Category: movies

Everything Old is New Again

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

Sometimes the lunchtime news review just aligns with a theme:

Some other news links of interest, but not falling within the theme:

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Milking A Review For All I Can Get Out of It

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

As is our tradition on Christmas, we went out to see a movie (the Chinese food will be a bit later). Alas, the pickings weren’t that great. “Benjamin Button” is just a Forest Gump in a different setting. “Doubt” and “Frost/Nixon”… I’d rather see them in the theatre. “Valkyrie” is a bit dark for a Christmas movie. I just couldn’t bring myself to see “Disney’s Bedtime Stories” or “The Tale of Despereaux”. nsshere suggested “Milk”, and that seemed to be the best of the bunch. So it was off to the Laemmle’s Fallbrook 7 to the 12:40p showing.

“Milk” tells the story of the political ascent of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay supervisor elected to office in San Francisco. It chronicles his three losing campaigns and his final successful one, his campaign against Proposition 6, and his relationships, both at the personal level and with political colleagues such as Dan White. One glaring omission from those relationships was Dianne Feinstein: you see her in one news clip at the beginning, and hear her purported voice in one scene… and that’s it. I don’t know whether that omission was intentional.

Ob road geek, before I go into the review: In the scene where they drive into San Francisco, there are bright green reflective road signs with exit numbers. Bzzzzzt. Try again. Caltrans was still using the dark green signs with button copy in the 1970s, and the only exit numbers were on three exits in downtown Los Angeles. Almost as glaring was the use of the modern restored Market Street PCC cars, and that wonderful boom mike that was visible in one scene.

Anyway, on to the acting. The principle actor in the movie was Sean Penn as Harvey Milk. He gave a very good performance, and is growing well into a leading man. Josh Brolin was a bit stiff as Dan White, but I don’t know if that is how the original politician was. The other actors were pretty much in the background, as I guess happens in a bio-pic. They seem to have been cast primarily because of their resemblance to the real-life people.

The story itself was timely, given the passage of Prop. 8 here in California. The fight that Milk fought still needs to be fought today — there is absolutely no reason to discriminate based on sexual preference. In that, the movie does good, but it also does bad. It is in your face about male homosexuality (there’s nary a lesbian to be seen, except for Alison Pill’s character). But what it doesn’t show is the discrimination that was really faced back then. It doesn’t show the taunting and violence that occured, and what happened in the workplace. This would have been useful to show, if only to show how remarkable Milk’s success was… and how far we still have to go.

I was just starting college around the time that Harvey Milk was shot. I don’t remember following the events, but I do remember hearing about them and about Dan White’s “Twinkie Defense”. I do remember how society at that time viewed homosexuals (with a last name that started “Faig” and being your typical nerd-with-a-briefcase in high school, I got the teasing). Certainly at Palisades High School in the mid-1970s, it wouldn’t have been acceptable for someone to be homosexual. Nowadays, there are kids who are openly gay or lesbian in high school, and no one thinks twice about it. Our society has come so far in the years since then, thanks to the work of people like Harvey Milk. Although I’m not gay, this battle is just so important, because it is up to the law to protect the rights of minorities–we can’t trust the majority to do it.

So, not your typical Christmas movie. But I think it was an appropriate one–as its message was hope, and about triumph over adversary. Isn’t that one of the messages of this season? To get through what we are facing as a nation, don’t we need hope and confidence that we can overcome our trials?

[And, as a note, this should close out my reviews for 2008. Hopefully, you’ve had as much fun reading them as I have had writing them.]

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Run. Run. Run to the Hills!

