over. She has until midnight on New Year's Eve to change the course of fate. Of course, fate has other ideas, and the screenplay's numerous twists and tricks are fun to watch. Adding a note of batshit craziness to the proceedings is Richard Basehart, whose poet is just wacky enough to believe Leslie has gone Back to the Future. And why wouldn't he? He's in the loony bin.

This year's print of Repeat Performance was newly restored, and looked great on the big screen. Also looking great was Ms. Leslie herself, who had an Aaron Spelling-era amount of wardrobe changes as she did her damndest to keep both her husband and Basehart from their eventual fates. The outcome is familiar to anyone who's ever read an O. Henry story or seen Rod Serling torment his characters on either of his anthology programs. The real treat is in the journey.

Ask for Babs: Three from Universal Studios' Pre-Code Era

Good ol' Will Hays had nothin' to say about Monday night's triple feature of pre-Code features from Carl Laemmle's Universal Studios. Noir City denizens were treated to an early talkie by Willie Wyler, a suspenseful and funny courtroom drama helmed by James Whale, and a completely WTF Pat O'Brien on a chain gang feature called Laughter In Hell. I'll go to Hell later; let's start with the man whose last picture my mother saw before going into labor with me.

William Wyler directed more people to Oscar nominations than any other director. His 1931 feature, A House Divided, stars future Oscar winner Walter Huston in a role originally played by Lon Chaney. He's the richest man on a South Pacific island, a violent drunk who holds the other residents both in thrall and in terror. His tumultuous relationship with his son boils over after the funeral of Huston's wife. Disgusted by his father's carousing and partying mere minutes after his wife's interment, Sonny Boy challenges his Pa, who easily lays him out and carries his unconscious body home.

Later, Sonny Boy helps his Pa write a letter to a mail-order bride magazine. The woman in question, an older madam "lonely and willing," doesn't come C.O.D. Instead, a much younger model graces the Huston family doorstep. After first stating "she won't do," as she's too pretty for housework and too weak-looking for chores, Pa decides to marry her anyway. Unfortunately, the much more age-appropriate Sonny Boy has eyes for his new Ma, which leads to him accidentally crippling his father.

A House Divided ends with a spectacular battle at sea, man (and woman) against an extremely angry Mother Nature. Wyler directs this sequence with the physical ferocity Huston brings to his now-crippled patriarch. Huston flings his body around recklessly once he's been incapacitated, and Wyler juxtaposes the equally reckless sea against the bound legs of Huston as he is tied to a rowboat to attempt the rescue of his unfaithful wife. Fueled by his real son, John's dialogue, Huston gives a memorably over-the-top performance. His last scene, where his presence is merely implied, is appropriately the last scene in A House Divided. The movie wouldn't survive without Huston's preternaturally intense life force.

Speaking of women on angry seas, Gloria Stuart appears in the second and third of our Universal triple feature, both times playing adulterous women. In the first of the Titanic star's Noir City visitations, she's directed by James Whale. Whale had his hands full in 1933 with The Bride of Frankenstein, but he had time to also do this picture of marital infidelity and murder. Pulled post-Hays Code for its nude scene, The Kiss Before the Mirror follows the trial of a man (Watch on the Rhine's Paul Lukas) who murdered his adulterous wife (Stuart) in the first degree. Lukas is defended by The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Frank Morgan. The Wiz is a lawyer married to Stuart's best friend (Nancy Carroll). Lukas explains, with much emotion, how he discovered his wife's affair simply by sneaking up on her and kissing her while she did her makeup. She freaked out, which made Lukas follow her, which led to her adulterous discovery, and Voila! Half-naked murder ensues.

Morgan freaks out when, in front of her mirror, Carroll reacts the way Stuart did before HER mirror. He gains a newfound appreciation for Lukas' feelings just before his crime of passion. Since this is Noir City, Morgan also realizes that, if he can get Lukas off, he'll have a perfect legal precedent for when he defends himself at his own trial. That's right: If Morgan gets Lukas off, Morgan will know how he can kill his wife with impunity and ALSO get off.

I won't be spoiling matters by telling you Morgan pulls a gun on his wife. The context of that is the spoiler. Instead, I'll tell you about Hilda, Morgan's awesome legal assistant played by Jean Dixon. She gets some great, hilarious lines (in a film where everybody seems to have a bitchy gay screenwriter feeding quips into hidden earpieces), and she has this butch lesbian vibe Whale gleefully refuses to hide. Whale also winks at his brethren with a blatantly gay sketch artist from Central Castro Casting. Hilda refers to herself with the Jodie Foster-friendly term "single," and while every hetero person in this film has pistol pointing melodrama in their DNA, Hilda is as happy as that sketch artist is gay. Is this Whale's hidden commentary on those pesky breeders? Who knows, and who cares? This movie is aces—funny, suspenseful, and emotionally satisfying.

Not satisfying at all is the last of the triple feature, Laughter in Hell. This Pat O'Brien picture feels like three films in one, none of which plays well with the others. The first part deals with the death of O'Brien's mother. The second part deals with the death of his wife (Gloria Stuart--she gets around!) and her lover, a guy who tormented O'Brien's character in the first part. The last part puts O'Brien's escape from a chain gang, where he's surrounded by singing, praying darky stereotypes. The Black stereotypes are especially itchy in scenes where several Black characters are hanged. Their lifeless bodies occupy way too many frames while their fellow Black chain gang members sing and pray. Even without these troublesome (though common) Black characters, the film would still have insurmountable problems. I wasn't interested in O'Brien's fate at all, and the screenplay can't find an appropriate means of linking the story elements together. Laughter in Hell's ending is also puzzling, but at least I was glad it was over. I don't think I've seen a film I've disliked more in any of my five Noir City attendances.

Next time: Noir Film Noir, I Left My Film Noir in San Francisco, and Bad Girls, Talkin' Bout the Sad Girls.

Also: I should note that the great posters here are cribbed from the Noir City website. Let's hope Eddie Muller doens't beat me up for that.
odienatorhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-49250654198081953132013-01-28T20:26:00.001-05:002013-01-30T16:23:44.768-05:00Noir City 11 #1: A Strangely Merciful Life Taking Pity: Odienator in Noir Cityby Odienator

The Film Noir Foundation's Noir City celebrates its eleventh incarnation January 25-February 3 in San Francisco's gorgeous Castro Theatre. For the fifth time, I have a front row seat to the mayhem, murder, madness and mystery promised by my favorite genre of film. There are 27 films on the slate, each lulling me into a state of dangerous, sweet surrender. But I must tread cautiously: From pretty dames to the pursuit of happiness, everything in Noir City has a price tag that can quickly become a toe tag. And while none of the big-screen shenanigans will drive me to murder, they will leave me with an unsettling identification with the characters I'll encounter. I have to live with the knowledge that I understand why Noir City's denizens always succumb to their hearts of darkness. Sometimes I wish I could succumb to mine.

Such wishes are the seeds of destruction, and I can't afford the flower pot in which to plant them. As a worthy consolation, however, I have the Czar of Noir, Eddie Muller, to lead me and my Castro Theatre brethren through the fields of those who reaped the destruction they sowed. Festival nights are broken into themes, with this year offering an African-American Noir night alongside the recurring (and wildly popular) San Francisco Noir night. There's also a 3-D Noir night, which I dread for the obvious, one-eyed reasons, and my favorite night of every Noir City: Bad Girls Night. Several films at the festival are not on DVD, while others are making their world premieres after being restored. Also on tap is a brand new 4K restoration of the film whose main character was the beneficiary of the strangely merciful life I alluded to in my title, Billy Wilder's masterpiece, Sunset Blvd.

Ms. Cummins in her heyday

My first dispatch from Noir City deals with the four D's: Demons, Dames, Drivers and Desperation. The festival opened with Gun Crazy, Joseph Lewis' influential lovers-on-the-run tale starring John Dall and Peggy Cummins. The latter appeared at Noir City, older than her three scheduled onscreen versions but still looking good. Ms. Cummins received multiple standing ovations before the film, and several more during the post-screening interview with Muller. She stole the show, and Muller wisely endorsed her grand larceny.

The festival's guest of honor also appeared in the Saturday matinee double feature of Curse of the Demon and Hell Drivers, neither of which is technically noir, but whose darkness and grittiness made them cousins worthy of inclusion.

Cummins spoke of her Hollywood origins: She was brought to Tinseltown by Darryl Zanuck to star in Forever Amber. The book version of Forever Amber was apparently so popular that Fox's casting call for the lead rivaled Selznick's for Gone With the Wind. Cummins won the part, but it was a short-lived victory. "Someone at the studio said I wasn't pretty enough," Cummins informed an audience who'd just seen her looking absolutely fantastic onscreen. She was dropped, and Linda Darnell appears in the version preserved for posterity. As a result of the recasting, Cummins went from Forever Amber to Deadly Is the Female, or as noir lovers would come to know it, Gun Crazy.

