Monday Minute
No. 226 | March 21, 2011

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Class of 2011

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A program note:  my schedule this week, and the next several weeks, will make it hard to keep up my regular posting routine (even my every-other-week slacker routine).  I’ll have little time to write, so don’t expect any in-depth exegeses on the art of film (which you know better than to expect anyway).  That said, I will do my best to keep the posts coming.  Brevity, though, will be the key.  Sometime mid-April, knock on wood, look for a return to normal operations (whatever that may be).

One week ago, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame held its annual ceremony at New York’s Waldorf Astoria to induct the Class of 2011.  This week, the honors keep rolling in, with that same class the featured theme here at Minute A Day About Movies.  Congratulations to them all.  (We’d have had a gala at the Waldorf too, but they were booked.)

The inductees are best known, of course, for their music.  But each has picked up credits for work on the big screen—for soundtracks, performing as themselves, and acting in dramatic or comedy roles.  This week, a brief look at the five inductees and their work.

Our theme this week
Performers inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011

Alice Cooper

I was in high school when Alice Cooper had his biggest hits.  Cooper was something different—a proto-gothic, shock rocker, who turned to the dark side but in a way that was never wholly serious.  He had an act, he did it well, and it worked.  If some rock at the time tended to be pseudo-authentic, Cooper was an alternative to that.  He was popular, maybe more popular with the generation right behind mine (“We’re not worthy!” was Wayne and Garth’s opinion of him).  Surprisingly, he’s been a bigger influence than I’d have ever guessed back then.  KISS, Ozzy Osbourne, the New York Dolls, and whole subgenres of the rock and roll to come owe a debt to Cooper.  But bottom line, the guy could rock.  “I’m Eighteen,” “No More Mr. Nice Guy,” and “School’s Out” were anthems of teenage rebellion, the essence of rock for as long as the music has been around.

Cooper on film
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978)
Roadie (1980)*
Prince of Darkness (1987)
The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years (1988)*
Shocker (1989)**
Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)
Wayne’s World (1992)*
Suck (2009)

* As himself.
** Original music.
Contributed songs to soundtracks of many films.

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Wayne’s World (1992)
Penelope Spheeris, director
Alice Cooper, Mike Myers, Dana Carvey
“So, do you come to Milwaukee often?”

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Wayne’s World (1992)
Alice Cooper, Mike Myers, Dana Carvey
“Feed My Frankenstein”

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Quote of note
Wayne:  So, do you come to Milwaukee often?
Alice Cooper:  Well, I’m a regular visitor here, but Milwaukee has certainly had its share of visitors.  The French missionaries and explorers began visiting here in the late 16th century.
—Wayne Campbell (Mike Myers), Alice Cooper, Wayne’s World (1992)

…58…59…60.

Thursday Minute
Entr’acte | January 20, 2011

White Nights

More ballet (dancing with—who else—Death).

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White Nights (1985)
Taylor Hackford, director
David Watkin, cinematograhper
“Le Jeune Homme et la Mort”
Roland Petit, choreographer
Johann Sebastian Bach, music (“Passacaglia in C Minor”)
Mikhail Baryshnikov, Florence Faure

 

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…58…59…60.

Tuesday Minute
Entr’acte | January 18, 2011

Limelight

More ballet (someone, it seems, is always dying).

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Limelight (1952)
Charlie Chaplin, writer-director-composer-choreographer
Karl Struss, director of photography
Charlie Chaplin (Calvero), Claire Bloom (Terry), Norman Lloyd (Bodalink)
Melissa Hayden (Columbine), Andre Eglevsky (Harlequin), dancers, choreographers
Harlequinade Ballet

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…58…59…60.

Monday Minute
No. 162 | September 20, 2010

On a First-Name Basis

The movies featured last week were men’s pictures.  In three of them, in fact, the cumulative screen time with women in the frame was no more than a few minutes.  This week will be different.

Let’s take a look at names.  Most folks have a first name and a last, though when we talk about people we don’t always use both.  Sometimes one is enough.  Which we use is often a matter of how we know a person (or how we’d like to know them).  First names are intimate and inviting, commonly used with family and friends.  Last names are more formal and functional, often employed in our societal roles.

Men and women, as with many things, don’t get equal treatment when it comes to names.  The most obvious difference is that men usually keep their surnames through life.  Women who marry often do not.  Yet another difference, one I’ve observed over the years, women are called by their first names more often than men, whatever the context may be.  Perhaps that is changing somewhat, but it still happens, at work, in sports, in politics, what have you.  For instance, some famous women we know:  Oprah, Venus, Hillary; some men:  Leno, Federer, Obama.  I realize there are plenty of exceptions; the difference is subtle.  But when we know both names, we often choose one, and one factor affecting the choice is a person’s sex.