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

A quick perusal of news items while eating my salad for lunch uncovered the following nuggets, all having to do with theatre on the large or small screen. They all seem to have the aura of “this is a bad idea” around them:

  • From the “When Will They Ever Learn?” Department: Work continues (alas) on the sequel to the movie-musical “Hairspray”. The second film musical will follow zaftig dancer Tracy Turnblad and the Corny Collins gang into what the director describes as the “next era of music,” the late 1960’s. The character of Link Larkin, portrayed by Zac Efron in the film musical, will become steeped in the Beatles-fueled British Invasion. John Waters is currently working on an outline, and they are looking for a screen writers. I have a few words about this idea: “Grease 2”, “Annie 2”, “Bring Back Birdie”, “The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public”. Musical sequels, in general, don’t work.
  • From the “Where Everybody Knows Your Name (and thus there is no need to remember)” Department: More casting has been announced for the remake of the musical film “Fame” (tenuous relation to what was on the stage). Variety reports that instructors and supervisors at the New York City High School of Performing Arts, where the film is set, will include theatre and film veterans Debbie Allen [of the original 1980 Fame cast] (as the school’s principal), Charles S. Dutton (as an acting teacher), Kelsey Grammer (as an orchestra maestro), Megan Mullally (as a voice teacher) and Bebe Neuwirth (as a dance instructor). This is in addition to the previously announced Kristy Flores as a dancer named Rosie, Paul Iacono as filmmaker Neil, Paul McGill a gay dancer named Kevin, Naturi Naughton as a classical pianist named Denise, Kay Panabaker as actress Jenny, Kherington Payne as ballerina Alice, Collins Pennie as an artist named Malik, Walter Perez as a musician named Victor and Anna Maria Perez de Tagle as Joy Moy. The movie will begin filming Dec. 3 for an expected Sept. 25, 2009, release by MGM. Sigh. Another of my favorites remade–and with the cast of Fraiser/Cheers. What’s next? A remake of Rocky Horror? Oh, right.
  • From the “I Coulda’ Predicted This” Department: Rosie’s variety show won’t get a second outing. Good, it was drek. I just hope they realize that the problem wasn’t the notion of a variety show–the problem was Rosie!
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Friday News Chum

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

With everything going on this week, and the financial gloom-and-doom, there hasn’t been much interesting chum out there on the newswires. But I do have a little for you:

  • From the “Insert Your Hillary Clinton Joke Here” Department: We’ve all heard about stem cells, and their potential benefit to curing diseases. We’ve also all heard about how research on them has been stymied because their primary source was human embryos, and we all know how the current administration feels about that. Well, according to the LA Times, a new source has been found: Testicles. Specifically, using the testicular cells of adult men, researchers have grown muscle, nerve and other kinds of tissue. Scientists have also derived flexible adult stem cells from skin, amniotic fluid and menstrual blood.They are theoretically superior to traditional embryonic stem cells because they can be obtained directly from male patients and used to grow replacement tissue that their bodies won’t reject. However, they do result in a lot of wincing.
  • From the “You Know the Economy is Bad When…” Department: The New York Times is reporting that as the economy has been tanking, sales of safes have gone up. The metal vaults are so popular in some parts of the country that shoppers are depleting store supplies. True, safes don’t pay interest, but they also don’t lose major value overnight. Unless, of course, someone breaks into them.
  • From the “That’s The Way The Cookie Crumbles” Department: I’m sorry to report another casualty of the economy: Mother’s Cookies is going bankrupt after 92 years (the filing also includes Archway Cookies). As mark_evanier notes, Mothers was best known for its Sugar Cookies, Double Fudge Cookies, Oatmeal Cookies, Flakey Flix and a childhood fave of mine, Circus Animal cookies. Circus Animal Cookies were animal crackers with a layer of magenta or vanilla frosting plus a sprinkling of rainbow sugar nonpareils. Children will sorely miss them.
  • From the “And Another One Takes the Cake” Department: Older children also have something to miss. Chucko, the Birthday Clown, has died. Now this is one icon of LA Children’s TV that I don’t remember, but I have read about. Chucko was on KABC-TV Channel 7 from 1955 to 1963 and on KTTV Channel 11 from 1963 to 1964 (translation: I was 4 when he went off the air). Chucko was known for a spinning merry-go-round hat with his name on it, a half red and half red-and-white-striped clown suit with a fluffy Elizabethan-style collar and cuffs, and white gloves; and he had arching blue eyebrows on a white face with a rhinestone-tipped nose and an upturned red smile. In this outfit, he walked the streets of San Francisco unnoticed. (crickets). His primary sponsors were Barbara Ann bread and Flex Straws–and I have a vague memory of Chucko on packages of those straws. Yes, just like the Sheriff, he had a birthday song: “Here’s a hap, hap, happy birthday from me (that’s me), to you (that’s you). . . .” Now, you’re probably asking yourself: Why a Birthday Clown? Isn’t it obvious? The idea behind Chucko, as his wife Millie once put it, was “if Christmas has Santa Claus, and Halloween has a witch, and Easter a bunny, why shouldn’t kids’ birthdays have a clown?”
  • From the “Baby, Remember my Name” Department: Casting has been announced for the upcoming remake of the movie “Fame”. The MGM film, according to the Hollywood Reporter, will feature Kristy Flores as a dancer named Rosie, Paul Iacono as filmmaker Neil, Paul McGill a gay dancer named Kevin, Naturi Naughton as a classical pianist named Denise, Kay Panabaker as actress Jenny, Kherington Payne as ballerina Alice, Collins Pennie as an artist named Malik, Walter Perez as a musician named Victor and Anna Maria Perez de Tagle as Joy Moy. Thomas Dekker is currently in negotiations to play Marco, a singer, and Debbie Allen, who played strict dance teacher Lydia in the original Alan Parker film, may have a cameo in the remake. The adult roles have yet to be cast. I, for one, am hoping they do the clever thing, and get some of kids who were in the original movie and TV series to show up as teachers in the remake. The new “Fame” is scheduled for release in September 2009.
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Games into Movies