While I prefer the film's original title, Gun Crazy remains an apt description. Lewis' film influenced Godard's Breathless and Penn's Bonnie and Clyde, and its potent fetishizing of guns keeps it from being too dated. This is a firearms boner to rival the one wielded by the NRA. It's a microcosm of America's love of guns, and it was made 63 years ago. Here is the story of a man who loves to shoot his guns. It's the only thing he's good at, and it becomes an obsession of his. Lewis and company barely hide the sexual symbolism from the censor, substituting Dall's mastery of shooting for both masturbatory satisfaction and perceived expert cocksmanship. The latter is even more subversively notarized when Dall meets Cummins' equal marksmanship at a carnival. Their shooting battle is a fiery game of William Tell, with matches instead of apples, and as each takes turns firing dangerously close to the other's head, sexual arousal runs down the screen like Niagara Falls. The female is not only on the same erotic mastery level as the male, she's more cunning in her execution. Dall wins the shooting contest because I think Cummins purposely misses her final shot. She's playing coy to make him feel masculine.

The mixture of sex and guns made flesh by Cummins drives Dall to do her bidding. Addicted to excitement the way Dall is hooked on triggers, Cummins leads the duo into a life of increasingly violent crimes. She can kill but he cannot, and he knows she sees that as a weakness. Cummins is spectacular here, toying with Dall's sexual insecurity like a film noir Lady Macbeth. When Dall finally seals the deal, putting a bullet into his beloved, it's a short-lived form of consummation, an affirmation of his manhood. Muller called Cummins' character in this film "the most ferocious female in noir," and after revisiting Gun Crazy, I can't argue.

A far less ferocious, though still fine and flirty Cummins appears in two other films at Noir City: Curse of the Demon and Hell Drivers. Both are from 1957 and written by blacklisted writer-director Cyril Endfield. Demon made me long for the days when I was 9 years old and watching movies on WOR-TV in New York City. This would have scared me silly and giddy back then. Staring at the demon in the title on the big Castro Theatre screen, I felt compelled to reunite with that prior incarnation of myself. I had a great time, helped by the gorgeous, atmospheric cinematography by Edward Scaife.

Directed by Jacques Tourneur, Curse of the Demon is more horror picture than noir, but stars a staple of noir, Dana Andrews. Andrews imbues his role with more conviction and credibility than a film like this requires, and his performance keeps the film from descending too far into the ridiculous. Andrews' shrink is in town to evaluate a member from a devil-worshipping cult. This is for research purposes, as Andrews is a pure skeptic when it comes to the supernatural. His point of contact has been murdered by the titular demon before Andrews' arrival, and Andrews teams up with the victim's niece (Cummins) to solve the mystery.

Meanwhile, a deliciously evil Niall MacGinnis is cursing people (including Cummins' uncle) with some kind of parchment paper covered in runes from Stonehenge (or something like that). You may never want to take anything handed to you again after you see what this guy's modus operandi is. He even has the Lucifer beard, which should be enough to convince that disbelieving Mr. Andrews. But no, Andrews has to get cursed himself, and even then, he keeps applying science to whatever happens to him. This is an endearing characteristic of the film—it keeps trying to explain away all the great Val Lewton atmosphere Tourneur and Schaife provide.

Some of the creepy, shadowy images here are as stunning as the demon is goofy-looking. (The filmmakers hated that an actual demon was added post-filming by the producer. Its smoke-filled suggestion was more than enough.) Tourneur, who directed Lewton's Cat People (as well as the noir classic Out of the Past), knows how to ratchet up suspense from things dropping into the corners of the frame. A sudden hand at the bottom right of the screen actually got me to jump, and the director's sly nod to his former feline flick manifests itself as a scary yet hilarious attack on Andrews. Even when wrestling with an obviously fake panther, Andrews is committed. You gotta love movies like this, and without irony.

Hell Drivers is a suspenseful, gritty British drama about truckers who risk their lives for a corrupt trucking company. It's The Wages of Fear with ballast instead of dynamite, featuring a "Who's Who" of soon to be famous British stars. Led by the British Jack Palance, Stanley Baker, Hell Drivers also stars a pre-Bond Sean Connery and a pre-Prisoner Patrick McGoohan, who is superb as Baker's rival for truck-driving superiority. Playing Baker's rival for Cummins' feisty, jeans-clad secretary is a pre-Pink Panther Herbert Lom. As an Italian immigrant who befriends Baker even when the other men turn on him, Lom provides Hell Drivers with its tragic, broken heart. Even after being betrayed, Lom still helps Baker in his quest to unseat McGoohan's corrupt foreman.

Baker's prize if he should best the cheating alpha-male McGoohan is a solid gold case. Like most things in Noir City, it's a shiny, overpriced object of desire for whom payment is more than just monetary.

Next time: More Cyril Endfield, a dash of Laurence Tierney, pre-Code naughtiness and Ms. Desmond's close-up.

odienatorhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-66787436994745671652013-01-02T18:32:00.000-05:002013-01-02T18:32:16.131-05:00QT and Odie: Perfect Togetherby Odienator

I've been gone from here a while, but I've actually not been sitting on my ass doing nothing.

There are two things I want to quickly pimp over here.

The first is my latest "Black Man Talk" with Steven Boone over at the other site I run, Big Media Vandalism. Our last Black Man Talk was right here at Tales of Odienary Madness, on Tyler Perry. Now we're riffing on Django Unchained, the controversial Quentin Tarantino Spaghetti Southern about slavery and revenge.

"Unlike the Nazism QT's heroes combat in Inglorious Basterds, slavery makes America the villain. The American way of life at the time is the bad guy here, and this creates a discomfort that I've seen reflected in several reviews: "Where's the morality in Django?" I acknowledge that Inglorious Basterds adds a morally ambiguous layer to its heroes, whereas Django Unchained is more a product of QT's love of Blaxploitation and the Sweet Sweetback notion of a "baadasssss nigger comin' back to collect some dues." Why is that wrong?

Yet, Tarantino knows that, as a White man, he processes his rage against the institution of slavery differently than Blacks. I can make this statement based on the mini-arc he crafts for Dr. King Schultz."

Read more here!

The other thing is my first "according to Hoyle" video essay. It's a two-parter over at Press Play. I wrote it and it is my melodious voice you hear on the soundtrack. In keeping with the Tarantino vein, it's on Jackie Brown. Both parts are available for viewing, and were both superbly edited by Jason Bellamy of The Cooler blog.

From part 1:

"Here, he lifts Foxy's last name, her movie's title font and her portrayer. Grier was the queen of Blaxploitation, wielding a shotgun, razors in her 'fro and a take no prisoners attitude that was simultaneously terrifying and sensual. Jack Hill, who directed her in Foxy Brown, Coffy and two other films, said that Pam Grier had "that something special that only she has. She has 'it'." Hill could get a witness from any fan, for we knew: Not only did Pam Grier have "it," she could whip your ass with "it" as well."

And part II:

"Quentin Tarantino relishes putting a gun in Pam Grier's hands, throwing us back to the good old days of Nurse Coffy, Sheba Shayne and Friday Foster. Her genre reputation precedes her, and one can almost hear QT cackle as he merges Brian DePalma's split-screen, Jack Hill's dialogue and an overzealous sound man's rendition of that "CLICK" that accompanies that gun aimed at Ordell Robbie's favorite toy. But this commandeering of DePalma and Hill serves the drama—Elmore Leonard crafted the Ordell-Jackie pas de deux in his novel, Rum Punch, to get us here. It's Max's gun Jackie's stolen, and its retrieval leads not only to Max's seduction but also to some of the most poignant dialogue Tarantino has scripted. Notice how delicately the camera moves in on Grier's profile. It's almost as if we're eavesdropping on Pam and Robert, not Jackie and Max."

I promise to be more diligent in writing here in 2013, It's been rough due to work, but I'm recommitted myself to at least showing up here once iin a while. Stick with me here, and of course, over at Big Media Vandalism.
odienatorhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-10743910151402744002012-10-08T22:42:00.001-04:002012-10-08T22:57:09.639-04:00Running on Empty: 9.79*by Odienator
(click here for all TIFF pieces)

(Odie Note: At the Toronto Film Festival, I saw six documentaries: Bad 25, Free Angela and All Political Prisoners, Mea Maxima Culpa, Love, Marilyn, Room 237, and 9.79*. Over the next few posts, I'll cover all of them. I'm starting with 9.79*, which premieres on ESPN October 9, 2012.)

