Where Has the Year Gone?

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Last we met, on this page at least, we were heading down the yellow-brick road with Dorothy to celebrate some joyous news with the Munchkins.  That was May.  May?  May!  So where have I been?  Good question.  Where have you been?  Another good question.  And where oh where has the time gone?

Long story short, my already full life became even more full and something had to give.  That something turned out to be writing for this site on any kind of a regular basis.  I had expected that I’d find time to add occasional posts, but that, I’ve learned, is harder to do when it’s not part of a daily or weekly routine.  So the year has slipped away—pffft!—but before it is officially done, let’s take a look back at some of the movies of 2011.

For the record, this is not my list of ten best films of the year.  No reason to stop at ten anyway, and slowpoke that I am, my moviegoing for the year remains a work in progress.  I’m still catching up with a few films from November (and before), and some late-year releases are just hitting theaters (A Separation opens today).

Rather, this is a list of movies I’ve seen (so far) that made going to the theater worth the time and effort.  It’s incomplete and somewhat arbitrary—I’ll have something a bit more definitive to say after I’ve taken in a few more year-end releases, sometime before Oscar time.  Let me add this disclaimer:  these are not necessarily great movies.  Some are only arguably good, flawed but with enough redeeming value to make them worth noting.

I’ve broken out the list into two groups:  one, films from before the deluge, i.e., before Oscar hopefuls hit theaters starting around October, and the other, films that have come out since.

Films of 2011 (Part I)

Pre-Oscar Season (films through September)

Standout Films

The Tree of Life
Terrence Malick doesn’t direct many films—five features in 38 years (though he may be just a slow starter, with nearly as many in pipeline).  What he lacks in number he more than makes up for with uncommonly rich, dense explorations of the beings who people his stories.  His stories are not the linear narratives we’re used to getting at the movies.  Nor are his characters revealed through the usual mix of dialogue and action.  Malick’s works resemble photographed novels as much as they do cinema.  Malick combines images, dreams, memories, and voiceovers to portray lives lived in the context of forces far beyond, and deeper than, ordinary experience.  His latest, The Tree of Life, has divided critics and audiences (making it the kind of movie I tend to favor).  A tour de force or tour de farce?  Depends whom you read.  I lean toward the former view.  The story ostensibly is about a family in a small town in Texas, yet it takes time for meditations ranging from the origins of the universe to the ultimate demise of Earth.  Within that grand sweep we see human life not as a thing in itself but an episode in the continuum.  Few movies take such a wide perspective; 2001: A Space Odyssey, a very different film, is one.  Malick, like Kubrick, contemplates the mystery of it all and gives his audience something rare, a chance to experience wonder.

Midnight in Paris
We think of Woody Allen as a New York director but he seems to have found new life in recent years making movies in Europe.  Since 2005 he’s released four films shot in London and one in Barcelona.  This year it’s the City of Light and Midnight in Paris is the best of the lot.  (Rome gets its turn next year with Nero Fiddled.)  Owen Wilson turns in a winning performance as Gil, an American writer in love more with the city than with his fiancée.  His knack for time travel offers an escape as he hobnobs with greats from the city’s storied expatriate past—Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Stein, Porter, Picasso, Dalí, and Buñuel among them.  The film is sweet and whimsical, more than a bit nostalgic, and for one interlude in which Gil steals the heart of Picasso’s mistress, wonderfully portrayed by the beautiful Marion Cotillard, it’s altogether touching.

Drive
Drive is a steely cool slice of L.A. crime drama propelled by an unflappable, razor-sharp lead performance from Ryan Gosling.  The film borrows freely from a variety of sources, and influences such as Jean-Pierre Melville and Sergio Leone give the story a distinct non-Hollywood feel.  The driver, never named, is a man of few words.  He works as a mechanic in a shop run by gangsters, does stunt driving for the movie biz, and hires himself out for getaway work.  A loner by nature, he gets involved with his neighbor (Carey Mulligan), who has a young son and a husband getting out of prison.  Complications ensue and plans inevitably go awry.  Among the strong supporting cast is Albert Brooks as a ruthless and surprisingly believable bad guy.

Notable Films

Bridesmaids
A comedy with great laughs and real people.  See, that’s not so hard.  Thank you, Kristen Wiig et al.  More like this, please.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams
Werner Herzog’s 3-D documentary inside the Chauvet Cave in France, where some of the world’s great art has been sealed for thousands of years.  Ever wonder, What is it to be human?  This film holds part of the answer to that question.

