Friday Minute
No. 191 | October 29, 2010

Crooked Numbers

Our theme this week
Horror film franchises from the 1970s to today

Featured this week (theme introduction)
Monday         —   The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (6 films, 1974–2006)
Tuesday         —   Friday the 13th (12 films, 1980–2009)
Wednesday    —   A Nightmare on Elm Street (9 films, 1984–2009)
Thursday        —   Saw (7 films, 2004–2010)

Halloween

The franchise films
1.  Halloween (1978), John Carpenter, director
2.  Halloween II (1981), Rick Rosenthal, director
3.  Halloween III:  Season of the Witch (1982), Tommy Lee Wallace, director
4.  Halloween 4:  The Return of Michael Myers (1988), Dwight H. Little, director
5.  Halloween 5:  The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989), Dominique Othenin-Girard, director
6.  Halloween:  The Curse of Michael Myers (1995), Joe Chappelle, director
7.  Halloween H20:  20 Years Later (1998), Steve Miner, director
8.  Halloween:  Resurrection (2002), Rick Rosenthal, director
9.  Halloween (2007), Rob Zombie, director
10.  Halloween II (2009), Rob Zombie, director

The villain
Michael Myers, portrayed by Tony Moran / Will Sandin (age 6) / Nick Castle (The Shape) (1), Dick Warlock (The Shape) / Adam Gunn (Young Michael) (2), George P. Wilbur / Erik Preston (Young Michael) (4), Don Shanks (5), George P. Wilbur (6), Chris Durand (7), Brad Loree (8), Tyler Mane / Daeg Faerch (9), Tyler Mane / Chase Wright Vanek (Young Michael) (10) (Michael Myers did not appear in Halloween III)

Overview
If you’re a horror fan with discriminating taste—we know you’re out there somewhere—this may be the one for you.  The first of the series is the gold standard of low-budget mask-wearing psycho-killer slasher films.  John Carpenter’s Halloween features some fine performers, including veteran English actor Donald Pleasence and Jamie Lee Curtis in her “scream queen” debut, a memorable score composed by Carpenter himself, and a story that relies more on suspense than depictions of gore.

Michael Myers begins his killing early, as a 6-year-old, when he takes a kitchen knife to his older sister while their parents are out for the night.  Fifteen years later Myers escapes from the sanitarium and returns to his Indiana hometown.  The body count of teenage babysitters begins to mount.  Here we see a masked murderer, and it makes perfect movie sense.  It is Halloween, after all.  That face on the mask, if it looks at all familiar, is none other than William Shatner.  Frightening, huh.  Why Shatner?  The story is, the budget was tight and the Captain Kirk mask was the cheapest at store, just a buck-ninety-eight.

In the first of the films, Myers stalks the sitter played by Curtis, while being hunted by the doctor played by Pleasence.  The good doctor turns out to be a good shot, yet after he plugs Myers with six gunshots, Myers’s body disappears.  The sequel, three years later, picks up where the original left off.  The main cast returned, but in the end, to lesser effect.  III was a one-off, unrelated to the other films, and when Myers returned for 4 and more, it was often a retelling of genre clichés.  The 2007 and 2009 films rebooted the franchise, with heavy-metal frontman-turned-film director Rob Zombie handling the script and directing.

In 2006 the Library of Congress selected Halloween, the 1978 film, for the National Film Registry, a rare distinction for a horror movie.  It’s been a highly influential slasher film, and it kicked off one of the most popular franchises of the genre.  Production for the next in the series, a 3D version, was shut down last year because of money problems, but ultimately it will take more than that to kill off Michael Myers.

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Halloween (1978)
John Carpenter, director
John Carpenter, Debra Hill, writers
Dean Cundey, director of photgraphy
Trailer

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Quote of note
“I met him fifteen years ago.  I was told there was nothing left.  No reason, no conscience, no understanding, even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.  I met this six-year-old child, with this blank, pale, emotionless face and the blackest eyes—the devil’s eyes.  I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized what was living behind that boy’s eyes was purely and simply evil.”
—Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence), Halloween (1978)

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Final Friday Five, the monthly mini-quiz

1.  Béla or Boris?  Which icon of classic Hollywood horror starred in the movies below, Béla Lugosi or Boris Karloff?

Dracula (1931)
Frankenstein (1931)
Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932)
White Zombie (1932)
The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932)
The Mummy (1932)
Island of Lost Souls (1932)
The Black Room (1935)
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Murder By Television (1935)