ESPN's 30 for 30 series is a fantastic array of sports based documentaries by well-known documentarians. The network's film division is behind 9.79*, Daniel Gordon's investigation of Ben Johnson's controversial Olympic gold-medal winning 100-meter race. In 1988, Canadian athlete Johnson ran a record breaking time of 9.79 against his chief rival, American runner Carl Lewis. Barely recovered from a pulled hamstring, Johnson became a symbol of sports toughness and perseverance. A few days later, he became a far more common symbol of sports: He was busted for steroids and had his medal taken away from him. Lewis' silver medal was replaced by Johnson's rescinded gold. The asterisk in the film's title is sports shorthand for an exception. "Not exactly…" those sports asterisks seem to say.

Lewis and Johnson's rivalry was something like track's version of Ali-Frazier, with Lewis the more colorful and loquacious of the two. While Lewis was interacting with the public and recording extremely bad R&B singles, Johnson was out of the spotlight practicing in lieu of their 1988 matchup. Johnson's besting of the braggadocious Lewis made him an instant hero in Canada, at least until his doping made the maple leaf fall off the flag. Interviews with Canadian sportswriters and footage from the race (which we see several times in its entirety) provide a larger context for the uninitiated. Additionally, 9.79* raises questions about just how the steroids Johnson was busted for got into his body. It adds some uncertainty to the proceedings, but it doesn't absolve Johnson's later steroid use. The trajectory of Johnson's career would be more tragic if 9.79* didn't inform us that he knowingly repeated his mistakes over and over.

Gordon speaks with all 8 runners in the race—in addition to Lewis and Johnson, the participants are Linford Christie, Dennis Mitchell, Robson da Silva, Calvin Smith, Ray Stewart and Desai Williams—and their recollections contribute to yet another fine doc by ESPN. Johnson in particular speaks candidly about his steroid use, and how it eventually got him banned from the sport altogether. Gordon also interviews other runners who faced the similar fate of a lifetime ban from the sport. It's impossible to feel sorry for them, and 9.79* doesn't shy away from their deservingly harsh criticism.

Despite the passage of nearly a decade and a half of time, Lewis still seems a little stung by the events. His comments have a tinge of anger, but he should be angrier at Gordon for digging up that clip of his music video from the 80's. It's almost as bad as NFL legend Deion Sanders' infamous remake of Secret Weapon's Must Be The Music.

I admit that track fans may enjoy this documentary more than the average viewer, but anyone who questions why an athlete thinks he or she will get away with cheating should watch 9.79*.

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odienatorhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-11382883056142984092012-09-12T18:22:00.003-04:002013-04-02T10:12:51.085-04:00To The Wonder, To The Wall
by Odienator

(click here for all TIFF pieces)

I think it was the great director Sidney Lumet who recounted the story of how Marlon Brando tested the directors for whom he worked. On the first day, Brando would give two separate takes that were, on the surface, practically identical. But in one of those takes, Brando would act from within, giving his internal "all" to the performance. If the director printed this take, Brando gave his soul to the role. If the director chose the other take, Brando would cease giving a shit and do whatever he wanted. Brando's rationale was "why bare my soul if you can't recognize me showing it?"

As I watched To the Wonder, I thought of this story. Coming so quickly after Terrence Malick's last film, To The Wonder aroused my suspicions. Malick is a director who takes his sweet time between features. Between Days of Heaven and The Thin Red Line, Malick's sweet time lasted 20 years. To The Wonder is being released almost a year and a half after his last film, The Tree of Life. It even uses some footage from that film, as well as a few ideas. As I watched the 7 millionth shot of a woman spinning around and around, or the fifty-thousandth shot of Ben Affleck looking as if his 'roids were acting up, I asked myself "Is Terrence Malick testing us? Is this his Brando moment? After listening to the Malick maniacs rant and rave of his flawless genius, has Malick decided to toss something sub-par (by his standards) together to see if it evokes the same rapturous response of his greater works?"

Of course, the reclusive Malick doesn't care what audiences think of his movies. But I imagined my conspiracy because To The Wonder plays like a parody of Malick, much like The Departed plays as a parody of Scorsese. For every moment of sheer, Malickean joy (and there are many), there's another that feels haphazard. Eventually the haphazards win out. I'm amused by the reviews I've read that jump through hoops to turn a **1/2 ruling into a **** review simply because it's Malick. I won't do that here: This is a **1/2 movie. Like the booing Venice audience, I am not fooled by Malick's Brando take. Let the Malick maniacs who have been screaming bloody murder over the boos (and haven't seen the movie—go figure!) call me names all they want. One critic, whom I won't put on blast here, threatened on Twitter to beat up anyone who didn't like this film. It takes true devotion to risk getting fucked up for a director who wouldn't piss on your critical opinion if it were on fire. Fanboys are fanboys, no matter what the director's pedigree is. This is some sad shit right here, and I'm way too old for it.

But I digress. Like all Malick, To The Wonder refuses to spell out the director's true intentions. It exists as a series of images, edits, rhythm and narration. In fact, To the Wonder is mostly narration, some of it simple declarations of the onscreen obvious. (One subtitle "We fight.") The declarative statements are new for Malick, whose narration I've run hot and cold on; I think Days of Heaven's is a thing of exquisite beauty and brilliance, but The Thin Red Line is ruined by its offscreen chatter. To the Wonder is narrated primarily by two people, a French woman in a failed relationship and a priest struggling with his loss of faith. The imagery is appropriate for each thread, but together they just don't mesh. Even at his most abstract, Malick has managed to knit together dissonant visual ideas into a cohesive whole. These two strands clash sloppily, and while a non-linear take on one man's interaction with something bigger than him is prime Malick territory, the same method is less successful in depicting relationships.

The New World tells a love story, but that love story is both more developed and also placed inside a much bigger wave of ideas both related and unrelated. To The Wonder is on a much smaller scope and even more abstract. It prompted me to ask what universal truths were I to glean from To The Wonder's relationships, which are merely countless scenes of Ben Affleck looking uncomfortable and inexplicably fighting with a woman? This woman, whom he convinces to move from Paris with her daughter, is the main character of To the Wonder. She bears most of the narration, and I assume we are supposed to be viewing Affleck and the notion of romance through her eyes. Her arc may play better for romantics and people who are attracted to ciphers of men; I tried vainly to remain involved through my frustration. Standing alone outside of the bigger themes Malick usually tackles, one feels nothing for these romantic dissolutions. The French hottie (who is actually a Russian hottie) also spins around enough to turn into Lynda Carter's incarnation of Wonder Woman 700 times. I keep bringing this up because it really does descend into ZAZ-level parody. "That bitch must be really dizzy," the evil side of my brain remarked.

Rachel McAdams shows up to say "Hi." As another woman Affleck falls for, her role registers like a fly on a windshield. Javier Bardem inspired the opposite reaction, as I was most interested in his character. Even when his narration threatened to become The Tree of Life-lite, I was drawn to his sad face and his pleadings with a God in which he is struggling to believe. My good buddy, Mark Pfeiffer (who loved the film) described To the Wonder as Malick's take on Hell, which is a very good analogy for this section. My favorite scene in the film is Bardem's interaction with a Frederick Douglass-looking elderly Black man in front of a stained glass window. It's a rare piece of straight dialogue in the film, but I loved the emotion and the words the old man uses. They were crazy, philosophical, and stayed in my head for days. Just like most of Malick's films.

To the Wonder is certainly not boo-worthy, and there are moments of true beauty and delight. To the Wonder isn't a bad film, but it's a sloppy one. It feels lazy. Even when I've given a negative review to a Malick film (and for the record, until this film, the tally of negative reviews from me was ONE), it has left me with much to contemplate. Here I just didn't care because I don't think I was given enough to truly contemplate. They printed the bad take, and I felt like Marlon Brando.
odienatorhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-64073771876234980282012-09-12T18:04:00.002-04:002012-09-12T18:04:52.364-04:00Big Stars, Bigger Messes at TIFF
by Odienator

(click here for all TIFF pieces)

Big stars were not immune to big messes here at TIFF. Several major stars appeared on screen and proceeded to make my hair look like Buckwheat's. (Ed. Note: Odie's normally nappy head is bald nowadays) Celebrities like Bill Murray and Tom Hanks made TIFF stand for Totally Incompetent Feature Failures. Let's start with that gopher's nemesis as the Reagan of the Democrats.

