Play The Legend
Can rock music ever go back to the days of “headphone records,” gatefold albums, mysterious liner notes and fans creating their own image of the band in their minds? Music video did much to kill the radio star, by presenting a carefully screened image for mass consumption…but Ed Sullivan started it all rolling downhill and Marty Scorsese might have reached the nadir with what might otherwise be considered the absolute zenith of rock-n-roll cinema, “The Last Waltz.” His sumptuous concert doc made high art out of simple musical performance, and enshrined the legacy (well, a particular version of it, anyway) of an erstwhile relatively-anonymous, workman-like group of musical superstars, the Band. That simple, partly-modest, partly-conceited monicker underscores the extent that, without a pre-chosen image foisted upon the listener, this band could be whatever you choose. They first rocketed by prominence in 1968, playing on a plain white slab of modified […]
Woody Allen’s Later, Darker Ones
“Vicky Christina Barcelona” is the most thoroughly enjoyable hour and a half you could spend at the movies this season. At what point does Woody Allen’s “comeback” (as each of his last few movies have been hailed by critics) get to stick? Liberated from the upscale Manhattan locations that his characters could no longer afford, as well as from the crutch of casting himself or a famous impersonator as the romantic lead, Allen’s films have been consistently thoughtful, sober and darker than his proverbial “early, funny ones.” Bankrolled by the Spanish tourism industry, the film is set in a clearly booming Barcelona (note the construction cranes that dot the skyline), which gets top billing along with the two American tourists (played by Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall) whose summer in the city fuels the plot-line. Vicky and Christina are propositioned by painter Juan Antonio for a weekend of art, wine […]
A Second Shot at Reptilian Fascism
It seems I chose a bizarre time to rediscover “V,” my favorite TV show from childhood about an alien invasion of Earth that served as a Holocaust parable. In a Penn Station book store on Friday, I noticed that familiar spray-painted “V” on the cover of a book called “V: The Second Generation.” Date of first publication: February 2008. The salesman who rang me up was as surprised as me to see it. “This used to be a TV show, didn’t it?” The book is written by Kenneth Johnson, who created the initial 1983 miniseries but left before NBC made a mockery out of its sequels. Johnson writes the book as a straight up sequel to the original miniseries, taking place 25 years after the events in the original. In Johnson’s timeline, the Visitors have made good on their promise of sharing their scientific advances with mankind. Cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer’s […]
Fascist Reptiles and Other Cautionary Tales
How well does childhood memory of favorite teevee shows hold up? Judging by the maddening 80’s nostalgia currently in vogue, I would wager not well. I mean, “He Man” and “Jem” were pretty stupid as far as kids shows go. They’re simply painful to sit through as an adult. As a kid, my favorite “adult” show was “V,” an occasional miniseries turned shortly-lived regular series about the human resistance against an extraterrestrial invasion of Earth. What my five-year-old self enjoyed about the show was the rough-and-tumble adventuring antics of the resistance fighters, the “vshboo, vshboo” sound of the aliens’ laser guns and the frequent reveal that under the aliens’ human masks were lizard skins. An exciting action-adventure serial with no redeeming qualities, or so I recalled. Revisiting the series on DVD, I was surprised to find that the original 1983 miniseries was a taut, sophisticated Nazi allegory. In a montage […]
There Will Be Blood
Daniel Day-Lewis is pure, foreboding menace in “There Will Be Blood.” Although, when he finally unleashes the full force of his menace, it is not entirely what is expected. Nor, likewise, is the blood alluded to in the title precisely what one would expect from the cleverly edited promotional trailers, although plenty of the red stuff flows. Based upon the Upton Sinclair novel, “Oil!,” the film could easily have been mere anti-capitalist propaganda, but director Paul Thomas Anderson focuses more on themes of family, ambition and envy. Anderson doesn’t make short films and “Blood” is no exception, clocking in at nearly three hours. But whereas previous movies featured a large, Altman-esque cast of characters, Day-Lewis is the sole, scene-chewing focus of nearly every frame of “There Will Be Blood.” It’s one of those performances that shouts, give me my fucking Oscar or I’ll cut your fucking throat. Or bash your […]