2.  Match these movies based on works of Stephen King with the director of the film.

Carrie (1976)
The Shining (1980)
The Dead Zone (1983)
Misery (1990)
Dolores Claiborne (1995)
Apt Pupil (1998)
Dreamcatcher (2003)
The Mist (2007)

David Cronenberg
Frank Darabont
Brian De Palma
Taylor Hackford
Lawrence Kasdan
Stanley Kubrick
Rob Reiner
Bryan Singer

3.  Let’s play “I Am Not a Witch.”  Name the movie witches who speak the lines below.

a.  “Magic mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?”  (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs)
b.  “Just try and stay out of my way.  Just try!  I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too!”  (The Wizard of Oz)
c.  “Rock-a-bye rabbit, in the hot oven, into my mouth for dinner I’ll shoven…” (Bewitched Bunny, animated short, sung to Bugs Bunny)
d.  “Devil’s Snare, Devil’s Snare.  ‘It’s deadly fun, but will sulk in the sun!’  That’s it!  Devil’s Snare hates sunlight!  Lumos Solem!” (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone)
e.  “Now I am the ruler of all the ocean!  The waves obey my every whim!” (The Little Mermaid)

4.  The following ghost stories appear in alphabetical order.  Place the films in order of their release.

Blithe Spirit
Field of Dreams
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
Ghostbusters
The Haunting
Poltergeist
The Ring
The Sixth Sense
Topper

5.  Saving the scariest for last, a quiz on elections!  Name the office for which the candidate ran in the following films.

Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles) in Citizen Kane
Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon) in Election
Bill McKay (Robert Redford) in The Candidate
Jack Stanton (John Travolta) in Primary Colors
Jay Bulworth (Warren Beatty) in Bulworth
John Iselin (James Gregory) in The Manchurian Candidate

Answers here.

…58…59…60.

Friday Minute
No. 166 | September 24, 2010

On a First-Name Basis

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

Featured this week (theme introduction)
Monday         —   Laura (1944)
Tuesday         —   Gilda (1946)
Wednesday    —   Lolita (1962)
Thursday        —   Frances (1982)

Juno (2007)

Juno was a surprise hit a few years ago, a low-budget comedy that did blockbuster business.  No comic book characters, no sci-fi storyline, no CGI wizardry—just a teenage girl with a big belly—yet people flocked to theaters to see the film that everyone was talking about.  Critics did a lot of that talking, giving the film many mentions on end-of-year top ten lists, and helping the film earn four Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture.  Juno won one Oscar, for newcomer Diablo Cody’s original screenplay.  The story of the film’s success became part of its appeal.  It was the little film that could.

Juno is an enjoyable comedy, delivering not only laughs but some tender, sweet moments as well.  The chararcters are very likable, and none more than Juno herself, the sharp-tongued, cynical teen played by Ellen Page, who gave a smart, funny, and truly wonderful performance.  J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney, as Juno’s father and stepmother, are also terrific.

Juno’s dilemma:  she’s sixteen, pregnant, and needs to decide what to do about it.  An abortion?  That seems to be the solution, but then she reconsiders.  The film then follows her growing waistline as she searches for adoptive parents.  A well-off, suburban couple, Mark and Vanessa Loring (Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner), are an appealing option, but Mark goes nuts, leaving his wife and leaving Juno without a home for the soon-to-arrive bundle of joy.  Meanwhile, Juno’s friendship with Paulie (Michael Cera), her classmate and the father-to-be, develops into a loving relationship, which they come to realize just as the baby and a happy ending are due.

As appealing as the movie is, it’s probably gotten more praise than it rightfully earned.  The film does take a fresh approach to what could have been an obvious, by-the-numbers story, but its attitude-above-all slant gets tiring after a while.  Like its central character, the film’s worldview is limited, seeing only through young eyes.  Juno, and the film, find easy targets to mock in the adult world, but ironic detachment works better in smaller doses.  At least for me, the snarkiest-girl-in-the-room pose feels overdone.  Films, inevitably, are products of their time, so perhaps these shortcomings should be no surprise.

Another sign of the times, the film has been promoted by people with a political agenda as a statement supporting the conservative position on abortion.  It’s not.  My simple rule:  don’t trust people pushing politics when it comes to movies.