They must have paid Laura Linney beaucoup dollars to say the shit that passes for narration in Hyde Park on Hudson. This year's My Week With Marilyn makes the same mistake that film did: It allows the least interesting character to control the story. Marilyn's take would have been more interesting, as would FDR's take on the visits of his fifth or sixth cousin once removed. When a larger-than-life figure is involved in the story, one should either let them do the talking or allow them to walk off with the picture despite the film's gaze. Me and Orson Welles does the latter, with Christian McKay looming over the film even when he's not onscreen. Hyde Park on Hudson has Bill Murray's FDR, but I would have expected Laura Linney to carry the film on her own. She's a fine actress and a welcome presence. Instead, Linney fails miserably, and it really isn't her fault.

The screenplay, by Richard Nelson, reads like a failed writing workshop class project. The structure is clunky, and it has the misfortune to be populated with the same characters as Oscar winner, The King's Speech. Here, Bertie is no Colin Firth, (though Samuel West gives it a game, respectable try) and this film's Queen Elizabeth is a ripe bitch who freaks out over a goddamn hot dog. In fact, a major plot point in Hyde Park on Hudson has to do with serving hot dogs at a picnic! There must be 15 minutes of dialogue, most of it arguments, about wieners. The plot itself is also about wieners, with FDR putting his every place except Mrs. Roosevelt cooter. Linney's character, the appropriately named Margaret Suckley, is just the latest in a long line of trysts FDR conducted practically in plain sight. "Everyone has secrets," narrates Linney dramatically before pausing for even more goofy effect, "FDR was mine!"

I can't complain enough about the groan worthy dialogue. Wait'll you hear the line Linney is forced to utter after, um, giving FDR a hand in the front seat of his car. Even worse, one feels sorry for the actors forced to utter it. Bill Murray, whom I've always adored, fares no better when trying to spit out these lumps of coal. He's just not believable as FDR. Ralph Bellamy's ghost can sleep easily—hell, Edward Herrman's warm body can sleep just as easily. Granted, Anthony Hopkins looked nothing like Nixon in Ollie Stone's biopic, but Hopkins evoked Nixon. Murray is FDR like I am Andrew Jackson. I didn't buy him for a minute, and Roger Michell's direction aims for high prestige when it should be aiming far, far lower. After all, this is a movie about a President's mistress recounting her days fucking the President of the United States. And it's a drab, hot dog-filled affair. I sure hope no one involved with this movie tackles the Monica Lewinsky story, Diddle In a Blue Dress.

 I don't want to waste more than 300 words on Cloud Atlas. Easily the worst film I've seen at the Festival, Cloud Atlas turns an unfilmable novel into an unwatchable movie. I have not read the novel, so I've no idea how closely the cinematic version hews, but I am hoping no one sounds like hated Star Wars characters or has an accent as bad as most of Tom Hanks' incarnations. Everyone involved plays multiple roles, and perhaps the only fun in Cloud Atlas comes at the end when the credits reveal who was who. Even that is tempered by bad ideas, as it made me a bit itchy seeing Caucasian actors in Asian makeup. The Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer must have been channeling Charlie Chan serials from the 30's or Breakfast at Tiffany's. Hugo Weaving, who must owe the Wachowskis money, even shows up as a Nurse Ratched-style head of an old folks' home, and his makeup would have gotten him run over by Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

In fact, the makeup is dreadful on everybody, but it's no match for the plot and the acting. Everybody ranges from passable to outright embarrassing. Cloud Atlas also hops from story to story, and across timelines both past and future. Unlike other films of this ilk, none of the stories is any good. Usually, one can find a tale that holds one's interest, and bide time until the filmmakers return to it. Here, it's like watching 6 bad movies at once, each one more agonizing than the former. Since it feels edited with a roulette wheel, one never knows which tale will follow which scene. There's no real logic to placement until the film's climax, which is an unmitigated disaster with one bright spot. That spot is in the guise of Keith David, whose 70's set interactions with Halle Berry provide Cloud Atlas with its rare moment of suspense.

Berry and Jim Broadbent probably fare best in the actor pool, with Berry almost making the absurd Jar-Jar Binks dialogue of her future story work. Paired with Tom Hanks in numerous story lines, she steps up her acting against the veteran. Unfortunately, Hanks steps down—waaaaay down—into the depths of Razzies territory. His acting is as bad as his hair in The Da Vinci Code, and when one of his characters is blown up by a suitcase, I was happy Hanks was gone. Then I remembered that he was 7 other characters. Doona Bae from The Host seems to exist only to spout the film's dreadful new-agey mythology, show her tits and play a Mexican who bashes one of Hugo Weaving's characters' heads in with a pipe. There are also plotlines about slavery, homosexual composers and the world's worst old folks home. Nothing works.

At 163 minutes, Cloud Atlas is a root canal of a movie, interminable and incredibly painful. I don't know who directed what, and I really don't care. I can assume that the Wachowskis directed the scene where Forrest Gump, now reimagined as a George Michael lookalike with the shittiest accent since the Lucky Charms leprechaun tosses a snooty critic off a building. The camera follows the critic down to the street, where he splatters in what passes for this film's humor. This happens about 10 minutes into Cloud Atlas, earning its R rating. I felt envious of that guy. At least he didn't have to sit through the other 153 minutes of this garbage. And I spent 593 words on this. Damn you, Cloud Atlas! Damn you to Hell!

odienatorhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-9623607381545310312012-09-12T17:48:00.001-04:002012-09-12T17:48:20.437-04:00Science, Faith and the Will To Survive
by Odienator

(click here for all TIFF pieces)

Before the world premiere here in Toronto of his film, The Deep (Djúpið), director Baltasar Kormákur explained that he wanted to make a film that asked, and answered, what it meant to be from his home country, Iceland. His main character, Gulli (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson), endures both a harrowing fight for survival and a constant series of medical tests designed to answer why he survived at all. Shot on location, The Deep chronicles Gulli's six hour ordeal in the frigid North Atlantic Ocean after his boat capsizes. The ocean is so cold that normal men would fatally succumb to confusion and hypothermia within minutes. Gulli lasts not only six hours, he also makes the correct decisions to ensure his survival. The TIFF guide calls The Deep a "modern-day everyman myth," but there is truth to it: According to Kormákur, the real-life Gulli is considered a hero and a freak by his countrymen.

Kormákur and his co-screenwriter Jón Atli Jónasson weave both subtle and blatant metaphor into their narrative. Gulli's tale is one of resilience applied to a country that has survived economic collapse and a year-long volcanic eruption on one of its islands. The weather and the environment are depicted as exceptionally harsh, yet commonplace to Icelanders. Against this backdrop, people go about their days drinking, working and raising families. Religion is also part of daily life, with numerous prayers offered up to de Lawd. God is interwoven into the fabric of The Deep, with His presence felt most in a scene that cross-cuts between the prayers of the doomed sailors and those of their families at home.

The Deep introduces these doomed sailors, and the one who lives, at the local bar. Gulli is a fisherman who sails on the North Atlantic in treacherous conditions in order to make a living. In this bar, he meets his fishing boat's new cook, with whom he gets into a quick bout of female trouble. (That is, there's a fight over a woman.) These early scenes show the ruggedness of the location and its inhabitants. After the crew shoves off for the vastness of the North Atlantic and its daily catch, The Deep becomes Gulli's tale of survival against nature. The sea is a harsh mistress, but as we'll discover, land isn't so forgiving either.

Kormákur told the TIFF audience that his film was done without CGI, which makes the entire ocean sequence truly harrowing. The actors are really out there being thrashed around by the cruel surf. Ólafsson is really in the North Atlantic for take after take. A wide shot of Gulli floating alone with nothing around him seemingly for miles evoked Lean's shots of Lawrence of Arabia standing in the desert. That overhead shot in the water haunted me for days, as I drowned once and am horribly afraid of open water. Once the barefoot Gulli swims to land, he has to not only climb slippery rocks while being battered by the ocean, he also has to walk two miles on jagged volcanic rock. The ordeal ruined the real Gulli's feet. This too gave me nightmares. Ólafsson and Kormákur turn the simple act of knocking on a door into something cathartic; when Gulli finally reaches a human being who can help him—and that human is on Gulli's home island—I finally let go of my seat.

From here, The Deep explores science vs. faith. Why did Gulli fight so long in that ocean? Unlike his colleagues, he had no wife and kids to inspire his need to survive. Ólafsson, who is exceptionally good, has a fine monologue while floating at sea, intercut with descriptive footage, where he explains what he'd do if God grants him one more day. He is willing to accept death after this one extra day, a take I didn't expect. In return, he is granted several more days—years even—but the earliest of those days is filled with doctors and scientists poking and prodding him looking for answers. The heavy-set Ólafsson looks miserable in these passages, and you do feel for him. He just wants to move on, yet he has to keep reliving his ordeal to satiate others' thirst for answers. "He has seal fat," one doctor explains after a test. Gulli's mother represents the other side of the science-faith equation: "How does one explain a miracle?"