Nothing Is Revealed
Todd Haynes’ new anti-biopic, “I’m Not There,” lives up to its hype as the perfect film distillation of the life and legend of Bob Dylan. The stories of six Dylan-like characters (played, among others, by a 13-year-old black boy, a British actress, Richard Gere and Batman) intertwine, and, naturally, nothing is revealed. The soundtrack is fantastic, including covers by a who’s who of middle-aged alt-rock and a terrific selection of Dylan classics and overlooked gems like “Blind Willie McTell” and the early version of “Idiot Wind” that wound up on the cutting room floor for “Blood On The Tracks.” The title is taken from a heretofore unreleased “basement tapes” recording, one of those haunting songs that Dylan recorded in one take and perversely never touched again, much to the chagrin of us cultists. It turns up here in a re-mastered mix and Sonic Youth cover. Cultists, the only folks who […]
John Turturro’s Queens Musical
It’s hard to imagine in this DVD age that John Turtuorro’s “Romance and Cigarettes” could languish in a studio vault, largely unseen by the public, for over two years. In many ways a valentine to Queens, particularly the areas down south by Kennedy airport, where things get weird, Turturro’s working class characters break into song and dance when feeling most dreary and desperate. It’s a familiar device to fans of Dennis Potter, but unlike “The Singing Detective” or “Pennies From Heaven,” “Romance and Cigarettes” neglect to weigh down its narrative with believable drama. The family at the heart of the story are hard to take seriously, with Aida Turturro and Mary Louise Parker playing James Gandolfini’s daughters. The characters are probably supposed to be teenagers, or at least in their early twenties, if their living at home and playing in a backyard punk rock band is supposed to be believable […]
Watching the Detectives
I want to be Philip Marlowe. Or maybe Nick Charles. My favorite kinds of movies are film noir, particularly the hard-boiled detective genre. I love the interplay of shadows and light in black and white. I love the cynical worldview, the disdain for scruples, morals and basic decency. I love that the characters drink rye and gin, smoke Chesterfields, wear fedoras and ties, consult the phone directory for research and do any number of other terribly old-fashioned things. I love the women – tall, thin, legs for miles, usually dressed in black and up to no good. But, mostly, I hero worship the gumshoe protagonists. The hard-boiled detective is the ultimate male fantasy. He is how we would all like to envision ourselves: suave, a sense of style, quick-witted and sarcastic, a healthy appetite for liquor that actually serves to sharpen his senses, seemingly irresistible to women, knows when he’s […]
The Devilish Fun of a Party Power Struggle
Veteran British actor Ian Richardson passed away recently. I took the opportunity afforded by my monthly mail order video subscription (no brand names, comrades) to stage a private film festival of Richardson’s best-known work, the BBC series, “House of Cards.” The 1991 miniseries focuses on a fictional Tory power struggle following Thatcher’s ouster, as Francis Urquhart, the diabolically unassuming Chief Whip, plots to destabilize the government and sabotage his competitors. The filmmakers give more than a nod and a wink to Shakespeare. Urquhart’s Lady MacBeth-like wife is played by Lady MacBeth, Diane Fletcher (from the Polanski version), and F.U. frequently addresses the audience directly, to share his plotting or just to raise an eyebrow. It’s Richardson’s performance that turns what could have been a cheap gag into a darkly comic and chilling tale. The entire enterprise is devilish fun, right up to the shock ending. The filmmakers revived the series […]
Cinema Fascists and Other Ghouls
“Pan’s Labyrinth” is a sort of gothic fairy-tale for adults and weird little kids. Like Jim Henson’s “Labyrinth” and “Dark Crystal,” this beautifully shot Spanish language film from Guillermo del Toro guides a ten year old girl through a dark fantasy world full of monsters and ghouls with questionable motivations. The world of the labyrinth exists largely in the imagination of the girl, Ofelia (Ivama Baquero), who is interpreting the far more horrific real world she inhabits, in which Franco’s Fascists are exterminating the remaining rebels in the dreary spring of ’44. In a bit of a cop-out, the filmmakers allow the audience to imagine that Ofelia’s fantasy world might be real, thus dulling the impact of a surprisingly sad ending. Sergi Lopez is almost cartoonish in his villainy as the Captain, which is fine by me. Call me old-fashioned, but I like my Fascists all snarling and evil. His […]