Tuesday Minute
Entr’acte | March 29, 2011

Elizabeth Taylor, R.I.P.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
“Miss Taylor… is terrific as a panting, impatient wife, wanting the love of her husband as sincerely as she wants an inheritance.”
—Bosley Crowther, The New York Times, 1958

Not everything as Tennessee Williams intended it to be, but the film still packs a powerful punch.  During production, Elizabeth Taylor’s third husband, Mike Todd, died in a plane crash.  It was the only one of her marriages not to end in divorce.

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Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)
Richard Brooks, director
Tennessee Williams (play); Richard Brooks, James Poe (screenplay); writers
Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman

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…58…59…60.

Friday Minute
No. 230 | March 25, 2011

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Class of 2011

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

Featured this week
(See Monday post for theme introduction and program note)
Monday         —   Alice Cooper
Tuesday         —   Dr. John
Wednesday    —   Darlene Love
Thursday        —   Neil Diamond

Tom Waits

Waits is an American original.  Though never a huge commercial success, he’ll be remembered long after many of his more popular contemporaries are forgotten.  He’s a musician first, but he’s worth noting for his work in film as well.  He first had a hit with “Ol’ 55,” when the Eagles recorded it in 1974; his original is a song I can listen to a dozen times in a row and still want to hear again.  ”The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me)” was nothing less than an anthem during my college years.  You had to love a guy who had the courage to mumble through his songs.  But most of all, there was a sense of feeling in his music that you couldn’t find anywhere else.  Francis Ford Coppola had him score One from the Heart, and the result is a work of beauty.  Waits continued working in film, often onscreen, and his performances in Down by Law and Short Cuts are, to my mind, especially memorable.  I can’t do justice to Waits in a short sketch like this, and I won’t try.  Suffice to say, he’s one of the greats.

Waits on film
One from the Heart (1982)*
Rumble Fish (1983)
The Cotton Club (1984)
Down by Law (1986)
Dracula (1992)
Short Cuts (1993)
Night on Earth (1992)*
Coffee and Cigarettes (2003)
Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006)
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009)
The Book of Eli (2010)

* Original score.
Contributed songs to soundtracks of many films (too many to mention, but Waits did much of the music for the 1992 Jeff Bridges film American Heart).

Final note on the Class of 2011
In addition to the five performers featured this week, three others were inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:  Leon Russell (as a “sideman” and not a “performer,” which seems like an arbitrary distinction to me), and non-performers Jac Holzman (record exec) and Art Rupe (pioneer of indie labels).  Congrats to all!

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Down by Law (1986)
Jim Jarmusch, director
Tom Waits, John Lurie

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One from the Heart (1982)
“This One’s from the Heart”
Tom Waits, Crystal Gayle, with Teddy Edwards on tenor sax / Soundtrack

 

Waits was nominated for an Academy Award for best original score.  The story behind Waits and the film here.

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Final Friday Five, the monthly mini-quiz

1.  Name the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers starring in each of these concert and documentary films.

Dont Look Back (1967)
I’m Going to Tell You a Secret (2005)
Live at Red Rocks (1984)
Shine a Light (2008)
Stop Making Sense (1984)
This Is It (2009)

2.  Name four of the seven Rock and Roll Hall of Famers to date who have won an Oscar for original song or original score. 

3.  Well more than 100 movies have opened since the beginning of 2011.  Before this weekend, how many of those films have grossed more than $100 million at the domestic box office?

4.  The baseball season usually brings with it another baseball movie or two.  This year’s most anticipated film about the sport is Moneyball, the adaptation of the book by Michael Lewis (The Blind Side), due to open in September.  The central character is Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland A’s, who used computer analysis and sabermetrics to field a competitive team.  Who plays Billy Beane onscreen?

5.  Match each of the following Elizabeth Taylor movies with the role that she played.

Father of the Bride (1950)
A Place in the Sun (1951)
Giant (1956)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)
Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)
BUtterfield 8 (1960)

Kay Banks
Leslie Benedict
Catherine Holly
Maggie Pollitt
Angela Vickers
Gloria Wandrous

Answers here.

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Quote of note
“The beauty of quitting is, now that I’ve quit, I can have one, ’cause I’ve quit.”
—Tom (Tom Waits), Coffee and Cigarettes (2003)

…58…59…60.

Friday Minute
No. 223 | March 11, 2011

Rotary Club

Our theme this week
Mayhem, murder, and a telephone in the title

Featured this week
(See Monday post for theme introduction)
Monday         —   Dial M for Murder (1954)
Wednesday    —   Call Northside 777 (1948)

Sorry, Wrong Number (1948)

A telephone is never just a telephone.  It’s a device serving different roles in this week’s featured films.  In Dial M for Murder, it’s a trigger for a carefully devised murder plot.  In Call Northside 777, it’s a means to answer a desperate plea for help.  In Sorry, Wrong Number, it’s a lifeline to the outside world for a wealthy, spoiled invalid—and then a source of terror as the lines are crossed and she overhears two men plan a murder to be carried out that night.