The Deep's last scene is its most compelling commentary on the nature of Icelandic life. Gulli's last official act before the closing credits isn't meant to be heroic by any means. It's just business as usual, representing a stoicism inherent in anyone who traverses the more dangerous paths in life. Kormákur never answers the questions of how and why. His footage of the real Gulli during the closing credits is enough to satisfy my curiosity.

odienatorhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-40646264083572455832012-09-11T11:50:00.002-04:002012-09-11T11:50:54.180-04:00A Duo of Quartetsby Odienator
(click here for all TIFF pieces)

Monday at the Toronto Film Festival bore witness to the duel of the Quartet films. The similarities between this duo of Quartets was bound to cause some confusion. Both films have major stars in the titular roles, deal with classical music and feature past and present transgressions surfacing just before an important performance by the group. The first of the two, Quartet, is the directorial debut of Dustin Hoffman. Benjamin Braddock brings the Brit heavy hitters Dame Maggie Smith, Tom Courtenay, Pauline Collins and the divinely randy Scotsman, Billy Connelly. The second film in this duet, A Late Quartet, stars Catherine Keener, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Mark Ivanir and Christopher Walken as members of a rapidly dissolving string quartet. One film is good, and the other is very good.

Let's start with the good one. Dustin Hoffman's comedy Quartet is based on a play by Ronald Harwood (who also adapted). Set in a British old folks home that caters to former classical musicians, Quartet deals with the secret arrival of the most famous member of a group known for its performance of Verdi's Rigoletto Quartet. The arrival of Jean (Maggie Smith) yields a varying degree of response from the other three members already present at the home. The dotty Cissy (Pauline Collins), whose mind is quickly deteriorating, is happy to see her fellow female singer. Wilf (Billy Connolly) is too busy playing the dirty old man to register much of an opinion, but he's worried about his pal, Reginald (Tom Courtenay). Reginald and Jean have a history so painful that Reginald freaks out when he learns of her arrival.

Meanwhile, the annual Beecham House fundraiser is underway. Celebrating Verdi's birthday, the denizens put on a show for money. Hoffman surrounds his non-singing actors with a plethora of actual classical musicians and singers, each of whom had a major career in Britain when they were younger. Under the direction of Michael Gambon's hilariously cranky musical director, these performers are granted a few moments for onscreen performances of their still formidable talents. But Quartet's main interest is in whether the four original members will put aside their differences to perform the Rigoletto Quartet one more time. With the return of Jean, the most famous of the bunch, this will raise an ungodly sum of money and keep Beecham House open.

We're dealing with a bunch of hams here, and I enjoyed watching them in this familiar story. Smith is in fine form—no one delivers a mean glance or a devastating putdown like she can. Connolly gets the brunt of the one-liners, all delivered in his gorgeously raunchy Scottish accent. Courtenay, no stranger to Harwood's work (he got an Oscar nod for The Dresser), carries most of the dramatic scenes, lashing out in anger at Jean, his true love who cheated on him 9 hours after they were married. And Pauline Collins brings a comic realism to Cissy, whose moments of lucidity are becoming farther apart as time passes.

Though he allows the real musicians to shine, Hoffman wisely does NOT show us any of the actors doing Marni Nixon impressions; we know damn well they can't sing opera. The newbie director pitches Quartet at a quick pace so we've little time to register and critique its clichés until long after it is over. The cin-tog by John de Borman is a standout, and while Quartet is no gem, it's cute and diverting. I had fun watching the actors go at it, especially Michael Gambon who, in one scene, is dressed eerily like Albus Dumbledore.

Covering similar ground in terms of relationship dynamics, A Late Quartet is far more dramatic than Quartet, though not without the former's sense of humor at times. The pedigree of actors involved was enough to raise interest, so I was surprised at how many empty seats I saw at the theater during the film's world premiere here in Toronto. Director and co-screenwriter Yaron Zilberman guides his cast through a number of issues en route to their potential last performance together, and his actors respond with consistently good work. Though each of the four leads are memorable, Christopher Walken rises above his colleagues; his performance is fantastic and the best one I've seen at the festival thus far. Like his character, Walken is the glue that holds this quartet together. Achingly vulnerable yet still the Walken we know and love, he delivers masterfully. His last scene is heartbreaking yet hopeful, and the actor is in full control of the situation.

Walken's Peter Mitchell is the oldest member of the a string quartet about to celebrate its 25th anniversary together. The other members are two former students, Robert (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Daniel (Mark Ivanir) and the woman Peter and his wife took in and nurtured, Juliette. Juliette and Robert are married with one daughter, Alexandra, a violinist being taught by Daniel. Juliette plays the viola and Peter plays cello. Robert, the more passionate musician, is second violin; Daniel, the perfectionist, is first violin. For years, Robert has coveted the first violin chair but has remained silent for the good of the group. Daniel has coveted Alexandra, but has also kept his desires in check for the sake of the quartet.

The first blow to the quartet's survival is Peter's Parkinson's disease diagnosis. This will eventually rob him of his cello-playing skills, a symptom that's already starting to manifest, so Peter tells the group they need to find a replacement. If he's well enough to do the 25th anniversary concert, he'll do so and then announce his retirement. Sensing this as a moment of change, Robert suggests he and Daniel alternate on first and second chair. This registers as the second blow to the quartet's survival. Toss in marital problems, mother-daughter relationship anguish and Alexandra's realization that Daniel has a thing for her, and all hell breaks loose.

The cast avoids the more melodramatic pitfalls of this material (though melodrama is not a bad thing by my standards). Ivanir credibly balances his rigid compulsions with his sudden leap into the spontaneity of his doomed relationship with Alexandra. Keener is cold yet sympathetic as a wife whose marriage may or may not be one of convenience. Hoffman is the quartet's id, proving the Biblical quote about pride going before destruction. (Check your Bible, it's "pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before the fall.") And Walken's elder statesman conveys strength despite the double whammy of his prognosis and his opera singer wife Miriam's recent demise. It's almost comical that, for all the shit he's going through, he still has to be the grown-up as the rest of his team crashes and burns. "Get out of my house!" he tells them at the height of their tumult, and Walken's exasperation puts the viewer squarely in his corner.

Of the two, A Late Quartet is the better film. I was glad to have seen both on the same day, as they'd make a good double feature. On that day, I also saw Free Angela and All Political Prisoners, which I'll talk about next time.
odienatorhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-47254604481391864442012-09-08T17:12:00.000-04:002012-09-08T17:14:41.993-04:00Affleck's Argo Is Shockingly Goodby Odienator
(click here all TIFF reviews)

Argo, Ben Affleck's third feature film as director tells the now-declassified tale of the CIA's successful attempt to save the six US Embassy workers not taken hostage in the Iran Hostage Crisis of 1979. These six people managed to escape just as the embassy was stormed by angry protestors demanding the return of the Shah of Iran. Hiding out in the Canadian ambassador's house, they run the risk of discovery and capture daily. The danger increases as the fugitives' identities are being pieced together from shredded documents retrieved from the Embassy after it was compromised. The CIA mission, led by Tony Mendez (Affleck) conjures up a tale stranger than fiction: The six will claim to be scouting locations for a movie called Argo and, with Mendez's help, will secure the necessary papers to fly out of Iran.

Argo immediately evokes a 70's movie feel, with the Warner Bros. logo reverting to its old white W on black circle. Affleck, both as performer and helmer, coasts on that vibe, using cin-togger Rodrigo Prieto, editor William Goldenberg and costume designer Jacqueline West as effective co-conspirators. Affleck's Mendez has the Serpico look, and the film's construction and design aim for the films of Alan J. Pakula. Affleck is no Pakula, but Argo is easily his best work both behind and in front of the camera. He successfully juggles the back and forth intercutting of events in Iran and Virginia, and the escape sequence is a superbly rendered example of near-excruciating suspense. To pull that off when the audience already knows the outcome takes skill, and Affleck deserves credit and praise for it.

Also worthy of praise are a bevy of actors relishing the dialogue assigned them by screenwriter Chris Terrio. Alan Arkin, John Goodman and Bryan Cranston snatch the picture from their director whenever they're onscreen. Argo casts Goodman and Arkin as the Hollywood players responsible for creating the ruse that brings credibility to Mendez's plan. Mendez enlists producer Lester Siegel (Arkin) and Planet of the Apes makeup man John Chambers (Goodman) to dupe Hollywood into thinking the Argo film is a real production. They select Argo's screenplay because it's science fiction and therefore requires a landscape that mimics a distant planet. Iran fits the bill perfectly. "If I'm going to make a fake movie, it's going to be a fake hit," Siegel tells Mendez, and thanks to Star Wars, everybody and their mother is making a knock-off of Lucas' film.

