Reservoir Dogs at 25

By Steve Evans

Reservoir Dogs is 25 years old, which makes me older still. A vicious little brute of a film. Also hilarious. The corkscrew plot is a stew of ingredients from other movies, like Kubrick's The Killing and Huston's The Asphalt Jungle, both made in the 1950s, though especially Ringo Lam's City on Fire (1987). Naming tuff-guy characters after colors ("Yeah? Well Mr. Pink sounds like Mr. Pussy") comes straight from The Taking of Pelham 123 -- the 1974 original, naturally, with Robert Shaw and Walter Matthau. Maybe that's why Tarantino's film is so good: he pilfered from the best. It was his first completed and released picture, and today is still his second best. This movie is sly.

Even the title is a smartass hipster joke. Years ago, when Tarantino clerked at a video rental store, a couple of hicks came in and began browsing. One of the customers picked up the Louis Malle film Au Revoir les Infants (Goodbye, Children) and asked Tarantino, "Hey, what's this movie reservoir dawgs?" 

In the early 1990s, Tarantino's acting coach was Harvey Keitel's wife. She took Tarantino's script to Keitel, who put up some money to produce and leveraged his casting in the film to raise more funds. The whole project came in around $1.2 million and earned back slightly more than twice that at the box office. But the film became a cult hit, spurring $22 million-plus in home-video sales.

What other fun facts can I share? The jewel robbers in this heist flick all wear the same black suits and skinny ties, a fashion statement also made in an obscure Jayne Mansfield crime film, Dog Eat Dog (1964). That film's title served as the name of the production company set up for Reservoir Dogs. The Mansfield picture is delightfully trashy. Insane, really. Read more about it here.

I was in grad' school when I saw Reservoir Dogs on its original 1992 release at a long-gone arthouse cinema in Virginia. My first reaction was "wow." And then I thought, yeah, he's cherry picked from films throughout cinema history to make this one, but this Tarantino knows how to meld music and image like nobody else. This was before he fell so in love with his own dialog he forgot when to cut a scene. That's a shame because his two Oscars for screenwriting suggest he's one of the best film writers alive. Tarantino just doesn't know when to shaddup -- and that's my only real criticism. Well, and he's derivative far beyond the blanket excuse of paying homage. He's still one of only two directors whose films I always see in a theater proper, Scorsese being the other. Tarantino films are entertaining as hell. Half the fun of watching them is dissecting the collage of influences he's slapped together. 

Reservoir Dogs almost single-handedly brought about the resurrection of the indie film, even though it polarized viewers at Sundance. You love or you hate this film. These dogs do not elicit a ho-hum response.

By Steve Evans

Netflix is producing an adaptation of the one Stephen King novel I've long considered unfilmable -- Gerald's Game, published in 1992. It's my favorite of King's books, although in truth I've plowed through less than a dozen of his 54 novels so maybe I'm missing out. This one, though, is a psychological doozy.

Lots of people are looking forward to the upcoming big-budget adaptation of It, King 's five pound door jam of a novel. But news of this quiet little production from Netflix has got me cautiously hopeful that it might turn out interesting.

That's because film adaptations of King's books are a mixed bag. David Cronenberg's adaptation of The Dead Zone (1983), Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (the 1980 film that King reportedly hated) and Brian De Palma's Carrie (1976) are riveting. Others, like Firestarter, Christine and Pet Sematary, are just silly.

I admire the producers for even trying to film the twisted tale that is Gerald's Game. Most of the story is confined to a bedroom in an isolated cabin in the woods. Briefly, the tale recounts a trophy wife handcuffed to the bed by her kinky husband for sex games. When he suddenly drops dead, she's trapped without food or water and not a soul within 100 miles...well...at least no one you'd want to meet under such circumstances.

This book really got under my skin. Shuddering even now in recollection of a couple key scenes.

The film just finished principal photography with a cast of mostly unknowns. No streaming date announced yet, though we can expect it this year.

Watching the world end

By Steve Evans
In cognizance of the Trump Administration's infuriatingly obvious efforts to destroy the world one idiotic move after another, today I'm starting a series of film clips that artfully illustrate what happens when arrogant, hate-filled and quite probably insane fools acquire power. You know, like Adolph. Mussolini, Hirohito and Hussein. Stalin. Dada. Pol Pot. Ceausescu and Ivan the Terrible. Ming the Merciless. Hell, Charles Manson. And Mao Zedong. History provides us with a very long list that merits a refresher. But back to the clips: Let's start big with the best one I know. You can never go wrong leading with Kubrick.

Writer-Director Paul Mazursky Dead at 84

By Steve Evans

Five-time Oscar nominee Paul Mazursky, who played a role in Stanley Kubrick's first film, Fear and Desire, died June 30 in Los Angeles. He was 84.