The Company Men
A timely film about a corporate downsizing and for the unlucky duckies who lose their livelihood, what happens next.  A fine cast led by Ben Affleck, Chris Cooper, Kevin Costner, and Tommy Lee Jones.

Contagion
Thanks to the brave leadership of politicians and medical professionals, the societies of the world pull together, avert panic, and successfully combat a mysterious and deadly virus sweeping the globe.  Oops…that’s a different film.  This one’s from Steven Soderbergh, and sad to say, it may be a somewhat more realistic view of what could someday happen.

The Debt
The film is a remake of a 2007 Israeli thriller and doesn’t achieve all that you might have hoped.  Still, it’s a heckuva story, and with Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson, and the busy Jessica Chastain, among others, you’re in good hands. 

Dogtooth
A Greek film that’s part horror, part comedy, about three older children living a totalitarian nightmare devised by their deranged parents.  Unlike anything you’ve ever seen.

Hanna
Hanna is a teenage girl living in the northern wilderness, where she is trained by her father to be an assassin.  Saoirse Ronan does a terrific job in the title role.  The film is uneven in spots and has some plot elements that don’t really work.  Nevertheless, there’s plenty of action, some nicely photographed sequences, and a few moments of brilliance.

The Help
I can think of a few things wrong with this movie, but I enjoyed the performances, especially those of Octavia Spencer, Viola Davis, and Emma Stone.  The racial divide of Jackson, Mississippi, in the 1960s may not be the same as it is today, but the divide now between the haves and have-nots feels as wide as ever, and for that reason, the film seems unusually timely.

Incendies
A Canadian-made film set in the Middle East and largely in French.  Two adult children travel back to the war-torn homeland of their dead mother to deliver letters to their brother and father and discover the truth about their family and themselves.  It’s devastating.

Moneyball
Films about baseball typically are not great movies.  This is no exception, though it is a cut above many of the others.  The tale leaves behind old-fashioned notions of the romance of the sport.  This one’s all about the science of numbers.  Perhaps that’s the way the game is played these days, but also it’s part of the problem—for the sport and for the movie.  A little more heart wouldn’t hurt.

Super 8
Probably the best Steven Spielberg film this year, though J. J. Abrams directed this one.  I liked the story of the clever kids, breaking curfew to make a movie.  The extraterrestrials show up, and what started fresh begins to feel like something we’ve seen a few too many times before.

Tabloid
Errol Morris’s documentary on the fascinating story of Joyce McKinney, with a big juicy 1960s sex scandal, a kidnapping, Mormons, and dog cloning to boot.

The Trip
Adapted from a British television series, The Trip follows the hilarious Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon on their travels through the Lake District of Northern England.  They drive, they stop at one inn or another, and they eat.  Not a lot more happens.  But they talk, and their repartee and impressions account for some best laughs you’ll find on film this year.  The movie feels a bit slapdash, and I can’t help but wonder what didn’t make it into the final cut, but one thing is sure:  no one who sees it will think of Michael Caine the same way again.

Oscar Season (films from October on)

Notable Films

Anonymous
The story is over the top—but Roland Emmerich was never one for subtlety.  He took liberties—hey, like Shakespeare—so don’t come to this film looking for history.  Whatever merits the Earl of Oxford–as–Bard authorship theory may hold (it does make for fascinating reading), at heart this film is a paean to the greatest writer of the English language who ever lived.  That’s something special, whatever his name was.

A Dangerous Method
Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud at the birth of psychoanalysis, featuring the story of Sabina Spielrein, the patient, protégée, and lover who unites then divides them.  Strong performances from Michael Fassbender and Viggo Mortenson.  Keira Knightley plays the troubled and irresistible Sabina.  It’s a period picture, but with David Cronenberg at the helm, working from a Christopher Hampton script, it’s not at all old-fashioned.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
The first of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy to get its English-language big-screen treatment, it delivers more or less what you’d expect (though not much more):  quick storytelling from David Fincher, a pulsating score from Trent Reznor, and dynamite performances from Rooney Mara in the title role and Daniel Craig doing some very un-Bond-like detective work.  The film is the kind of up-to-date genre piece that Hollywood should be making more of, if only it could kick its fantasy habit.