Barbara Stanwyck is Leona Stevenson, the bed-ridden wife, in a role played previously on radio by Agnes Moorehead.  Adapting the 22-minute drama for the big screen gave the filmmakers more time to tell the tale.  One addition was the backstory of Leona and her husband, Henry (Burt Lancaster), shown in flashback.  She’s the daughter of a millionaire (Ed Begley) and hardly a likeable character.  She meets and falls for Henry, young, uneducated, and far outside her social sphere.  Leona typically gets what she wants, and despite the objections of her father, she gets and marries her man.  Henry, though, is wrapped up with the wrong crowd, and a crooked character named Morano (William Conrad) blackmails him into plotting her death so he can inherit her estate.

In the bedroom, where the film begins, ends, and returns several times, Leona makes phone calls to piece together the mystery.  She finally discovers the intended victim of the murder plot—herself.  Henry, in a change of heart, telephones her with a warning, and as the police approach his phone booth, he hears her screams over the line.

The ending, and the famous last line, earned legendary status in Hollywood, and the film—a bit of noir, a bit of hokum—is a classic of its kind.  Stanwyck earned her fourth and final Best Actress nomination for her performance.  It was hardly subtle, and actually rather hysterical in bits, and perhaps an inspiration to later generations of scream queens.

One of the great actresses of the golden age, Stanwyck worked another four decades.  As her co-star, six years her junior, Lancaster was just starting out.  He went on to get four Oscar nominations himself, winning in 1960 for Elmer Gantry.

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Sorry, Wrong Number (1948)
Anatole Litvak, director
Lucille Fletcher (radioplay and screenplay), writer
Barbara Stanwyck, Burt Lancaster, Ann Richards, Ed Begley
Trailer

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Quote of note
“In the tangled networks of a great city, the telephone is the unseen link between a million lives … it is the servant of our common needs — the confidante of our inmost secrets … life and happiness wait upon its ring … and horror … and loneliness … and … death!!!”
—Prologue, Sorry, Wrong Number (1948)

…58…59…60.

Wednesday Minute
No. 222 | March 9, 2011

Rotary Club

Our theme this week
Mayhem, murder, and a telephone in the title

Featured this week
(See Monday post for theme introduction)
Monday         —   Dial M for Murder (1954)

Call Northside 777 (1948)

Jimmy Stewart in transition:  that’s the best (but not the only) reason for seeing Call Northside 777.  Stewart was just a year or two past It’s a Wonderful Life and Magic Town and on his way to rendezvous with Alfred Hitchcock (Rope et al.) and Anthony Mann (Winchester ’73 et al.) when he starred as cynical newspaper reporter P.J. McNeal working a story about a twelve-year-old murder.

McNeal’s editor, Kelly (Lee J. Cobb), sends him off to find out who’s behind an ad in the paper offering $5,000 for the killers of a Chicago cop.  McNeal finds Tillie Wiecek scrubbing floors on the night shift in a downtown high-rise.  Her son, Frank, is serving a 99-year sentence for the murder—but he’s innocent, she claims.  The story of the hard-working, ever-faithful mother strikes a sympathetic chord with the public.  But the hard-nosed McNeal remains unpersuaded.

McNeal stays with the story, visiting Wiecek (Richard Conte) in the state pen, witnessing his lie detector test, and eventually coming to doubt his conviction.  McNeal’s skeptical attitude serves him well when the authorities try to obstruct his investigation into the crime.  Finally, during a sequence involving photo enlargement and wirephoto transmission—the cutting-edge technology of the day, apparently—he proves that the key witness against Wiecek had lied.

The story of the wrongfully convicted has been told in countless movies, among them The Shawshank Redemption and last year’s Conviction.  Call Northside 777 is a good early example.  Based on a true story, the film was shot on location in Illinois, mostly in a realistic, matter-of-fact style.  Though there’s never any doubt about where the story is headed, or where the film’s sympathies lie, it still provides a moving and compassionate look at the lives of those who receive injustice from the criminal justice system.

Whatever might happen, it’s always good to have Jimmy Stewart on your side.

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Call Northside 777 (1948)
Henry Hathaway, director
Jerome Cady, Jay Dratler (screenplay); Leonard Hoffman, Quentin Reynolds (adaptation); James P. McGuire (articles); writers
James Stewart, Lee J. Cobb, Richard Conte, Helen Walker

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Quote of note
“PERSONAL—NOTICES.  $5000 REWARD.  For killers of Officer Bundy on Dec. 9, 1932.  Call Northside 777.  Ask for Tillie Wiecek 12-7 p.m.”
—Classified newspaper ad, Call Northside 777 (1948)

…58…59…60.

Friday Minute
No. 213 | February 11, 2011

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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Inside Job (2010)
Charles Ferguson, director
Chad Beck, Adam Bolt, writers
Svetlana Cvetko, Kalyanee Mam, cinematographer
Matt Damon, narrator
Trailer

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Another Year (2010)
Mike Leigh, writer-director
Dick Pope, cinematographer
Jim Broadbent, Ruth Sheen, Lesley Manville
Trailer

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Quote of note
“You are probably going to be a very successful computer person.  But you’re going to go through life thinking that girls don’t like you because you’re a nerd.  And I want you to know from the bottom of my heart that that won’t be true.  It’ll be because you’re an asshole.”
—Erica Albright (Rooney Mara), The Social Network (2010)

…58…59…60.