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Juno (2007)
Jason Reitman, director
Diablo Cody (screenplay), writer
Eric Steelberg, cinematographer
Trailer

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Juno (2007)
Promo
Diablo Cody and Ellen Page on their favorite lines

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Quote of note
Mac:  And this, of course, is Juno.
Mark:  Like the city in Alaska?
Juno:  No.
Mark:  No?  Shall we sit down and get to know one another?
Vanessa:  Oh, I thought I would get some drinks.  What would anyone like?  I have Pellegrino, or vitamin water, or orange juice, or—
Juno:  I’ll have a Maker’s Mark.  Up.
Mac:  She’s kidding.  Junebug has a wonderful sense of humor.  Just one of her many genetic gifts.
—Mac MacGuff (J.K. Simmons), Mark Loring (Jason Bateman), Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page), Vanessa Loring (Jennifer Garner), Juno (2007)

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Final Friday Five, the monthly mini-quiz

1.  Walter Matthau starred in two movies that were directed by actors who directed one film only.  Who are the one-time actor-directors?  (For extra credit, what are the films?)

2.  Here are five movie titles that (appear to) use married women’s surnames.

Mrs. Brown
Mrs. Doubtfire
Mrs. Miniver
Mrs. Parkington
Mrs. Soffel

Here are your questions:

a.  Who’s the actress who played the title role in two of the films?
b.  In which film did a man play the title role?
c.  Which title does not refer to the name of a character but to the queen of England?
d.  Which film was directed by a woman?

3.  Our list of notable films of 1957 included three directed by Billy Wilder.  For each set of stars, name the film.

a.  Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich, Charles Laughton, Elsa Lanchester
b.  Gary Cooper, Audrey Hepburn, Maurice Chevalier
c.  Jimmy Stewart, Murray Hamilton, Patricia Smith

4.  TIFF, the Toronto International Film Festival, wrapped this week.  The festival doesn’t have a jury that selects award winners, but it does have a People’s Choice Award.  This year’s honoree is a British production directed by Tom Hooper, starring Colin Firth as a stammering George VI who is preparing for war.  What’s the name of the film?

5.  Name that Zucker!  Match the correct Zucker(___) with the descriptions below.

Barry Zuckerkorn
Buck Zuckerman
David Zucker
George Zuckerman
Jeff Zucker
Mark Zuckerberg
Mort Zuckerman
Nathan Zuckerman

a.  Billionaire publisher of the New York Daily News and editor-in-chief of U.S. News & World Report
b.  1940s-50s Hollywood screenwriter best known for his collaborations with director Douglas Sirk (Written on the Wind, The Tarnished Angels)
c.  Birth name of the actor-writer known as Buck Henry
d.  Philip Roth character played by Gary Sinise in the 2003 film The Human Stain
e.  Elder brother in a trio of collaborators best known for Airplane! and The Naked Gun
f.  President and CEO of NBC Universal
g.  Henry Winkler’s character on Arrested Development
h.  Co-founder of Facebook and subject of The Social Network, the new David Fincher movie opening October 1

Answers here.

…58…59…60.

Friday Minute
Entr’acte | August 27, 2010

“Caravan”

from The Last Waltz

This week, selections from concert films worth remembering.

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The Last Waltz (1978)
Martin Scorsese, director
“Caravan”
Van Morrison, songwriter
Van Morrison, The Band

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Final Friday Five, the monthly mini-quiz

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.

…58…59…60.

Friday Minute
No. 141 | July 30, 2010

Merrie Melodies Tribute

Our theme this week
Selected shorts from Merrie Melodies

Featured this week (theme introduction)
Monday         —   “Lady, Play Your Mandolin!” (1931)
Tuesday         —   “A Wild Hare” (1940)
Wednesday    —   “A Tale of Two Kitties” (1942)
Thursday        —   “Duck Amuck” (1953)

“What’s Opera, Doc?” (1957)

Notes in brief
It takes about fifteen hours for a performance of the entire Ring cycle of Richard Wagner’s.   It takes less than seven minutes for “What’s Opera, Doc?”  I don’t say that to recommend one over the other, but it’s something to consider if time is a factor.

The cartoon borrows music from Wagner, and more, yet the story is the same classic conflict we’ve seen before between Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd.  Elmer this time is Siegfried, and with his spear and magic helmet, he’s out to “Kill the wabbit!”  You know how it’s going to end, right?  Elmer is always thwarted by his nemesis—but get ready for a twist.  (Still, look who gets the last laugh.)