Hugo
A film about the magic of movies, and made with more than a bit of magic itself.  The story of Georges Méliès, the pioneer filmmaker who lost favor with audiences, ran a toy store with his wife at Gare Montparnasse in Paris, and late in life was rediscovered is one that deserves to be told, and now in fictionalized form it has.  Martin Scorcese directed the adaptation of Brian Selznick’s inventive novel.  Fine performances, with many comic touches and sweet moments.  I am probably more fond of this film than any other I’ve seen recently, and it’s the rare 3-D film I’m glad to have seen in 3-D.

The Ides of March
Intrigue behind the scenes of a presidential campaign, with pols and candidates more lifelike than we get on the reality TV known as cable news.  George Clooney directed and stars as Governor Mike Morris, but the film belongs to the campaign manager played by Ryan Gosling, who’s having quite a year.  An all-around fine cast, with Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, Marisa Tomei, Jeffrey Wright and Evan Rachel Wood on hand to do deeds nefarious and otherwise.

J. Edgar
Here, friends, is the love story of the year.  Leonardo DiCaprio is a revelation as the one and only J. Edgar Hoover.  Armie Hammer is Clyde Tolson, his colleague, confidant, and more.  Naomi Watts is his lifelong secretary, the loyal Helen Gandy.  A richly told tale directed by Clint Eastwood, probably on balance as good a film as any he’s made.

Margin Call
If you want a movie to help you understand the financial crisis of 2008, I’d recommend the documentary Inside Job.  It shows how the 1% ripped off the 99% and gives you the who-did-what (plenty of bad guys, not a lot of good guys).  Margin Call is the story of some of those crooks.  You might not like them—a few are just rich assholes, after all—but you get a sense of the price they pay.  The film doesn’t let them off the hook, but you can understand why they do what they do.  That may not be a popular take in these times, but it’s an achievement.  The cast is wonderful and the performances well worth the time.

My Week with Marilyn
Marilyn Monroe, as great a star as the movies have known, is brought to life in a remarkable performance by Michelle Williams.  You can’t take your eyes off her.  That’s the reason to see this movie, even if the film may be slight in other ways.

The Pause Button

As noted above, I’ll be back with another post or two early in 2012, recapping the year and looking at the Oscars (February 26).  The regular schedule for posts about movies is on hold for the time being.  I’d like to get back to writing more about movies when time permits, but that will not be very soon.  I have a couple of ideas for other movie projects, and someday I will get to them too.  Meanwhile, my next writing gig will not about movies, and will not be online, but it will keep me occupied for some time, and if and when there is news to share about that, I will let you know.

For you crossword fans, my 16-month series of Gram Cracker minipuzzles wrapped up earlier in December.  It was a fun experiment, and in the end I’d say the puzzles turned out well.  Hope it was fun for you solvers too.  Once again, a big “thanks” to two-time ACPT champ Dan Feyer for his expert test-solving skills, a big help to me getting the puzzles ready for prime time.  The Gram Crackers and other puzzles, as always, are at the MAD Puzzles page.

Hugo (2011)
Martin Scorsese, director
Robert Richardson, cinematographer
Brian Selznick (book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret), John Logan (screenplay), writers
Asa Butterfield, Ben Kingsley, Chloë Grace Moretz, Sacha Baron Cohen
Trailer

Quote of note
“If you ever wonder where your dreams come from, look around:  this is where they’re made.”
—Georges Méliès (Ben Kingsley), Hugo (2011)

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Black-and-White Box Sets, Ten Letters

Our theme this week
Movies about crossword puzzles

Featured this week
Tuesday         —   Crossword Craze Cartoons

UPDATE (3/20):
The 34th annual ACPT is in the books, and you’ll find a recap here.

Wordplay (2006)

As I was saying Tuesday, crosswords have a long history, going back nearly a hundred years.  Generations have picked up the habit and passed it on, and today millions of people solve puzzles daily—in newspapers, in books, and increasingly, online.  For decades, the premier venue for American crosswords has been the New York Times.  Will Shortz, the clever and much-admired editor at the Times since 1993, is the prime focus of director Patrick Creadon’s 2006 documentary, Wordplay, though the film is very much an ensemble affair.  Some famous names are profiled, including Jon Stewart and Bill Clinton, who enjoy their daily battle of wits with Shortz and puzzlemakers.  Merl Reagle, one of the tops in the business, gives a behind-the-scenes look at crossword construction.  Five lightning-fast solvers are featured—Tyler Hinman, Al Sanders, Ellen Ripstein, Jon Delfin, and Trip Payne—who train for the big event of the year, the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.  The action culminates onstage at the finals, with an unbelievably thrilling finish.