At CIA headquarters, Cranston's Jack O'Donnell brings a scary intensity and genuine comic timing to his role as Mendez's boss. The roundtable meeting where the agents discuss potential plans of action (all of which Mendez casually shoots down) would be less hilarious if it weren't so damn plausible. As crazy as the Argo plan is, it's the best idea anyone can come up with in a short period of time. Cranston, looking like Walter White's dad in his 70's get-up, is perfectly cast; he's even able to sell the tired old cliché of pulling the agent off the job when something goes wrong.

The fugitives are not as memorable as the movie makers and the government shakers, but Argo gives them enough screen time to fully invest the audience in their plight. Each of the actors (Clea DuVall, Christopher Denham, Tate Donovan, Rory Cochrane, Kerry Bishé and Scoot McNairy) craft identities and have at least one very good scene of worry, woe or heroics. Victor Garber plays the Canadian ambassador who hides them and, after the mission is complete, reaps the benefit of all the praise for its success. The TIFF audience cheered when O'Donnell tells Mendez that, for the safety of the other hostages, Canada will receive full credit for the rescue. "If we wanted applause," O'Donnell tells him, "we would have joined the circus." "I thought this was the circus," Mendez retorts.

The hostage crisis lasted 444 days, all of which I remember from my youth. Argo provides the requisite end-of-movie credits details about the outcome, as well as some words from former President Jimmy Carter. Argo also provides a great entertainment, one that should be a hit with regular audiences and quite possibly the Academy. I can see this winning the Audience award here, though I have never been successful at picking the correct movie. The third time's the charm for director Affleck—this is a damn good movie.

(Ben Affleck was present at the screening, and gave his best film a very funny introduction.)
odienatorhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-76897293687282910232012-09-08T14:57:00.001-04:002012-10-08T22:42:30.936-04:00A Canadian Festival In King Odie's Court
by Odienator

Greetings from the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival!

Over the next several days, I'll be chiming in with reviews of the movies I'll be seeing here. I'll post each one to this list, and on each review, I'll have a link back here so you can browse the entries from one location.

This is my third Toronto Film Festival since my first visit in 2000, and I've always enjoyed the feeling that I'm watching movies with more than just the usual festival film snobs. The general public occupies a fair amount of seats at the regular screenings, and I've spoken to both diehard cinephiles and the occasional moviegoer curious enough to sample the festival's wares.

Check back here every day for whatever deviltry I'm up to here in Ontario, eh?

Reviews

Argo
Quartet and A Late Quartet
The Deep (Djúpið)
Hyde Park on Hudson and Cloud Atlas
To The Wonder
9.79*
odienatorhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-7546663879638189912012-09-04T13:07:00.003-04:002012-09-04T13:07:43.890-04:00Big Media Vandalism's Top 50 Sight and Sound Listby Odienator

Sorry I haven't been out here on this blog, but I have been busy over at our sister blog, Big Media Vandalism, tossing together our own Sight and Sound Top 50 list. I'm sure it'll cause trouble, so check it out!

Black History Mumf Sight and Sound List (50-41)
Black History Mumf Sight and Sound List (40-31)
Black History Mumf Sight and Sound List (30-21)
Black History Mumf Sight and Sound List (20-11)
Black History Mumf Sight and Sound List (10-1)

I'll be back this weekend to start my coverage from the Toronto Film Festival.

odienatorhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-29538397208759301732012-07-06T10:54:00.002-04:002012-09-06T13:21:56.641-04:00A Quarter Century of Codingby Odienator

Today is my 25th anniversary as a programmer. This was an arranged marriage, and as such I grew to love it though my passions were truly elsewhere. The dreamer in me wanted to write about film. He was deterred by obstacles, some insurmountable, some not. Unless you sold a million copies, writers didn't make a lot of money. I grew up broke and with no intention of being grown and broke. That was the surmountable obstacle. I just needed to be a success which, to a 17 year old, seemed simple enough. But there were also no Black film critics at the time, or so I thought, and I didn't think I'd be able to get a job. I couldn't scrub off my Blackness with Brillo, making this an insurmountable obstacle. This was also the deciding factor in allowing myself to be betrothed to Bill Gates and Sun Microsystems.

 "Odie, you is mah woman now!"

I once asked my Pops what constituted a career. He thought a moment, then said "at least 25 years." He told me if I were able to secure a job and hold it for a quarter of a century, it would achieve the status of "a career." This was in an era where the concept of the company man was not quite dead. There was still a notion that doing a good job meant you'd retire from that job. I thought it odd that society would consider me an adult after 18 years, but my work would require twenty-five for a similar status. No matter. I am a compulsive, and I desire a logical order in all things. Twenty-five years made a comforting amount of sense to me.

When I started looking for serious employment, I was a sophomore in college. I needed money to pay for my schooling, so a part-time job wouldn't do. I wound up with a part-time job anyway, but I worked a full 8 hours learning the first of many systems with which I would do battle during my tenure. Since I needed to commit to a major that semester, and I had a job that could potentially go full-time after I graduated, I chose to major in computer science. I'd taken two CS classes already, so there was no transition from my freshman year. But it was not what I wanted to do; it was the logical thing to do. The compulsive in me was happy. The dreamer in me felt defeated. To bridge the gap, I imposed a timeline and I chose the area of information technology best described as creation through writing. If I could find a job writing programs, and I kept it for 25 years, I could return to the scene of this decision and readdress it. Unlike Robert Frost, I was going to return to that fork in the road and consider taking the road not taken.

If my mother had gotten her way, I'd be a lawyer right now. I would have been the first lawyer in a family still deprived of Johnnie Cochrans. With my personality, I would not only be chasing ambulances, I'd be driving the ones I couldn't catch. I envision a 3 AM TV commercial where I ascend from a fiery hole in the ground, dressed to the nines and looking sympathetically at the camera. "Have you ever been in an accident?" I would ask. "Call the law firm of Henderson & Henderson now at 1-800-ODIE-LAW! Odienators are standing by!"

There was just one problem: I hate lawyers. Couple that with a teenager's rebellious need to defy his parents, and things looked grim for Odienator, Esq. I stated unequivocally that I'd be a bum on the street before I joined Dewey, Screwum and Howe. To Mom's generation, the vocations of prestige and privilege were medicine and the law. Mom chose the law because she knew her eldest boy was not mechanically inclined. I am clumsy and lack the most basic male instincts of construction without instructions. Odienator The Ambulance Chaser would get rich off the handiwork of Dr. Odie.

My refusal to succumb to the Devil's Profession was not without consequence. Since we couldn't agree on my major, I was offered the unlikely successful option of deciding what a 16-year old freshman wished to pursue. When I told Mom I wanted to pursue journalism, she said "writing is a frivolous pursuit." This was a dagger in my heart because writing was my way of self-definition and identification. I was a writer before I was Black, before I was a boy, before I was human. It was—dare I use this word again?—a compulsion over which I had no control. And my reason for drawing breath was rejected as "frivolous pursuit." Mom believes that to this day, and the reservoir of guilt I carry deep within me rises a foot with every written piece I submit. This may bring enough rain for an extra two feet of guilt.

So follow this sad, warped, yet acceptable to both sides of me logic: Programming is writing, except you're not telling a dramatic story, you're writing a how-to book. Your story gets deployed (kind of like being published) and run by users (kind of like reading it). It does what your written lines told it to do. I convinced my writer's heart that becoming a programmer was not a betrayal, just another way of telling a story. "But," I added, "in 25 years, let's have this conversation again."

There's an easy answer to the question forming in your mind, and that answer is time. I couldn't have both a writing career and a programming career because the latter is incredibly demanding. I've been writing on the side somewhat consistently since 2006, and it's hard for someone with my coding experience. It would have been impossible in my less mature and disciplined days. Plus, I type all day, staring at a piece of simulated "paper" filled with whatever programming language I am using. After the aggravation of that, sometimes the last thing I want to do is MORE typing on this fucking machine. I can't enjoy the computer at home if the one at work is crabby and unreasonable. I didn't become a gynecologist for this same reason.

So here we are, 25 years to the day when I started my first computer job, and in my reflection I must firmly state JE NE REGRETTE RIEN. I've never looked back to say "what if" because I knew I'd be saying "what now?" today. This is how my inner psychology works—when it comes to life decisions I'm Mr. Deadline. If I mark it on the calendar, it becomes real and tangible to me. I can put it out of my head until the deadline begins approaching. If I could explain it better, I would.