Mazursky's career as an actor, writer, director and producer spanned six decades and almost all genres, although his focus remained primarily on comedy and drama. Always a bridesmaid, he came closest to winning the Academy Award for his work on An Unmarried Woman (1978), starring Jill Clayburgh as a wealthy Manhattanite whose life is shattered when her husband leaves her for a younger woman. Mazursky was up for the Oscar that year as writer, director and producer. Clayburgh also received a nod for Best Actress.

His most popular film, Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), is a remake of Jean Renoir's classic French satire Boudu Saved From Drowning. Mazursky was reportedly a great admirer of French cinema, Renoir in particular, and this fact alone drew me to Mazurksy's work through the years. Down and Out remains one of my favorite films satirizing the Reagan years.

As an actor, Mazursky played a delinquent tormenting Glenn Ford's high school teacher in the hugely influential Blackboard Jungle (1955). Late in life, he had a recurring role as the poker dealer Sunshine in The Sopranos.

As a writer, Mazursky penned the amusing hippie film I love You Alice B. Toklas (1968) starring Peter Sellers as a square who learns to tune in, turn on, drop out and loosen up with the benefit of a special hash-brownie recipe. Getting it on with Leigh Taylor-Young certainly adds to Sellers' enthusiasm for the role.

A Jewish kid from Brooklyn, Mazursky's work was often compared with Woody Allen, as the two worked similar turf. Mazursky never came completely out of Allen's shadow, but they collaborated through the years and Mazursky's films never failed to entertain.

Film critic Roger Ebert wrote that Mazursky's comedies "are more intelligent than most of the serious films around."

Always a writer of topical material, much of Mazursky's output may now seem dated as his settings are invariably linked to the social concerns of a specific time and place. You should seek them out, anyway.

He had an acerbic wit that reportedly emerged from a gentle spirit and a fascination with the foibles of average Americans.

Cinema Uprising copyright © 2014 by Steve Evans. All rights reserved.

Film, Beethoven, Flash Mobs and Perfect Dinner Parties

By Steve Evans

Someone once asked me at a dinner party...who I would invite to a dinner party and what I would serve. The latter answer is easy -- filet mignon grilled fast in brandy and minced shallots, lobster tails slathered in drawn butter and lemon zest, grilled asparagus, roasted new potatoes with rosemary and crushed garlic cloves, and grapefruit salad dressed with sea salt and extra virgin olive oil.  Napa Cabernet Sauvignon and New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc for the lobster. New York style cheesecake topped with ripe raspberries and port wine for dessert.

Then there would be cigars and cognac.

As for the guest list, that becomes problematic. Most of my heroes have left this plane of existence, but if we could resurrect them (and language was no barrier to our conversation), I would invite Jesus, Buddha, Aristotle, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, John Coltrane, Bill Evans (no relation), Cleopatra, Louise Brooks, Myrna Loy, Jean Renoir, Picasso, Neil Armstrong, Cary Grant, Stanley Kubrick, Henri Georges Clouzot, Jeanne Moreau, possibly Richard III, definitely Abraham Lincoln and Ingmar Bergman, Grace Kelly if she was free that night, and Jimi Hendrix, because he was always Stone Free. If there was still room at the table I would welcome Ed Wood Jr., Phil Tucker (who directed Robot Monster, one of the most sublime and yet still awful films I have seen), Victor Hugo and Joan of Arc, Ghandi (he would pass on the fillets of beef, no doubt), and James Agee, who may be the most under-appreciated writer of the 20th century.

I think I would ask Marilyn Monroe for a date that evening, not for the reasons you might think, but because I might be able to pierce her shell ( I am good like that) and perhaps understand the demons that drove her. Plus, I am confident that I could kick Jack Kennedy's (or Bobby''s) ass into the street.

And by the time we got around to the cigars and brandy, I would ask Beethoven to perform for us all.

Here, then, is the coda on my perfect dinner party...wandering outdoors we would all encounter the most wonderful thing I have seen since the dawn of the Internet.

Life is beautiful. I would do well to remember that. So would we all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbJcQYVtZMo

Cinema Uprising copyright © 2014. By Steve Evans. All rights reserved.

Room 237: Living la Vida Loca

By Steve Evans

Room 237 is a documentary that tells us what some people think Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) is really about. This is not as interesting as it sounds.

Over the course of a long 143 minutes, I was subjected to one insanely crackpot theory after another. It took me three days spread over two weeks to slog through this documentary, in which I am supposed to believe, variously, that The Shining is actually about the Holocaust, the plight of Native Americans at the hands of settlers, or that it is, instead, Kubrick’s public apology for faking the footage of the Apollo moon landing (my personal favorite), or that it is a dialectical exercise in the deconstruction of American capitalism. Oh, and running The Shining backwards supposedly reveals hidden meanings, too, although I’ll be damned if the documentary explains them.