Wordplay is the essential film about crosswords.  It’s a well-done, entertaining movie, and a very enjoyable look inside a community that deserves the rare attention it gets here.  It has a colorful cast of characters, with plenty of heart and plenty of smarts.  The film is hardly just for the converted.  It’s a treat for puzzle fans and non-fans alike.

American Crossword Puzzle Tournament
March 18-20, 2011
Brooklyn Bridge Marriott, Brooklyn, NY

Will Shortz founded the ACPT in 1978, when 149 solvers competed.  The tournament has grown since then, helped, in part, by the popularity of Wordplay, with nearly 700 attending in recent years.  Most participants go for the fun, not for the prizes, and white-knuckle finishes seem to be routine for the competition—I’ll never forget the finals in 2009, the year I attended.  The 34th annual tourney kicks off Friday night and runs through the weekend.  It’s not too late to join in on the festivities.  You can find all the details at the ACPT website.

More about Ellen (WSJ, 3/13/2001)

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Best of 2010

Our theme this week
Top English-language films of 2010

Featured this week
(See Monday post for theme introduction)
Monday         —   Best Films of 2010 (#15 to #11)
Wednesday    —   Best Films of 2010 (#10 to #6)

Best Films of 2010 (#5 to #1)

#5 — Another Year

The Hepples are unusual creatures to build a movie around.  They’re a genuinely happy couple.  In a Mike Leigh movie, though, we should expect a fair share of misery, and the friends of Tom and Gerri (cute) are there to provide it.  Mary has the worst of it.  A coworker of Gerri’s, she takes comfort in the warm, cheerful support she finds in her visits to the Hepple home (not to mention, she has an unrequited crush on the son).  But in the four seasons that the movie spans, life gets ever more difficult for the lonely woman fighting age and a fondness for the bottle.  The ensemble cast is stellar, with Jim Broadbent and Ruth Shore as the embodiment of marital bliss, and Lesley Manville as the parasitic friend.  Another Year is a well-observed look at people we all can recognize, some who have the knack for rolling with whatever life throws them, and some who do not.

#4 — Somewhere

Sofia Coppola knows a thing about movie stars, and about being the daughter of a famous man.  She also knows something about making movies.  Somewhere is a meditation on celebrity, with Stephen Dorff in a strong performance as Johnny Marco, the pampered star.  Elle Fanning is a revelation as Cleo, his daughter, who comes for a visit and changes his life.  The film is a character study, a quiet peek behind the curtain.  One simple shot of Marco sitting in a make-up chair, his head encased in a mold, goes on for a minute or two.  Nothing happens, and that’s the point.  Somewhere isn’t interested in the glamor of the movie business, or even its dark side, but in its utter emptiness.  Altogether, a very assured work, and in parts, simply brilliant.

(Somewhere at MAD:  preview and review)

#3 — Inside Job

Inside Job is a heist film of the most epic proportions.  The grand prize isn’t just thousands, or millions, but billions—and even trillions!—of dollars, the greatest transfer of wealth in history.  The lucky winners in this real-life drama are the very top earners in society.  The losers:  the rest of us.  A documentary on the causes, events, and aftermath of the financial crisis of a few years ago, the film paints a devastating portrait of the rigged game that is Wall Street, where the superrich get even richer, aided and abetted by their co-conspirators, our elected leaders in Washington (where both parties share the blame) and leaders in academia, all bought and paid for.  Though it’s a sordid tale, Inside Job is actually not a strident film.  It’s rather measured and sober.  If you think terms like “collateralized debt obligation” and “credit default swap” are too complicated to get your mind around, you’ll find them explained in simple, understandable language.  The world still hasn’t gotten to its feet after the financial shock of 2008, but the real scandal is not what led to the crisis, but that those who were most responsible got away with it—and thrived.