I regret nothing, because like the Cuban baseball player Garrett Morris played on Saturday Night Live always said: programming has been "berry, berry good to me." I've travelled the world, spending time in Europe, Asia, Australia and North America. I've written software that has been used by hundreds, if not thousands of customers. I know 19 programming languages and have honed my craft to a level of which I am proud. The money's not that bad either. I've been able to live the lifestyle to which I've become accustomed.

My timing was also perfect: I've watched and participated in the evolution of technology from huge, clunky mainframes and minicomputers to the iPhone that's currently giving you brain cancer. For a technogeek like me, these changes have been most exciting. When I started, I worked on an IBM 370, the DEC VAX and the DG MV/2000 mini-computer. I wrote some of my college papers on an IBM AT, a desktop computer far bigger than the one on which I'm writing this piece. The AT, if I recall correctly, was a whopping 6 Mhz with a Pentium 286 chip in it. It had a 2400 baud modem in it, and a maximum 16 MB of memory. Compared to today's machinery, this is like 2 tin cans and a string vs. an Android phone. Hell, it's one tin can, no string.

Today, I reflect on years of syntax errors, programming bugs, programs that blow up during demos and other nuisances of my profession. Anyone who has spent time navigating the choppy seas of computer logic will tell you that "code" is a four-letter word, both in the literal and figurative senses. If my old keyboards could talk, they'd reveal how much profanity I've spewed while banging furiously on them. They'll also tell you how much coffee I've accidentally spilled into them, for coffee and sugar are the programmer's sustenance.

Programming for 25 years had one byproduct I did not anticipate: book potential! I've been writing a book about my life as a programmer (a chapter appeared on this blog), and before you dismiss it as boring, let's remind you with whom you are dealing. You know goddamn well I can't have a normal experience. I've been hit by clients, hit on by clients, cussed out, accused of more than one crime—including crimes against nature, and have been mistaken for the wrong color AND gender.

I once had the unpleasant discovery that the desk I'd been using not only for work but also to eat lunch was being used by my boss to nail his secretary. I walked in on them, and immediately remembered that I'd once dropped a tomato slice on my desk, picked it up and eaten it. The only words I could muster so they'd know I was there was "THAT'S NOT SANITARY!!"

So don't expect a boring book, nor one rated PG-13 either.

Lest I forget, the most important feature of being a programmer is this: When the machines take over, they'll still need somebody to write code for them. You guys will be shoved into some robot's ass as a battery, and I'll be sitting in a little floating cube writing code for our new Evil Overlords. If you tell our new masters you used to read this blog, I'll make sure I get you a cushy robotic booty.

"Hey! Get into my ass!"

As I stand here once again evaluating the roads before me, I feel a certain agony. I really can't make up my mind. Neither way would be objectionable, though I confess to being tired of writing code. One way would be exciting and new, the other dependable and familiar. I really can't make up my mind, so I've decided to do something completely irresponsible. I am going to let fate make the decision for me. That's right, folks, I'm going to flip a coin. A quarter no less! 25 years, 25 cents!

Heads—stay a programmer, Tails—get out and, if I fail, have to sell my ass on the street corner. I'm gonna flip it right here, right now, and whatever the coin says, I shall abide by its decision. Let's just hope I can catch this bitch as it falls through the air.

Are we ready? I'm flipping it now!

WHOA!!!

OK, coin--I'll do it!

Happy 25th Anniversary to you, Programming Career!
odienatorhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-78770890753201374712012-06-07T17:47:00.003-04:002012-06-07T17:53:27.571-04:00Happy Birthday, Prince!
by Odienator

 His Purple Badness turns 54 today, and before you think "Damn, Prince is OLD!!!" keep in mind that, if you've followed his career from the beginning, your ass is old too. I've been listening to Prince since I was in the 6th grade, when he came out with I Wanna Be Your Lover. Girls in my class were singing it all day, and with its high falsetto, I actually thought a woman sang it. Imagine my surprise when I first got a glimpse of Prince on TV! I said "whoa, this chick has a mustache!"

I was no fan of Prince's music back then, but every girl I knew was crazy for him. I just couldn't understand it. He looked terrifying to me, running out on stage in a trench coat and what looked like panties, wearing heels so high they'd give even the toughest hooker a nosebleed. But there were girls in both my grammar and high school who were OBSESSED with him. The Black girls dug Prince, the Latinas were loco for Menudo, and the White girls liked anything that had a lot of hair and a guitar. I couldn't figure this shit out to save my life.

But that was stupid, naïve, inexperienced Odie.

When I figured out Prince could get me laid, I changed my entire outlook on the man and his music. I suddenly saw him for the brilliant musical talent he is. Playing practically every instrument, Prince showed up on records and sweat hot liquid sex and passion. He did something to women that got them out of their panties faster than if a mouse had crawled into them. His music also brought out the freak in these women, and in me too. He was the musical version of the Kama Sutra.

The best X-rated night of my adolescent life came after a Prince concert, my first of the three Prince concerts I'd attend. It was the Sign O' The Times tour, and my soon-to-be-wife and I sat in the third row. Prince was so close to us he could have leaped into the audience and landed on my girl. She would not have minded, either. But she didn't get Prince at the end of the evening. What she DID do was imagine Prince's head on my body. We're about the same height (OK, I'm taller but not by much). "Dig if you will the picture," sang Prince, and she did. Mentally casting me as Prince, homegirl went berserk! She put some Prince on the stereo, slammed me against the wall and went off. She was crawling on the floor like a cat, doing backflips and tossing me around as if I weighed 10 pounds. Sparks were flying out of places I dare not mention.

OK, OK, I'm exaggerating. No sparks shot out of anywhere. But I had to crawl home because I was beyond exhausted. As Ice T famously sang, this girl tried to kill me.

I've been a diehard Prince fan ever since. Drippy ass candles and all!

So, in honor of both my conversion and Prince's birthday, here are 10 Great Prince Bonin' Jams, songs to put on to make the panties evaporate. There are obviously more than 10, so I'm sure I've missed your favorites. These aren't necessarily "the best"; these are the ones out of which I got the most mileage. Your mileage may vary, as they say.

10. I Can't Make You Love Me- I would have thought Bonnie Raitt had wrung out every last ounce of mournful vulnerability in this song, but Prince finds a few more layers below to explore. While not my favorite Prince cover (that belongs to his take on the Delfonics' "La La Means I Love You"), it's sad enough to make you cling even harder to your object d'amour, especially if you're living the song's lyrics.

9. Eye Hate U- A track off Prince's underrated "The Gold Experience" explores the other side of the equation; In #10, the singer loves but his lover does not. In this song, the lover still does not love Prince, but now he can't stand her either. Yet in both cases, he's drawn to the danger and can't stop thinking about Miss Thing. "I hate you like a day without sunshine," he sings in falsetto, and you feel the anger right in your whooziwatzit. A good angry sex song if there ever was one.

8. Under the Cherry Moon- I have to throw this on here because it was one of the Great Love of My Life's favorite songs. It was on her personal bonin' jams cassette tape (Jesus Christ, I am old!!) and I got to hear it a lot. There's nothing wrong with this slow jam, except that it conjures up memories of the hideous spectacle of a film that bears its name. I won't hold that against it. It's slow, dreamy, and wildly effective. "Lovers like us dear were born to die," Prince sings, and I immediately think of the Elizabethan definition of "to die."

7. The Beautiful Ones- The third song on Purple Rain is yet another ode to loving the wrong person, in this case, one of the titular objects. "The Beautiful Ones, they hurt you every time," sings His Purple Badness, a few lyrics before delivering the most anguished line in the entire Prince canon: "You make me so (pause…) con-fuuuuu-uuuu-oooo-ooosed!" What sweet agony I feel every time I hear this song. Famous for the 3 minutes of screamed lyrics that end the song, an orgasmic howl of fury to match your own while you're in the moment this song has helped you achieve.

 6. International Lover- Sex can be silly as hell. So can Prince. Using an airline as his metaphor, Prince tosses out all manner of innuendo, creating his own mile high club. In the hilariously sexy spoken rap part of the song, he coos "If for any reason there's a loss in cabin pressure, I will drop down to apply more." Can you imagine being on a plane and Prince drops out of the damn ceiling? "In the event there is over-excitement," he continues, "your seat cushion may be used as a flotation device." Now, that's just nasty. Think about it for a minute. See?

5. Slow Love- Considering how far it got me, I couldn't leave off at least one song from Prince's two-CD Sign O' The Times album. This is the lovemaking doozy of the first disc, with its sexy, inviting horns, hip-guiding percussion and syrupy, yet effective lyrics. Prince uses his normal and falsetto voices like an erotic weapon here, especially when he sings the title in the line "Slow love, so much better when we take it easy!" What he does to the word "slow" in that lyric rivals Aretha at her word-extending best.