Like yesterday’s feature, “What’s Opera, Doc?” was picked for induction to the National Film Registry and ranked among The 50 Greatest Cartoons in the 1994 animators’ poll.  It topped the list—the #1 cartoon of all time!

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“What’s Opera, Doc?” (1957)
Chuck Jones, director
Michael Maltese, story
Ken Harris, Richard Thompson, Abe Levitow, animators
Richard Wagner, music; Milt Franklyn, arrangement
Mel Blanc (Bugs Bunny), Arthur Q. Bryan (Elmer Fudd), voices

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Quote of note
Bob Woodward:  Well, who is Charles Colson?
Harry Rosenfeld:  The most powerful man in the United States is President Nixon.  You’ve heard of him?  Charles Colson is special counsel to the President.  There’s a cartoon on his wall.  The caption reads, “When you’ve got ‘em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.”
—Bob Woodward (Robert Redford), Harry Rosenfeld (Jack Warden), All the President’s Men (1976)

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Final Friday Five, the monthly mini-quiz

1.  Howard Hughes received director’s credit for two films.  One was Hell’s Angels in 1930, starring Jean Harlow, and the other was his return to Hollywood in the 1940s, Jane Russell’s debut.  What was the movie?

2.  Martin Scorsese was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director for The Aviator (2004), then finally won the Oscar for The Departed (2006).  He had four previous nominations for the directors’ prize.  Name the films.

Mean Streets (1973)
Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974)
Taxi Driver (1976)
Raging Bull (1980)
The King of Comedy (1982)
The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
Goodfellas (1990)
The Age of Innocence (1993)
Casino (1995)
Gangs of New York (2003)

3.  Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes, both associated with Warner Bros., were name variations on a series of musical animated shorts from Disney that ran during the 1920s and ’30s.  What was the name of the Disney cartoon series?

Comical Concerts
Bonkers in Bandland
Silly Symphonies
Mad Rhapsodies
Nutty Numbers

4.  Mel Gibson’s latest scandal has cost him the services of which A-list actor who had been interested in starring in a Gibson-directed Viking movie?

5.  Match the film critic with the review for Inception and the online comment about the review.

The Critics:

a.  David Edelstein, New York
b.  Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
c.  Stephanie Zacharek, Movieline.com

The Reviews:

1.  “For the record, I wanted to surrender to this dream; I didn’t want to be out in the cold, alone. But I truly have no idea what so many people are raving about. It’s as if someone went into their heads while they were sleeping and planted the idea that Inception is a visionary masterpiece and—hold on … Whoa! I think I get it. The movie is a metaphor for the power of delusional hype—a metaphor for itself.”

2.  “Everything he does is forced and overthought, and Inception, far from being his ticket into hall-of-fame greatness, is a very expensive-looking, elephantine film whose myriad so-called complexities — of both the emotional and intellectual sort — add up to a kind of ADD tedium.”

3.  ”I found it dazzling but also a maddeningly arbitrary kind of movie….  The movie didn’t really cohere for me.”

The Online Comments:

i.  “___ has never deserved your respect. ___ is a terrible film critic, with highly questionable taste.”

ii.  “I can’t really take you seriously anymore, ___. You praise cashgrab trash like Ironman 2 but bash a movie like The Dark Knight. Yes, The Dark Knight was overhyped, but Jesus, comeon, you are a professional critic..you let the opinions of others cloud your mind. It’s not your job to assess whether a movie deserves hype or not. Just review the movie, explain what you didn’t particularly like, and don’t bring up all the other crap.”

iii.  ”Kill the beast! Spill ___ blood! Smash ___ face!  You must be punished for your dumbness and illitarecy. Christopher Nolan RULEZ you drool! Whoo—ahhhhhhhhhhhh.  Otherwise, this was really a rather well-done and exceptionally convincing review on all points. Splendid.”

Answers here.

…58…59…60.

Friday Minute
No. 126 | June 25, 2010

The Art of the Heist

Our theme this week
Heist films

Featured this week (theme introduction)
Monday         —   The Thomas Crown Affair (1968, 1999)
Tuesday         —   Rififi (1955)
Wednesday    —   The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
Thursday        —   Sexy Beast (2000)

The Italian Job (1969, 2003)

Heist films generally fall into two groups.  The first are the dark, dramatic stories, some of them film noir, with roots that go back to early gangster films.  Later came the lighter tales, clever and stylish, aiming mostly to entertain, and often with a comic tone.  Like Monday’s featured films (both original and remake), today’s belong to the latter category.