#2 — Black Swan

One of the standout films of the year, Black Swan tells the tale of a ballerina whose life and role merge in strange and tragic ways.  Natalie Portman is Nina, a dancer whose talent and technique is perfectly suited for the role of the White Swan.  She lacks, however, the passion and daring needed to dance the Black Swan.  She must dance both.  The film follows her journey from white to black, from innocence to experience, from naïf to artist.  The major obstacle is her overbearing mother (a fearsome Barbara Hershey).  Encouraging her development is the dance director (Vincent Cassel, an impressive impresario) and her rival for the role (Mila Kunis, delicious).  The film is a mix of reality and fantasy and paints an unforgettable portrait of an artist coming of age.

(Black Swan at MAD:  review)

#1 — The Social Network

In our bright and shiny new millennium the word “friend” no longer means what it used to.  More than anything else, online social networking is the reason for that change, and The Social Network is an account of the founding of Facebook, the biggest and most successful of the networking sites.  Not coincidentally, the film portrays friends whose relationships do not survive the launch of the new enterprise, however the word might be defined.  Jesse Eisenberg plays whiz-kid founder Mark Zuckerberg, and though it may be a stretch to say an Oscar-nominated performance hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves, his work does drive the story with an energy and ferocity that makes the whole thing click.  Zuckerberg’s main foes are the Winklevoss twins, crew mates from old money who are unbeatable racing backward on the Charles.  Andrew Garfield plays Zuckerberg’s friend (that word again) Eduardo Saverin, who lacks the same vision, gets screwed, and ends up on the other side of a lawsuit.  Justin Timberlake joins the story midway, in a pitch-perfect performance as entrepreneurial glamor boy Sean Parker.  Director David Fincher and writer Aaron Sorkin combine their exceptional talents to craft a compelling tale that grabs you in the first scene and never lets you go.  (Not bad for a film in which the most violent act is a computer being slammed on a desk.)  The Social Network is a defining story of our time, and the best movie of the year.

(The Social Network at MAD:  review)

BEST OF 2010 SUMMARY

The easiest way to see the Top 15 write-ups in a single view is to click the “Best of 2010″ tag below.  But for a list of my movie picks, sans comments, here you go:

1. The Social Network
2. Black Swan
3. Inside Job
4. Somewhere
5. Another Year
6. Never Let Me Go
7. The Fighter
8. The Ghost Writer
9. Winter’s Bone
10. Blue Valentine
11. The King’s Speech
12. The Illusionist
13. Toy Story 3
14. The Kids Are All Right
15. Fair Game

A handful of other movies worth a mention:  Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (best surprise of the year and best-ever gamer flick), Machete (unadulterated fun), Exit Through the Gift Shop (the utterly watchable art of street art), Inception (an infuriating film yet one fascinating to read about), True Grit (not extraordinary but the best of the Coens in recent years).

A handful of performances worth a mention (in films not covered this week):  Jeremy Renner (The Town), Nicole Kidman (Rabbit Hole), Michael Douglas (Solitary Man), Diane Lane (Secretariat), Eli Wallach (Wall Street:  Money Never Sleeps).

Coming next week:  a brief look at foreign-language films.

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“Caravan”

from The Last Waltz

This week, selections from concert films worth remembering.

1.  Fred Astaire and his sister, Adele, were inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame in 1971.  How many films did Fred and Adele make together?

a.  6
b.  2
c.  1
d.  0
e.  4

2.  Match the dance with the film in which it was performed.

Tango
Twist
Sirtaki
Jitterbug
Ballet
Street dance

Zorba the Greek (1964)
Step Up (2006)
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921)
Mulholland Dr. (2001)
The Red Shoes (1948)
Pulp Fiction (1994)

3.  Mick Jagger has acted in several movies.  Which one of the following roles was not a Jagger performance?

Ned Kelly in Ned Kelly (1970)
Turner in Performance (1970)
Vacendak in Freejack (1992)
Andy Warhol in Basquiat (1996)
Luther in The Man from Elysian Fields (2001)

4.  Casting for David Fincher’s English-language adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, due out at the end of 2011, has made news the past few weeks.  Daniel Craig will play the male lead, Swedish journalist Mikael Blomkvist.  Stellan Skarsgård and Robin Wright will co-star.  Little-known Rooney Mara will play the title character.  What is the name of “the girl with the dragon tattoo”?

5.  A recent article called “The Worst Movie Year Ever?” decried the woeful Hollywood films of 2010.  Who was the author?

a.  Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
b.  A.O. Scott, New York Times
c.  Joe Queenan, Wall Street Journal
d.  Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor
e.  J. Hoberman, Village Voice

Answers here.