4. Adore- The lovemaking doozy on Sign O' The Times' second disc is a slick ode to the everlasting adoration Prince feels for this song's subject. She can burn up his clothes and smash up his ride ("well, maybe not the ride," he says) but that won't stop him from adoring her until the end of time. Like "Slow Love," the horns in this song practically spell out screwing. So hypnotic is this record that radio DJ's always forgot to bleep out its radio-unfriendly profanity. I had a friend who used this as her wedding song. I couldn't fault her, but I had to ask "are you really gonna play this shit IN CHURCH?!!"

3. Insatiable- Some chick named Martha (or "Marfa" as Prince calls her) has our royal hero's nose open in this one. "My body, baby, you truly do." he tells her. "Insatiable's my name when it comes to you." Marfa must have the ill nana! This one gets a li'l freaky on us, because it's about making a sex tape. "Press the red button and I belong to you," says Prince. Shouldn't the woman be saying that to him, though?

2. Shhh!- When I first thought up this list, I left this song off. That was a glaring oversight corrected by Sam C. Mac on Twitter. I know why I forgot it—whenever I think of it, I think of the creepy Tevin Campbell version. That does not work at all, unless you're a pedophile. Prince's version, on The Gold Experience is another story altogether. This may be Prince's most erotic record. It demands that you stop whatever it is you are doing and start gettin' bizzy. But do it quietly, because "this love is a private affair." The opening minute of this song is enough to raise beads of sweat from even the most pious forehead. This should be number one, but I got the most mileage out of the song that follows this.

 1. Scandalous- The best thing to come from Tim Burton's Batman is the music Prince wrote for it. He called it "Scandalous" for a reason, and the synth-y organ music that forms the base of the song is more sinful than anything an organ's been used for in church. This song is why you have to go to church on Sunday. "Come (pause…) closer," Prince beckons. "Feel what you've been dying for." You know you want it, and when Prince sings an ever deeper volley of the word "baby" three-quarters of the way through the song, you'll be just as deep as his last "baby." Worth every last panted breath and sigh of reckless abandon.

So, honor the man! Grab these songs and get your swerve on! Tell yo' lover the Odienator sent you. Prince can't be as nasty as he used to be anymore, but I can. Get out of here and celebrate Prince's birthday the right way!

odienatorhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-46292127915250242132012-05-17T19:29:00.004-04:002012-05-17T19:29:53.137-04:00Flippin' The Birds With Hitchby Odienator

My introduction to Alfred Hitchcock came courtesy of two PIX's: The Pix Theater in Jersey City and WPIX-11 on my VHF dial. The Pix Theater is where I saw the only Hitchcock movie I saw in first run, Family Plot. WPIX is where I saw my favorite Hitchcock movie for the first time, and a few of his more respectable ones as well. Both events occurred around age 6. Since then, Hitchcock has been a part of my life. My obsession with the Master of Suspense led me to view every available film of his, his television show (both incarnations), and to read the superb book-long interview with François Truffaut. The For The Love Of Film Blog-a-Thon, for which I am writing this piece, is looking to raise money so that I may continue my obsession with Hitch—the monies donated will allow streaming of the first known film Hitchcock was associated with, Graham Cutts' The White Shadow.

Now I truly hate when bloggers ask for money, but I'm coming to you today with my hat out, begging like Mr. Wendal from that Arrested Development song. Look a bruva out and click at the bottom of this entry. Or click here. Toss a few bucks. Do it for Hitch. Don't make me have to star in a real-life To Catch A Thief so I can get my fix.

 Speaking of thieves, Family Plot is about one played by William Devane. The only thing I remember from my first viewing was a car chase. It would take a viewing on WPIX years later to fill in the blanks. By this time, my cinematic education allowed me to make a connection between my second favorite director's last movie, and an earlier one by my favorite director: Hitchcock's kidnapper demands the ransom be hidden in the same location Billy Wilder's drunk hid his booze. I have NYC television to thank for allowing these connections, and for my introduction to so much of the old cinema I love. I had so fewer channels at that age than a kid nowadays, yet my cinematic horizons were broadened exponentially more than any contemporary viewer. All they have is Turner Classic Movies; every independent channel in NYC was Turner Classic Movies to us.

But I digress. Lesser Hitchcock or not, Family Plot is a good movie, one I enjoyed and would like to revisit. However, it had little effect on me as a six year old. Plot's lead, Barbara Harris, would be far more effective that same year when she switched personalities with Jodie Foster in Disney's Freaky Friday. A different Hitchcock actress would penetrate my Afro and embed her film into my memory. All she had to do was get half-eaten by a bunch of flying shithouses.

When asked for my favorite Hitchcock, I usually say Vertigo. This is a lie. Vertigo is Hitchcock's best movie, to be sure, but it is not my favorite. Vertigo is the "critically correct" thing for me to say, but let's face it: I grew to love Vertigo the way I grew to love jazz. No such evolution of my maturity was required to love The Birds. It bypassed adult-level explanation and went straight for the eyes. WPIX played it a million times in my youth, and it never ceased to scare the everlasting gobstopper shit out of my younger incarnation whenever he watched it. I can attribute that fear to one shot in the picture—a broken pair of glasses.

I was weaned on horror movies. Both my parents love them, as do my siblings. At the time I encountered The Birds, however, a few things were still sacred in my horror viewing experience. For example, horror movies never went after kids. Not even the badass kids like Bill Mumy on The Twilight Zone. The giant ants in Them! didn't eat kids. Neither did The Blob. And though pig-tailed, murderous wench Patty McCormack got struck by lightning, she had it coming, so I was fine with that. The Birds was the first time I saw helpless little kids attacked by forces beyond their control. Watching the scene now, I'm surprised how scared I was by it; its build up is far more terrifying than its execution. But as a kid, I thought Hitchcock played dirty. I was disturbed by shots of crows nibbling on tender, exposed kiddie flesh not unlike my own, but when that shot of the broken glasses appeared, I became almost inconsolably terrified.

Because I wore glasses.

I got a 30 year respite from glasses wearing when I switched to contacts at age 11, but I am now permanently re-enslaved by my Transitions. I see fairly well without them nowadays—the loss of an eye seems to have sharpened my vision—but as a kid, I was blind as a bat without them. It was bad enough to be rendered practically helpless because I couldn't outrun a flying instrument of destruction. Without the gift of sight, I would have been rendered completely helpless. Those birds would have eaten my blind ass up, then Tippi Hedren would have spat on my carcass for all the bad reviews I wrote about her daughter's movies.

Poor Veronica Cartwright! She's been through bird attacks, aliens bursting out of ribcages, and demonic possession by cherry pit or whatever the fuck it was she threw up in The Witches of Eastwick. As the owner of the shattered spectacles in The Birds, she endures all manner of horrors. Closer to my age than anyone else in the main cast, I identified with her. As I grew older, I found myself identifying with Tippi Hedren, the outsider whose presence the close-minded Bodega Bay townsfolk (correctly) believe has brought about the avian Apocalypse. No matter where I go, I feel like an outsider and wacko things happen. If I put on a green dress, I am sure birds would take over the world.

Regardless of what age I've watched The Birds, Hitchcock's masterful setup of the kid-attack sequence never ceases to amaze me. It deserves mention in the same breath as Psycho's shower or North By Northwest's crop duster. The Birds is famously cited for having no musical score, but there is a musical number of sorts. As Hedren's Melanie sits outside smoking a cigarette, the schoolchildren in Suzanne Pleshette's class sing some childhood ditty a capella. I was always lulled into paying attention to what they were singing—the lack of music makes it creepy—and therefore was distracted by Hitchcock as Melanie is. The scene seems to go on longer than comfortably necessary, which makes Hitch's pan to the shitload of birds on the playground bars all the more shocking. To this day, that shot is more of a spine-tingler for me than even Mrs. Bates pulling back that shower curtain.

When I first visited Sonoma County in 2004, my host took me up to Bodega Bay, the town depicted in The Birds. I admit I did not want to be there, and as luck would have it, this was a day my contacts were not cooperating. So I wore my glasses. I kid you not, without warning, some crazy ass bird flew so close to my head I had to duck. "What the hell was that?!!" my host yelled. I couldn't answer him; I was running like Jesse Owens on crack, holding my glasses and swatting the air. Somewhere in the great beyond, Hitchcock was standing, birds in hand, laughing maniacally.

"Which one of you wants to eat Odie for not liking Rear Window?"

Folks, don't forget! Please donate to our cause! As an added incentive, here's the piece I wrote on Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

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