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.

Monday Minute
No. 211 | February 7, 2011

Best of 2010

It’s never too late to take a look back, and with the Oscars coming later this month, this may be as good a time as any.  I will forgo any lengthy introduction—none needed, really—except to say that the films featured this week are what I view to be the best of 2010.  The number 15 seems to work best for the format of this site and allows me to avoid skipping some worthy films which would be the case if I limited the list to 10.  The rankings are somewhat arbitrary.  I might rank them differently on another day.  The exception would be the top two films, which I think are head and shoulders above the other contenders, movies most likely to remembered and watched again many years from now.

For this week, I’ll just be looking at English-language films.  I’ll take a briefer look at a few foreign-language movies next week.

Our theme this week
Top English-language films of 2010

Best Films of 2010 (#15 to #11)

#15 — Fair Game

A political thriller about the Plame affair in which a high-profile couple takes on the Bush regime and are fortunate to survive, Fair Game is a mostly fact-based document of what happened in one telling episode of a low, dishonest decade.  In their third collaboration, Naomi Watts and Sean Penn offer first-rate performances as wife and husband Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson, who sacrifice careers for getting out the truth.  At this moment, the nation may not have much passion for a film about the misconduct (not to mention, crimes) of our bygone leaders; we have more urgent problems, and we’d just as well be done with the past.  Hardly a hit, the film fell short of $10 million at the domestic box office, and barely broke $20 million worldwide.  But I’d guess the picture will stand as one of the better political films of our time.  It’s not exactly an uplifting tale, not if you like to see justice prevail, though that’s not the fault of the filmmaking so much as history.

(Fair Game at MAD:  preview and review)

#14 — The Kids Are All Right

It’s a normal family in the usual way—dysfunctional.  But a family headed by a lesbian couple is not something we’ve seen much onscreen before.  Nic and Jules have two teenage kids, and when the biological father comes into the picture, life gets complicated.  The title tells the story:  the kids are better at coping than any of the adults.  The acting is pitch-perfect, with a fine ensemble that includes Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, and Mark Ruffalo.  I enjoyed the mix of comedy and drama, along with the interplay of the characters.  It all felt very much like family.  The writing, though, I found a bit uneven.  Mark Ruffalo’s sperm-donor character is at times clichéd and in the end left dangling without a real resolution.  But The Kids Are All Right was nevertheless one of the gems of the summer, and having just then seen a string of films that fell short of the mark, I left the theater this time smiling.  For that, I remain grateful.

#13 — Toy Story 3

Andy is heading off to college and that brings some big changes to the lives of Woody, Buzz Lightyear, and their toy pals.  Toy Story 3 tugs at the heartstrings, and though manipulative, it’s effective in the best Pixar tradition.  It’s hard to argue with the success of the studio, the envy of the rest of Hollywood, but this film, as enjoyable as it was, seemed to be missing some of the spark that Pixar is known for.  That may be because this is a sequel, a reprise of many characters we know very well, here in a new film for the third (and hopefully last) time.  Two of the next three Pixar releases will also be sequels (Cars 2 this year, Monsters, Inc. 2 next year); if the focus of the company now is to mine old hits for new box office gold, that would be a shame.  Pixar became Pixar because it was startlingly original.  That’s its legacy, and I hope, its future.

#12 — The Illusionist

Here’s an animated film that felt original from the first frame to the last.  Maybe the trick is to dust off an old, unproduced script written by the great Jacques Tati.  Director Sylvain Chomet brings the story to life, a whimsical and melancholy tale about an aging magician who befriends Alice, a young fan who believes his illusions are real.  The illusionist is Tatischeff (Tati’s birth name), and the story is a personal one, intended to be a missive to Tati’s estranged daughter.  The Illusionist is set in a series of European cities, primarily Edinburgh.  A British-French production, the movie takes its time, in stark contrast to the hyper, breathless pace of much American animation.  It’s not a story aimed at kids, but still one that kids can enjoy.  My five-year-old son liked it some but thought it slow in parts.  Children a bit older should find the film entertaining and worthwhile.

#11 — The King’s Speech

Movies about British royals have become staples of the holiday film calendar, and The King’s Speech is one of the finer examples.  It’s an entertaining look at the troubles of George VI, the king with the stammer who needs the help of a commoner to learn to give a speech.  The cast is superb throughout, led by Colin Firth as the king, Geoffrey Rush as his unorthodox speech therapist, and Helena Bonham Carter as the devoted queen whose faith in her husband hardly wavers and is never broken.  The king’s ordeal, and his efforts to overcome it, are the focus of the story.  Unspoken is the fact that his heroism, as important as it may be, does not compare on a personal level with the heroism of the many thousands who fought for their country, at great sacrifice, in the war to come.  One quibble with the film is its utter respectability, as if the filmmakers knew they had a dynamite story, a real crowd-pleaser, and didn’t dare do a thing to risk it.  A little more of the unexpected may have made a very good film even better.

(The King’s Speech at MAD:  preview and review)

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The Illusionist (2010)
Sylvain Chomet, director
Jacques Tati (original screenplay), Sylvain Chomet (adaptation), writers
Trailer

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The Kids Are All Right (2010)
Lisa Cholodenko, director
Lisa Cholodenko, Stuart Blumberg, writers
Igor Jadue-Lillo, director of photography
Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo
Trailer

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Quote of note
Ken:  And this, well, this is where I live.  It’s got a disco, it’s got a dune buggy, and a whole room just for trying on clothes.
Barbie:  You have everything!
Ken:  Everything, except someone to share it with.
—Ken (Michael Keaton, voice), Barbie (Jodi Benson, voice), Toy Story 3 (2010)

…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.

Thursday Minute
Entr’acte | January 6, 2011

A Day at the Races

Tip for a sucker.

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A Day at the Races (1937)
Sam Wood, director
Robert Pirosh, George Seaton, George Oppenheimer, writers
The Marx Brothers — Groucho & Chico
Tutsi-Frutsi Ice Cream

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…58…59…60.

Tuesday Minute
Entr’acte | January 4, 2011

Animal Crackers

We interrupt this program for a few laughs.  (More features coming next week.  The new schedule is here.)

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Animal Crackers (1930)
Victor Heerman, director
George S. Kaufman, Morrie Ryskind, Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby (play); Morrie Ryskind (screenplay); writers
Groucho Marx, Louis Sorin
Captain Spaulding:  “You go Uruguay, and I’ll go mine.”

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…58…59…60.