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“While My Guitar Gently Weeps”

from The Concert for Bangladesh

This week, selections from concert films worth remembering.

“Once in a Lifetime”

from Stop Making Sense

This week, selections from concert films worth remembering.

“Sympathy for the Devil”

from Gimme Shelter

This week, selections from concert films worth remembering.

“Suite:  Judy Blue Eyes”

from Woodstock

Most musical films feature performances staged specifically for the movie audience.  Concert films are something else altogether.  The music is performed for the live audience, and the filmmakers’ job is to capture the essence of the event.  Sometimes the focus is on center stage, sometimes on the periphery.  Concert films are documentaries in the most basic sense, capturing for the record what happened and ensuring it will not be forgotten.

This week, selections from concert films worth remembering.

“Summer” Movies

If I were Bruce Springsteen (fat chance), I might have written a song called “21 Screens (and Nothin’ On).”  I remember the days when two or four screens at a theater were a lot, but today anything with less than half a dozen seems quaint.  Somehow, though, a trip to the local megaplex fails to provide the one thing you’d expect to find:  choice.

The problem is not the number of screens, it’s the movies that are playing.  Twenty-one screens don’t mean a thing when the only films showing are Prince of Persia, Robin Hood, Iron Man 2, Shrek Forever After, and Sex and the City 2.  One obvious problem is the lack of anything new—sequels and remakes rule—but there is something else missing in that list:  a film for grownups.

I met a friend last week and we planned to go to a movie.  After seeing what was playing, we very nearly skipped the movie altogether.  There was nothing we wanted to see.  I realize we’re not the target demographic of Hollywood, but we do have broad tastes.  We like lots of different movies.  It really shouldn’t be so hard.

It wasn’t always this way, but somewhere around the time of Jaws in 1975, Hollywood discovered the “summer movie.”  Like a monster that can’t be contained, the summer movie has grown bigger and badder, not to mention, more brainless and uninspired.  Which wouldn’t be so frightening except that Hollywood doesn’t make anything but summer movies anymore—the summer movie is the monster that devoured Hollywood, at least that part of the place that used to do anything else.

Summer movies are not just for summer, of course.  Even Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial start of summer, arrives well after the start of the summer movie season.  You see, there are now just two seasons in Hollywood:  Oscar season, which lasts from Thanksgiving till New Year’s, and summer, which covers everything else.

Since the movie biz doesn’t wait for the summer solstice, neither will I.  This week, a theme about “summer” movies, films that tie in with the season in one way or another, though not ones that fit the usual Hollywood definition of the term.

Our theme this week
“Summer” movies (not soon playing at a theater near you)

The Endless Summer (1966)

Have surfboard, will travel.

The Endless Summer is a simple but great film title.  It captures the essence of an idea with undeniable appeal, especially to the young, whose sense of time has not been contaminated by the so-called realities of adult life.  (It would be a great title for the Beach Boys too; Endless Summer is the name of the band’s very successful greatest hits collection of 1974.)

The Endless Summer is a surf film.  It’s not just about a sport, though—it’s about a way of life.  No scenes with Gidget, thank you, this one’s a documentary—one part home movie, one part travelogue.  Two surfers from Southern California, Mike Hynson and Robert August, travel the world, hopping from one surf spot to another, catching waves in Malibu, Senegal, Ghana, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, and Hawaii.  Bruce Brown shot the surfers on his 16-mm camera and provides the narration.  Highlights of their trip include Cape St. Francis, near the southern tip of Africa, and the Pipeline, on the north coast of Oahu.  The film works best when it sticks to the surf scenes, and like nothing before, it captures the sheer beauty of the action and the courage and thrill of the sport.

Brown had started making micro-budget surf films in the ’50s, and for The Endless Summer he raised $50,000, still a tiny sum but ten times what he’d ever had before.  Brown never had backing from any Hollywood film distributors.  In New York, he opened the film at a theater he rented himself.  It ran for a year.  The Endless Summer went on to make $20 million, spawned a couple of sequels, and helped define a subgenre of film that’s still popular today.

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Play Ball

I love baseball.  I love movies.  I wish I could say that I love baseball movies.  I do like some of them, and some I like quite a bit, but among all the films set on the baseball diamond there are too few gems.