The original Italian Job is a beloved favorite of film buffs and car buffs, as famous for its cliffhanger ending (see below) as it is for giving the Mini Cooper a virtual starring role.  The real stars are two icons of British cinema, a young Michael Caine, as Charlie Croker, the gangster who organizes the caper, and Noël Coward, in his final screen appearance, as Mr. Bridger, the kingpin who runs his criminal empire from a jail cell.  The plot involves an audacious plan to create massive traffic gridlock in Turin, Italy, while Croker’s gang robs a $4 million shipment of gold bullion from an armored car.  The Minis are crucial since they can carry off the gold using routes unavailable to larger vehicles—over stairways, on rooftops, and through city sewers.  The crooks transfer the loot to a 36-foot Harrington Legionnaire, which takes them into the Alps for their final getaway.  Well, almost.

The unresolved end works like a charm, and Paramount, to its credit, never made a sequel.  Thirty-four years later, though, it released the remake.  Same title, same showcase for Minis, same sort of armored car robbery during a traffic jam, but a different story.  The Italian job of the title is set in Venice and is only the prologue to the main plot.  A successful heist and aquatic getaway is spoiled when one of the crooks double-crosses the others.  A year later, in Philadelphia, the team reassembles, then travels to California with plans to recover the gold they had rightfully stolen.  Bring on the armored car, the Minis, and—hard as it is to imagine in Los Angeles—a traffic jam, and one more heist later, the gold is the hands of the crooks who deserve it.  A hit film, though not the landmark of the 1960s original, The Italian Job remake stars Mark Wahlberg as Charlie Croker, Donald Sutherland as John Bridger, Charlize Theron as Bridger’s daughter, Stella, and Edward Norton as Steve, the inside man.  Others rounding out the team of thieves are Jason Stratham, Mos Def, and Seth Green.

The two films make for an interesting comparison of how the times, and Hollywood, have changed.  For the remake, the budget, the effects, the action have all grown bigger.  The characters, not so much.  Still, it’s not a bad piece of entertainment, though not nearly as memorable as the original.

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The Italian Job (1969)
Peter Collinson, director
Trailer

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The Italian Job (1969)
Peter Collinson, director

Interested in how that cliffhanger ending might be resolved?  Brit scientists are on it.

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The Italian Job (2003)
F. Gary Gray, director
Trailer

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The Italian Job (2003)
Heist in Venice

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Quote of Note
“Just remember this—in this country they drive on the wrong side of the road.”
—Charlie Croker (Michael Caine), The Italian Job (1969)

“Handsome Rob.  Premier wheel man.  Once drove all the way from Los Angeles just so he could set the record for longest freeway chase.  You know he got 110 love letters sent to his jail cell from women who saw him on the news?”
—Charlie Croker (Mark Wahlberg), The Italian Job (2003)

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Final Friday Five, the monthly mini-quiz

1.  Virgil Thomson is the only composer to win a Pulitzer Prize for Music for a film score.  What was the film?

2.  Dennis Hopper never won an Oscar but he was nominated twice.  Name the two films for which he earned his nominations.

Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
Cool Hand Luke (1967)
Easy Rider (1969)
The American Friend (1977)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Blue Velvet (1986)
Hoosiers (1986)
Red Rock West (1993)

3.  John Wayne starred in five films directed by Howard Hawks.  Name the one film of Wayne’s from the list below that was not directed by Hawks.

Red River (1948)
Rio Grande (1950)
Rio Bravo (1959)
Hatari! (1962)
El Dorado (1966)
Rio Lobo (1970)

4.  Three about Toy Story 3! 

a.  When his toy friends reset his mode at Sunnyside Daycare, Buzz Lightyear begins speaking …Russian?  …Spanish?  …Hindi?
b.  Lotso assigns Buzz and his friends to …the Butterfly Room?  …the Silkworm Room?  …the Caterpillar Room?
c.  The animated short film playing in theaters before Toy Story 3 is called …Black and White?  …Day and Night?  …Merry and Bright?

5.  The promotional artwork (below) for a picture opening this week fails to show the faces of the two megastars appearing in the movie.  That’s odd, to say the least, considering the many millions of dollars the producers spent on casting those two so they’d attract people to theaters.  Name the movie and the two stars.

Answers here.

…58…59…60.