For those who need a refresher, The Shining takes place in Colorado at the fictional Overlook Hotel, where extremely unpleasant things happen in Room 237. The room number was changed for the film from Stephen King's novel, in which the action occurs in Room 217. That's because the Timberline Lodge in Oregon, where the hotel exteriors were filmed, actually had a Room 217 and the owners didn't want guests to be afraid of staying there. This simple explanation for the alteration in room numbers from novel to film further undercuts many of the more salacious theories put forth in the documentary.

Kubrick, who died in 1999, was famously elusive and loathe to discuss his films once they were released. He preferred to let the films speak for themselves, leaving audiences free to interpret them as they wish. Ironically, it is Kubrick's own elliptical stance toward his work that encourages the fans interviewed in Room 237 -- let's charitably call them eccentrics -- to come up with their own goofy explanations. If Kubrick could see Room 237 he might well make an exception to his no-comment policy.

One theorist who claims The Shining is a veiled reference to the Holocaust holds up such proof as the numbers of the film's title, Room 237. When multiplied thus: 2 x 3 x 7 = 42, the Holocaust-theory guy claims that this represents the year 1942, which is when Hitler and Nazi Germany accelerated the Final Solution. The man says he is shocked no one else has noticed this hidden mathematical clue.

In other words, Room 237 is a hoot.

Seldom in my life have I heard so much amazing bullshit spewed with such utter conviction. This documentary is proof that some people will twist and contort anything to fit a thesis. Some of this stuff is fascinating. Just about all of it is gibberish.

For these reasons alone, the documentary is worth watching. Call it a meta-film best enjoyed by diehard film buffs and perhaps clinical psychiatrists. I don’t deny The Shining is a multi-textured film that rewards repeat viewings, but you won't learn anything about it from watching Room 237. The documentary succeeds mainly in tracking down the sort of people you wouldn’t want to be alone with, then letting them expound at length on their wild ideas. That they actually seem to believe their own nonsense is just precious.

It's probably pointless to review a film based on what I wish had been included rather than what is actually there. But I think the makers of Room 237 missed a prime opportunity to consider why The Shining continues to fascinate people 33 years after its release. Instead, they focus on the side show, the lunatic fringe who can be found lurking on the edges of just about any cultural ephemera that generates obsessive interest. That's too easy. Instead of crafting a challenging documentary, they've produced the year's best comedy.

Room 237 could never have been made during Stanley Kubrick’s lifetime. Even a recluse like Kubrick would probably be compelled to ridicule every whacked-out theory put forward in the film – even if he would not discuss his own intentions. Actually, he already did. A few years after the film was released Kubrick in an interview said The Shining is about "a family going insane together.”

Just like the people in this documentary.

Room 237 is available on Netflix.

Cinema Uprising copyright © 2013 by Steve Evans. All rights reserved.

Pinocchio’s Timeless Appeal

By Steve Evans

Watching Disney’s classic 1940 production of Pinocchio last night with my children, who enjoyed their first viewing, I drifted along with the simple sentiments of this beautifully crafted film. Since I can no longer watch a film without making endless subreferences, before Monstro the whale could rear his terrifying head my thoughts wandered from Disney to Stanley Kubrick and finally to Steven Spielberg. More on that in a moment.

In this telling of Carlo Collodi’s most famous tale, the marionette Pinocchio dreams of becoming a real boy, and thus human, by proving himself “brave, truthful and unselfish.” These are the qualities by which Pinocchio can shuffle off his wooden coil and become truly alive. The basic morality of discerning right from wrong also comes into play as the pivotal point of the plot. When Pinocchio strays from the righteous path, his troubles multiply until he literally transforms into a jackass. His creator and would-be father Geppetto languishes like Noah in the belly of a whale.

With vivid strokes of the animator’s pen, Disney artists crafted a parable of the most desirable qualities that underline what it means to live the examined life -- or what it should mean. The Blue Fairy who imbues Pinocchio with the ability to walk and talk is playing at God when she gives the puppet the power of Free Will. It is, of course, inevitable that Pinocchio will choose poorly, take the easy road toward success and wealth, learning only by trial and challenge that life is hard and the path paved with obstacles.

On a more subtle note, Disney’s film poses no less a question than: what does it mean to be human? This idea intrigued and ultimately confounded Kubrick for many years as he struggled with the limitations of film technology to realize his vision for a picture known as A.I., the abbreviation for Artificial Intelligence. A.I. would have been Kubrick's final film, a reimagining of the Pinocchio story. Kubrick and Spielberg had many telephone conversations about the project. After several aborted attempts at writing a screenplay, Kubrick finally suggested that Spielberg take over the project, as Kubrick felt the material was ultimately better suited to Spielberg’s sensibilities.