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

The New York Times “Lede” blog has an article today on a report from Variety that:

Universal Pictures has announced a six-year partnership with Hasbro to produce at least four feature films based on branded properties.

The properties include “Monopoly,” “Candy Land,” “Clue,” “Ouija,” “Battleship,” “Magic, The Gathering” and “Stretch Armstrong.”

The deal comes after the successful screen transformation of the Hasbro property “Transformers,” which DreamWorks and Paramount turned into a Michael Bay-directed global hit, and which has a sequel scheduled to begin production this year.

This got me thinking. We all know that, for the most part (I’ve never played Magic), these are crappy games and likely will make crappy movies. But we all know there are good games out there: Ticket to Ride, Traumfabrik, Vegas Showdown, Power Grid, Carcassone, Bohnanza, etc. Of what fall in the category of good games, which might make good movies (even if only for the title alone). For example, I could see a good insider movie in “Traumfabrik”, a good crime story in Vegas Showdown, and a classic action adventure in “Power Grid”.

So, given your druthers, what games would you make into a movie, and what would be the rough plot or structure?

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Push The Button, Max

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

Those who know me well know that one of my favorite movies is “The Great Race”, with Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, Keenan Wynn, Natalie Wood, Peter Falk, and many others. This is a classic Blake Edwards comedy about a race in the early 1900s from New York to Paris.

I mention this because there was a very interesting article in today’s New York Times describing the original 1908 “Great Race”. Yes, the movie was based (loosely) on a real event. The winner was not the Leslie Special but the Thomas Flyer, driving by George Schuster. The car is still around and on display, and some of the aspects of the movie are true (such as the presence of a newspaper reporter on the trip). Though 13 cars were entered, 7 were no-shows. The six starters zoomed up Broadway at speeds exceeding 30 miles an hour. The 1907-model Flyer roadster, powered by a 60-horsepower 4-cylinder engine, soon thundered into the lead. Behind it came a Zust from Italy; a Protos from Germany; and from France, a Motobloc, a DeDion and a tiny ill-prepared Sizaire-Naudin that did not survive the first day. I’m not going to repeat the details in the article, but I do note that the race is one factor that led to the creation of the Lincoln Highway. I’ll also note that Schuster, who died in 1972 at age 99, did not collect the $1,000 prize that the Automobile Club of America had promised if he won. Sixty years after the race, The New York Times made good on the debt at a banquet honoring Schuster, then 95. He expressed appreciation but noted that the $1,000 did not have the same buying power in 1968 as it would have had in 1908.