Part of the problem is the sports movie syndrome.  Sports are intrinsically dramatic events themselves, but what provides much of the drama in sports—the uncertainty of the outcome—doesn’t translate easily to film.  Movies are scripted, the outcome predetermined, and win or lose, even the tensest drama on the field becomes melodrama onscreen.

Sports movies, generally, know better, and the best of them are about the athletes, not the games.  That goes for baseball films too, yet other sports seem to have had better luck  in Hollywood.  Take boxing.  Raging Bull is a superb film about the life of a fighter, on the short list of great movies, period, since the 1970s.  Other films about boxers include Million Dollar Baby, Rocky, and Ali.  I can’t think of a single baseball film that I’d rank on par with any of them.

Baseball fans—and movie fans—are still waiting to see the first great movie about the sport.  You could put it this way:  if there were a Hall of Fame for movies (and there should be), not one inductee would be a film about baseball.  The flaws of baseball films tend to be the common flaws you see in many genre pictures:  they’re manipulative, or too predictable, or not as funny as they try to be, or too full of themselves when they want to be serious.

It’s been said the sports movies are chick flicks for guys.  That may seem harsh, but it’s not a bad description.  Many of them make assumptions about gender roles, with a certain point of view.  Themes are often about manhood (with much to say about fatherhood and country), and whether the films rely on cliché and stereotype or take a fresh approach is up to who made the film.

Better baseball movies shouldn’t be difficult for filmmakers willing to explore bigger themes.  My advice, not that anyone asked:  Play it straight.  Don’t go for the easy genre effects.  A few real-life stories that could make good movies:  Jackie Robinson (he starred in his own movie once, long ago, and Spike Lee has been itching to do a new film about him), Curt Flood (an historic figure with an untold story), and Moe Berg (one fascinating character).

My plea for better baseball movies doesn’t mean good ones haven’t been done before.  They have, and they’ll be featured in our theme this week.  Each day I’ll look at a different category:  documentaries, biopics, kids at play, comedies, and dramas. 

Let’s play ball.

Our theme this week
Baseball movies

Today’s feature
Baseball Documentaries

Best in class
The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg (1998)

Honorable mention
Baseball (1994)— Ken Burns’s PBS series is a monumental achievement, a history of the game from its origins to the late-20th century.  It may touch all the bases, so to speak, but at 19 hours, it’s not exactly light on it feet.  Every fan should see it at least once; that might be asking enough.
When It Was a Game (1991) — A nostalgic but effective look back at baseball from the 1930s to ’50s, based on home movies from players and fans of the era.  An HBO film, followed by sequels in 1992 and 2000.

The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg

Class tells.  It sticks out all over Mr. Greenberg.
— Jackie Robinson

This is the most honest film of the week.  It’s a simple story told straight:  the life of an old ballplayer, one of the greats, and an unvarnished view of the times in which he lived.  The story unfolds in standard documentary fashion, film clips from times past mixed with interviews from more recent years.  You get to see Hank Greenberg in his glory days and hear from him as an older man looking back.

The default slant for most baseball movies is that earlier times were better times, but you don’t get that here.  The 1930s and ’40s were tough times, especially for a Jew, and especially in Detroit, where Greenberg played most of his career.  It was home to Henry Ford and Father Coughlin, who both contributed to the local anti-Semitic fervor.  Fans and ballplayers, including some of Greenberg’s teammates, treated the slugger with endless abuse, yet he reacted with class, letting his bat do most of the talking.

Hank Greenberg was one of the great home run hitters of the game.  His total of 331 lifetime homers would have been been closer to 500 had he not lost 4 1/2 years while serving in the military.  He hit 58 in 1938, equaling the record for right-hand hitters and just two short of the overall mark of Babe Ruth.  (Perhaps he’d have had a better shot at the record if he wasn’t Jewish, according to this recent article.)  Greenberg was twice MVP of the league, twice a World Series champ, and the first player to make $100,000 for a season.  He was a hero to the Tigers fans of Detroit and to Jews everywhere.  He comes across as a likable figure who did his job and enjoyed the game.  His Hall of Fame baseball career was a memorable accomplishment, but because Greenberg broke down barriers for Jews, his legacy to the game and to society is even greater.  The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg documents that legacy.  It’s a good, solid film, and a well-done remembrance of a life worth remembering.

A quick clip (too quick); more below.

…58…59…60.