Kubrick died suddenly in March 1999, leaving extensive notes and whole sequences of a screenplay for A.I. His death upset me greatly, as the thought that there would never be another Kubrick film bordered on tragic. I also remember thinking at the time that A.I. would make an intriguing film, since Kubrick’s passing made me realize another subtext buried just beneath the surface of that sturdy Pinocchio story: a wooden puppet’s dream of becoming human carries with it the inescapable fact of mortality. Some could argue that Pinocchio was actually better off before his transformation into a living, breathing boy who must then experience all the joys of life, but also all of the sorrows. Does this make life any less desirable? Can the sweet ever be quite so sweet without the sour?

Kubrick’s notes for A.I. are permeated with a fundamental riddle of existence: what does it mean to be human? Significantly, his screenplay drafts also focus heavily on the maternal attachment a robot named David feels for his “adoptive” mother, even though she already has a son of her own. This love a boy feels for his mother might seem uncharacteristic of Kubrick, who was often perceived as cold and misanthropic (although I would argue that all of his films are deeply humane, cautionary tales of people making bad choices).

In early 2000, less than a year after Kubrick’s death, Spielberg decided to complete A.I., using the late director’s notes as the framework for a screenplay Spielberg would write himself – his first since Close Encounters of the Third Kind in 1977.

Released in June 2001, Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence was greeted with the sort of critical thrashing that typically accompanied a new Kubrick film. Years would often pass before the critical consensus would turn favorably toward many of Kubrick’s pictures.

Now 12 years on, I think it’s time to reassess A.I. Sure, it is basically the story of Pinocchio, jazzed up with state-of-the-art digital special effects and a remarkable performance from former child star Haley Joel Osment as the title character. But what really intrigues me about A.I., the puzzle I have yet to unravel, is the obsessive interest in this tale by Kubrick and Spielberg. Here we have two giants of the cinema, one revered almost universally as a genius and the other the most financially successful director in the history of the medium. Together and separately they expended endless hours of development and millions of dollars in production money on what is, at its heart, a very simple story.

More than a decade later, I'm still discovering subtle connections between Pinocchio and A.I.

And I'm still wondering why two of the greatest directors in motion picture history would be so interested in what is fundamentally the story of a boy who only wants to find his mommy.

Perhaps the answer is inherent in the question.

Cinema Uprising copyright © 2013 by Steve Evans. All rights reserved.

A Glimpse of Django Unchained

By Steve Evans

Jamie Foxx and Christoph Waltz team up to fight Leonardo DiCaprio’s evil slave owner in Django Unchained, an upcoming revisionist Western by Quentin Tarantino, the leading practitioner of flat-out-wrong history in the service of exploitation cinema.

Miramax just released these stills from the film, which is set for a Christmas Day opening:

Foxx plays the liberated slave of the title who joins forces with a bounty hunter (Waltz) in an odyssey across the Antebellum South. Their quest involves finding Django’s wife, the improbably named Broomhilda, now owned by the wicked Calvin Candie (DiCaprio, sporting a Mephistophelean goatee). Tarantino regulars Samuel L. Jackson and Kurt Russell provide support, along with Don Johnson, legendary makeup artist Tom Savini and Borat, um, Sacha Baron Cohen. Because this is a Tarantino film, when Django catches up with Calvin you know blood is gonna flow like Ol' Man River.

Revenge is the recurring and dominant theme in all of Tarantino’s films, which are looking progressively better as his budgets have increased. Waltz and Foxx, in particular, come off especially bad-ass in their Old West garb. Check out the bowler and tiered duster on Waltz, who could bring back fashions from the 19th century and make them popular once more with just his attitude.

No matter. Fine costumes and production values cannot obscure the fact that Tarantino’s one-note oeuvre becomes more preposterous with each film he makes. Here’s hoping Django Unchained marks a return to form. Let this picture be as taut, crazed, politically incorrect, hilariously profane and violent as his best work, which for my money is still his first picture, Reservoir Dogs (1992).

Tarantino launched himself 20 years ago as a genuine maverick with a disappointing penchant for producing derivative films. It is a well-known fact among those who care about such things that even his finest film, Reservoir Dogs, is little more than a mash-up of Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing, John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle and the original Taking of Pelham 1,2,3, with some references to obscure Japanese thrillers thrown in to season the stew. Tarantino took the basic ingredients of better films, ramped up the profanity and violence, and called it macaroni. Audiences said “cool” and Tarantino basked in the wonder of it all. In the years since, after breathing too deeply of his own fumes and indulging too often in his own fan worship, the man still makes derivative films that are now as silly as his own chatterbox interviews.

Tarantino movies have all the substance of a dove feather, but to be fair, they’re often ridiculously entertaining -- at least for one viewing. It depends on your appetite and mood. A cheeseburger and cold beer are not in the same league as duck à l'orange and Veuve Clicquot, but both will take the edge off your hunger and slake your thirst.