I’ll also note that they are rerunning the Great Race this year, again from New York to Paris. Oh where is Tony Curtis when we need him (actually, he’s still working in Hollywood).

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Should We Cast Angela Lansbury?

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

This afternoon while cleaning the house, I happened to have TCM on the TV, and they were showing the 1971 movie “Bedknobs and Broomsticks”. I had forgotten this movie and its wonderful Sherman and Sherman score. As Disney looks to properties to bring to the theatrical stage, they really should consider reviving this and adding to the score. By the way, regarding this show, did you know that one of the songs, “The Beautiful Briney”, was originally written for Mary Poppins?

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Yeah, I’m a legend. You know, they call me the cautionary whale.

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

This afternoon, I took a break from working on my highway pages (which is proving to be a bear this month) to take my daughter and a friend to go see a movie. The movie she wanted to see was “Juno”, principly starring Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, Allison Janey, J.K. Simmons, and Olivia Thirlby. Juno tells the story of a 16-year old teen, Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page) who had sex with her boyfriend Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera). Predictably for a movie, she gets pregnant (otherwise, there wouldn’t be a story). She initially decides to get an abortion, but then changes her mind. Instead, using the PennySaver, she finds a yuppie couple to adopt the child, Vanessa (Jennifer Garner) and Mark (Jason Bateman) Loring. Her father Mac (J. K Simmons) and step-mother (Allison Janey) support her decision throughout this. Over the course of the movie, we see how the pregnancy affects her, how it affects her relationships, and how she interacts with the adoptive couple (who have their own difficulties). It actually is a very touching story.

I found the movie very well done. It wasn’t the sort of movie where I noticed the cinematography or direction: it was a good story, simply and effectively told. It particularly related well to a teen audience, in that it used (what I believe to be) more modern language and references. My daughter found it particularly well done, and wants to get it on DVD to watch it again and again.

What got to me was the music. I noticed it first off: this movie had a really good soundtrack. The artists included folks such as Barry Louis Polisar, Kimya Dawson, The Kinks, Buddy Holly, Mateo Messina, Belle & Sebastian, Sonic Youth, Mott The Hoople, Cat Power, Antsy Pants, Velvet Underground, The Moldy Peaches, and Michael Cera and Ellen Page. It was one of the few shows where I walked out saying, “I want this soundtrack.”

I’ll note that the film was an official selection at this year’s Telluride, Toronto, and London film festivals and received the Best Film award at the Rome International Film Festival. I highly recommend it. With all the news about teen pregnancy (thanks to the younger Ms. Spears), this movie is a much more refreshing way to discuss the subject.

By the way, I haven’t mentioned previews much. That’s because there’s not much that has screamed “see me”. At Sweeney Todd, the only memorable preview was for Momma Mia, although my wife seemed intrigued at the preview for “27 Dresses”. At Persepolis, the only interesting preview was “The Business of Being Born”. Today, the only preview of interest was “Made of Honor”, which is memorable only because I must avoid it. I take that back: there was a preview today for a new Pixar movie, “Wall*E”, that looked relatively interesting. I did have to sit through that silly National Guard video again (“Citizen Soldier”) — I think we have a new type of torture!

And with that, another year of reviewing comes to a close. We closed the theatre reviewing two weeks ago, and now the movie reviews have reached the end of 2007. I hope folks have enjoyed reading both types of reviews; I’ve certainly enjoyed writing them. Here’s to a great year of entertainment — both live and film — in 2008.

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