Movie titles offer some good examples.  Many films are named for their lead characters.  Among the men, there’s a host of single-surnamed biopics:  Milk, Capote, Kinsey, Chaplin, Ali, Gandhi, Patton, Nixon, Becket, Disraeli, among others.  On the roster of films named for fictional men:  Arrowsmith, Dodsworth, Bullitt, Goldfinger, Greenberg, Hancock, Hook, Maverick, Rambo, Zelig, and Zoolander, to name a few.  Of course, some pics named for men use first names—Marty, Charly, Alfie, Arthur, Dave, et al.—but it’s a shorter list.

For women’s films, it’s very much the opposite.  For single-named titles with women’s surnames, Salt and Silkwood come to mind.  I almost added Klute, but then remembered Klute is the cop played by Donald Sutherland, not the prostitute played by Jane Fonda.  Gigli?  Had to look that one up:  named for a guy.  I’m sure there are others, but you get the point.

The supply of titles with women’s first names, however, could stock your shelves.  Amélie, Elizabeth, Gigi, Julia, Nell, Rebecca, Roxanne, Sabrina, Salome, Tess, Yentl.  There are dozens.

Why the difference?  Movies more often are made by men, and that may have an effect, but I’d guess the movies generally are reflecting something about the way we relate to men and women in society.

Whatever the case, we’ll look at five of the films named for women in this week’s theme.

Our theme this week
Film titles that are first names of women

Laura (1944)

Laura is Laura Hunt.  She’s dead.  That’s what we learn the first line of the movie:  “I shall never forget the weekend Laura died.”  The voice is Waldo Lydecker’s.  Played by Clifton Webb, he’s an influential newspaper columnist.  We meet him sitting in the bathtub where he greets Detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews), who makes a call while investigating Laura’s murder.

Nevertheless, we get to know something about Laura, the inevitable star of the show (Gene Tierney).  We see her portrait on the wall of her apartment.  We meet her in flashback, when she met Lydecker, who became her mentor, and when she was engaged to the well-off Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price).  McPherson questions all the relevant parties, and the men at least all appear to have been enamored of the beautiful young woman.  The more the detective learns, the more obsessed he becomes with the case, and with Laura herself.  Midway through, the mystery takes a surprising—even shocking—turn. 

The story involves a fair dose of Hollywood hokum.  However it may have played in 1944, there’s more than a little disbelief asking to be suspended, for my taste.  That said, the film has some worthy merits.  The direction by Otto Preminger is first-rate.  An unsettling mood pervades the film, for which the theme song by David Raksin is partly responsible (Johnny Mercer added lyrics, and the song went on to become a jazz standard).  The acting also is unnerving, particularly from Webb, who gave Lydecker a highly mannered, effete edge that is more than a little creepy (not to mention, Lydecker has thirty years on Laura, for whom he has an unwelcome interest).  Price and Judith Anderson played society types, and the only characters for the audience to warm to are the roles of Andrews as the quiet, steady cop, and Tierney, who shines.

Laura is one of those films that may divide people (which is to say, I’m not with the consensus).  It’s a film highly regarded by many people:  Rotten Tomatoes’ critics rate it 100% fresh; voters at IMDb give it an 8.1 rating.  I’ve heard and read raves.  (At the Hollywood Bowl this month, TCM host Robert Osborne made a very strong pitch for it.)  I think it’s a fine film, yet I don’t see it as an enduring classic.  It’s a well-done murder mystery that settles for being a murder mystery, nothing more.  (In contrast, another ’40s film, The Third Man, starts as a mystery but goes much deeper and darker.)  Laura is often listed among the canon of film noir, but I’d say that’s not the best label for the movie.  It has noirish elements, certainly, but in the end it takes a turn that’s melodramatic, not noir.  I may be less enthusiastic than some others, but I’d say it’s a film still worth seeing, if for nothing else then to find out what all the fuss is about.

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Laura (1944)
Otto Preminger, director
Vera Caspary (novel); Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein, Elizabeth Reinhardt (screenplay); writers
Joseph LaShelle, cinematographer
Trailer

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Laura (1944)
Gene Tierney, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price

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Quote of note
“I can afford a blemish on my character, but not on my clothes.”
—Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price), Laura (1944)

…58…59…60.

Friday Minute
Entr’acte | September 3, 2010

“Jump in the Line (Shake, Senora)”

from Beetlejuice

One more week of musical selections before we return to regular features.  This time around, a variety of songs that make for some memorable movie moments.

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Beetlejuice (1988)
Tim Burton, director
“Jump in the Line (Shake, Senora)”
Lord Kitchener (Aldwyn Roberts), songwriter
Harry Belafonte, singer

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…58…59…60.