So get back to where you once belonged, Tarantino. Grill me a cheeseburger, bloody rare, and pop a beer. You really need to get mean and nasty and daring with your audience once more. Push it to the edge (well, at least to the outer limits of a contracturally-obligated R-rating). Rub our noses in your Mandingo outrageousness and we’ll buy tickets, if for no other reason than many of us are bored. The sorry truth is most contemporary cinema is a snore. But knock it off already with the self-indulgence. You’re not the equal of Kubrick, Clouzot or Pabst, even though you like to name-check the masters. Just entertain us for a couple of hours with that pluperfect dialog you write so well and give up trying to make some kind of lasting artistic statement. Do that, and that'll do.

Oh, and to Waltz: love the coat.

Cinema Uprising copyright © 2012 by Steve Evans. All rights reserved.

Zagat's got nuthin' on Steve's Top 20

By Steve Evans

Zagat is known for ranking restaurants, but recently got into the film-ranking bidness by releasing a top 20 list of rather predictable titles. The Godfather and its sequel, Part II, topped the Zagat list. Yawn.

These sorts of things are calculated to create buzz for Zagat out of nothing by sparking conversation and perhaps even controversy through the release of an arbitrary list built around a handful of opinions. Since theirs are no better than yours or mine, I'll let you in on a secret...pssst: wanna know the real top 20 films of all time? Ol’ Cinematic Cteve will tell you…

20. John Houston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Houston directed his dad Walter to an Oscar and gave Humphrey Bogart one of his best roles as the paranoid prospector Fred C. Dobbs, whose lust for gold elevates the plot beyond a mere western thriller with elements of noir. Greed, loyalty, madness and redemption are themes Houston explores in this dark window into the soul.

19. Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. Still an effective shocker half a century later, even when you realize what’s coming, as almost anyone past a certain age already knows. Pure filmmaking from a master. The ultimate in audience manipulation, as Hitch shifts our loyalties from one character to the next until we are spinning in a vortex toward the shocking reveal. Film critics fell over themselves studying this little tale of a boy and his mother.

18 Anthony Minghella’s The English Patient. Doomed love is still love – and better than no love at all in this film of contrasting stories set before and in the waning days of World War II. Exquisitely photographed with finely-detailed performances all around, this multiple Oscar-winning tale of love and regret features career-defining work from actors Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche, who won an Oscar, with able support from Kristen Scott Thomas and Willem Dafoe. No matter how many times you see it, The English Patient will make you sob helplessly as the poor choices of these doomed characters lead inexorably to an inevitable conclusion.

17. Francois Truffaut’s Jules and Jim. If a Ménage à trios by definition must ultimately be doomed, the protagonists of Jules and Jim are damned as well. Luminous Jeanne Moreau serves as the troubled object of the title characters’ affections, although neither man ever really understands her appeal to their collective and everlasting regret. Jules and Jim is the archetype of the French nouvelle vague and one of the great classics of the second half of the 20th century.

16. Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. A brilliant, chaotic, hallucinatory depiction of war and madness, each linked inextricably to the other. Coppola pushed his vision to the edge and almost fell over into the abyss as chronicled in the great documentary Hearts of Darkness, about the making of this film. This picture could serve as the textbook for a course on cinematography. Stunning set pieces, such as the unforgettable helicopter raid set to Wagner and Robert Duvall’s immortal speech about napalm.

15. Carol Reed’s The Third Man. “I remember old Vienna….” So begins this post-WW II noir as a low-rent writer of pulp Western novels arrives in Austria to meet a friend who, as it happens, is already dead. The novelist is always one step behind the weary cynics in devastated Vienna as he tries to solve the riddle of Harry Lime and his mysterious associates. Seldom have so many evil characters been portrayed with such disarming charm.

14. Steven Spielberg’s Jaws. A finely-oiled machine built exclusively to terrorize, this film owes more to the Oscar-winning editing than anything a then-27-year-old Spielberg brought to the table in his sophomore directing effort.

13. Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin. The Bolshevik Revolution altered the course of 20th century history. Potemkin changed the course of world cinema. While Team America spoofed the cliché of montage, Eisenstein showed how it was done and how this editing technique could be used for maximum effect.

12. Jean Renoir’s Rules of the Game. The son of an Impressionist painter provoked outrage among the French bourgeois with the release of this fascinating look at class and society. Ambitious in scope, yet intimate in execution, this is a quietly devastating social commentary as relevant today as it was on release in 1939.

11. Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal. The picture that introduced Americans to the notion of art-house cinema is practically redolent with symbolic imagery. Max von Sydow famously plays a game of chess with Death, but oh, there’s so much more.

10. Henri Clouzot’s The Wages of Fear. This sordid tale of four desperate men transporting nitroglycerin through the South American jungle may be the most suspenseful film ever made. It’s also one of the mostly sharply drawn portraits of the toll taken by American Imperialism on people who have no choice but to deal with the (lousy) hand of cards they are dealt.

9. Lindsay Anderson’s O Lucky Man! This supremely surreal allegory follows the rise, fall and redemption of one Mick Travis, coffee salesman (Malcolm McDowell), as he wrestles with greed, avarice and ambition. With the radiant Helen Mirren and keyboardist Alan Price, whose songs serve as a sort of Greek Chorus, commenting on the strange meanderings of the plot in this fantastic film.

8. Godfrey Reggio’s Koyaanisqatsi. The title is a Hopi Indian word meaning “life out of balance.” The picture is a highly stylized exploration of beautiful landscapes juxtaposed against the horrors of an urban existence. This provocative, mind-expanding and deeply disturbing film is perhaps more relevant today than it was on its release in 1983. Features the ultimate use of music by minimalist composer Philip Glass.

7. Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter. Three friends go to Vietnam out of a sense of misplaced patriotic duty that lingers even after two of them return. Cimino paints a rich, vivid portrait of working-class life and simple American values, where no one questions government policy and the query of “why?” is always answered with “because.” Stunning. Heartbreaking. Unforgettable. The scene in the POW camp may deliver the 15 most unbearably tense minutes yet committed to film.

6. Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights. A masterpiece of pantomime and poignancy, with a heart-rending final scene. The Little Tramp contemplates economic struggle and saves a blind girl. Dare you not to cry.

5. Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai. One of the greatest of all action films, all the more so because it is driven by character first and mayhem second. We care about what happens to these warriors and the villagers they are paid to protect. Get the Criterion edition.

4. Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull. De Niro’s greatest performance. A mesmerizing and tragic character study of a life twisted inside-out and left hollow by sadomasochism. It’s also a boxing picture for people who hate movies about boxing.

3. Milos Foreman’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Individuality and iconoclasm clash with bureaucratic authority in this deceptively simple morality play set inside an Oregon asylum for the insane. As the unyielding Nurse Ratched, Louise Fletcher creates one of the most vile and ultimately dangerous characters in cinema history.

2. Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange. Greatest cinematic satire of all time. This film will tell you everything you need to know about political power, class struggles and the disingenuous maneuverings behind government policy, with a spot-on examination of the human condition. “I’m singin’ in the rain….”

And the greatest film of all?

Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest. One of the most purely enjoyable pictures ever made, this is a movie constructed like magic on a foundation of nothing. The plot collapses under close scrutiny, but why would you bother? It’s all such glorious fun. Cary Grant plays Cary Grant. James Mason embodies suave villainy. Eva Marie Saint is the woman they both want. Classic set pieces include the crop-dusting biplane chase and the desperate climb acrosss the faces of Mt. Rushmore to a literal cliff-hanger climax. The picture contains everything a movie lover could ask of the cinema, with the greatest double-entendre closing shot in the entire Hitchcock oeuvre.

Cinema Uprising copyright (c) 2010 by Steve Evans. All rights reserved.

Wanna watch the Oscars? Don't Wait for Mickey Mouse

By Steve Evans

Millions of Cablevision customers will not be able to watch the annual Academy Awards ceremony tonight due to a pissing contest between Cablevision and the Walt Disney company, which owns the ABC network that broadcasts the Oscars.

Cablevision says Disney wants $40 million more annually to provide service to the cable system, while revealing that the company already pays the House of Mouse $200 million per year for its programming. The pinstripe suits over at Disney argue that Cablevision puts the touch on customers for $18 each per month for basic cable but doesn't kick up a tribute to Disney.

That leaves Oscar fans (and a dwindling number of ABC programming fans) in the dark.

What to do? Well, you could boot-scoot over to Radio Shack double quick and snag an antenna and a digital TV converter box, dropping about $75 in the process. ABC is still on the free-to-air list of broadcasting stations if you have an antenna and the right gear to connect it with. Then hook up the hardware and position the aerial so you can enjoy awkward speeches, overwrought dance numbers, and Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin trading scripted jokes.

Or just get a good night's sleep and take my word for it: "Up in the Air" will win Best Picture and Oscar nom Mo'Nique will wake up Monday morning as fat and coarse as ever. Check her out in "Beerfest" for an exercise in jaw-dropping incredulousness, then shag over to a nearby multiplex when you're ready for real cinema and scope out Martin Scorsese's "Shutter Island," which truly has something to say.

James Cameron's computer-generated cartoon "Avatar" and his ex-wife's (Kathryn Bigelow's) war flick "The Hurt Locker" are vying for Best Picture. Forget it. "Avatar" will cop a little anatomically incorrect gold man for special effects. Bigelow might waltz offstage with a Best Director Oscar, although my money is on either Jason Reitman for "Up in the Air" or Quentin Tarantino for his audacious, ridiculous and hugely entertaining World War II revenge-fantasy, "Inglourious Basterds," for which Cristoph Waltz will most assuredly win Best Supporting Actor. If there was an award for silliest Italian accent, Brad Pitt would also take home a prize for his amusing work in "Basterds."

A rather lame year for American movies, as it turns out. Where's the fun in pictures anymore? Where's the substance? The gravitas? Well, dear, it's parked firmly in the past, mostly in black and white. Italian neo-realism. German Expressionism. "The Third Man" and films noir. Hitchcock. Kubrick. Jean Renoir. And other dead heroes of mine whose visions transcend culture, time and space to achieve immortality.

Yes, watching the Oscars in 2010 is nothing more than an excuse to wolf down spinach and artichoke dip and chug mediocre Chardonnay or metallic-tasting American beer in aluminum cans while celebrating cinematic mediocrity in all its money-generating forms. Just like the Super Bowl.

Me? Tonight I'll be watching reruns of Penn & Teller's "Bullshit!" -- a show that has more to say about America than Upton Sinclair and the Founding Fathers before him could ever fathom. When it comes down to freedom of expression, I'll take a couple of sharp dudes calling dumb people "motherfuckers" and "assholes" over anything else passing itself off as popular entertainment today.

Yeah.

Cinema Uprising copyright (c) 2010 by Cinematic Cteve. All rights reserved.

Hot Tickets for 2010

By Steve Evans

It’s never too early to handicap the slate of pictures coming this year to a theater near you. Here are 11 films in order of release date that either look promising or promise to lure massive crowds. The ineviotable blockbusters can be found among one or two smaller pictures that I suspect will find an audience and become sleeper hits.

Edge of Darkness (Jan. 29) Mel Gibson makes his first appearance in front of a camera since the po’lice took his mug shot after the middle-aged Lethal Weapon was popped for drunken driving and making inappropriate remarks about Jews. In his upcoming thriller, Gibson plays a homicide detective investigating the murder of his daughter. He’s also looking on the chunky side these days. Screenplay by William Monahan, who penned The Departed for Martin Scorsese.

Shutter Island (Feb. 19) may be the most anticipated movie of 2009. That’s right, Martin Scorsese's new thriller from the Dennis Lehane novel was slated for an Oct. 2 release last year in time for Oscar season, but Paramount bumped the picture back 4 ½ months claiming the studio had no money for a proper promotional campaign. Whatever. Scorsese works for the fourth straight collaboration with Leonardo DiCaprio, as a U.S. Marshall sent to the titular island to investigate a missing person. Shutter Island is the home of Ashcliffe, a hospital for the criminally insane where DiCaprio and his partner (Mark Ruffalo) begin to suspect sinister psychiatric practices are underway. The perfect cast includes “Sir” Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams and Max Von Sydow. Helluva trailer for this one:



A Prophet (March 5) explores prison life in France by director Jacques Audiard ("The Beat That My Heart Skipped"). Expect a Foreign Film Oscar nomination. This film is reputedly so realistic and sobering in its portrayal of the French penal system that the government has responded with legislation to reform the country’s prisons.

Chloe (March 19) Director Atom Egoyan helms this adult drama about seemingly happy-loving couple Julianne Moore and Liam Neeson. When the wife develops a jealous streak, she tests her hubby’s love by placing him on a collision course with call-girl Chloe (doe-eyed Amanda Seyfried) to see if her husband can keep his pants cinched around his waist. This may not be the best pick for a first-date flick.

Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps (April 23) Director Oliver Stone and Michael Douglas reunite in this sequel to the 1987 paean to greed that won Douglas the Oscar for best actor. Love him or hate him, you gotta admire Oliver Stone’s timing. Here’s hoping he scores a direct hit on all the illegitimate MBA sonsofbitches roaming Noo Yawk’s financial district after the dismal failure of his last picture, W. Douglas returns as money obsessed Gordon Gekko, fresh from a prison stretch for playing shell games with arbitrage investments. He joins a young financial hotshot (Shia LaBeouf, to broaden the demographic for this picture) and together they try to warn The Street about a looming financial crisis. The plot clots when the younger man gets hot and heavy with Gekko’s daughter (Carey Mulligan from An Education). Despite the ridiculous subtitle, Wall Street 2 has all the right socio-economic conditions working in its favor.

Iron Man 2 (May 7) Okay, so Batman is too damn brooding, Superman too square and the Hulk is just a rambunctious pain in the ass. If the question is, “do we really need another summer superhero move?” the answer has got to be, yep, if it’s Iron Man 2, the eagerly awaited sequel to the 2008 hit. Robert Downey Jr. as alcoholic playboy/billionaire Tony Stark, who sometimes toots around in a metal exoskeleton, gets off some terrific hipster dialog without once making his audience impatient. Lots of explosions in the trailer, of course, but it’s Downey’s show all the way. Watch how he addresses a U.S. senator on a congressional committee that wants Iron Man to give up his military secrets, and you’ll be standing in line for a ticket, too. Gwyneth Paltrow returns; Scarlett Johansson and Sam Rockwell give support. Mickey Rourke looks suitably menacing as main nemesis Whiplash. Check out the trailer:

Robin Hood (May 14) Russell Crowe won an Oscar for prancing around in a toga a decade ago in Gladiator and his work since then has been a mixed bag at best. No surprise, then, that the angry Aussie would pull on a pair of green leotards and take to Sherwood Forest for this umpteenth retelling of the English legend. Of course, Ridley Scott hasn’t had a hit since he directed Gladiator, so he’s reteamed with Crowe to helm this tale of a young Robin in the service of King Richard, the Lionheart. Cate Blanchett plays love interest Lady Marion.

Sex and the City 2 (May 28) Carrie and Mr. Big got married at the end of the last installment of this would-be franchise about the joys of sex and shopping (though not necessarily in that order). Expect Carrie and Mr. Big to get into a squabble so they can get back together again, since the plot demands it. Expect Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda to gab at length about shoes and skirts while sipping tall Cosmopolitans.

Toy Story 3 (June 18) Pixar returns to the well with Buzz Lightyear, Woody and the rest of the toy gang in a 3D computer-generated tale of loss, nostalgia and longing. Tim Allen and Tom Hanks return with principal voice-talent duties. Michael Keaton, Timothy Dalton and Joan Cusack are in there somewhere as well.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I (Nov. 19) Warner Bros. plans to burn maximum mileage out of J.K Rowling’s final installment of the boy-wizard saga by splitting the film adaptation into two parts separated by a year. Harry, Hermone and Ron face ongoing peril from the Death Eaters and Ralph Fiennes without a nose shows up as malevolent Lord Voldemort, he whose name must not be spoken, but often is, anyway. This series delivers amazing special effects and endearing performances by the young actors, although the sense of wonder is waning with the increased emphasis on hormones and tiresome romantic subplots that bring the Potter pictures to a crashing halt until the magic picks up again.

The Tree of Life (No release date announced) Director Terrence (Badlands) Malick is about as prolific as the late Stanley Kubrick, but the five films he’s managed to release (in a career spanning nearly 40 years) are as analyzed, dissected and discussed as the work of the great Kubrick himself. Set in the 1950s, Tree of Life follows the split story of Midwestern family (Brad Pitt and newcomer Jessica Chastain), and some years later their adult son Sean Penn who (surprise!) is a tormented man. The film juxtaposes Penn’s childhood family life with his contemporary conundrums. Expect a stately, meditative film from the cerebral, wildly inconsistent and always-interesting Malick.

Copyright © 2010 by Cinematic Cteve // dba Cinema Uprising. All rights reserved.

The Ghost of Kubrick Loiters in Times Square

By Steve Evans

Stanley Kubrick was on to something.

When the late director filmed 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), he had the brilliant idea to use a shiny, black monolith as the medium for triggering an evolutionary advance in the intelligence of Primitive Man. The awestruck apes encountered the monolith, touched it, and the next morning were seen using bones as rudimentary tools. The monolith sparked enlightenment in their little monkey brains, causing neurons to fire and bridge the connection between synapses heretofore unused.

I was reminded of this while exploring Times Square on Halloween with my wife and infant daughter, who got her mind blown by the animated billboards for which this “Crossroads of the world” is justly famous. Annabelle stared, mouth agape, at the illuminated Spectaculars, as the billboards are known, towering hundreds of feet overhead on the skyscrapers. At one point she seemed to go cross-eyed, just like astronaut Dave Bowman during the climactic stargate sequence in 2001.

The next morning, Annabelle began to crawl, used a spoon to feed herself for the first time and said “daa-daa-daaaa...da-da” whenever I entered the room. Not exactly "Thus Spake Zarathustra," but it caught my attention.

While the child may not be ready for interstellar flight, she unquestionably changed overnight, perhaps as a result of seeing one of the most famous landmarks in the world pulsating with light like a forest of gargantuan Christmas trees. Something clicked in her baby brain, which became open for the first time to … possibilities.

Yup, and Manhattan is a lovely place to be in late fall, with the wind whistling through the concrete canyons and the trees in Central Park glowing orange, amber, burnt sienna and golden brown, like Gordon Willis’ memorable cinematography in The Godfather (1972), Annie Hall (1977), The Godfather Part II (1974) and III (1990)... and….

Right. That’s enough.

Copyright © 2009 by Cinematic Cteve // dba Cinema Uprising. All rights reserved.

Woooooooo! A Spooky Film Marathon for Halloween

By Steve Evans

“I runne to death, and death meets me as fast, and all my pleasures are like yesterday.” ~ Holy Sonnet VII.

Psychological research into the appeal of the horror film suggests that scary movies supply a way to deal with the inevitability of death in a controlled situation. The mantra "it's only a movie" reminds us that the credits will eventually roll and the imaginary terrors will fade away with the brightening of the house lights. We flirt with oblivion in the safety of the cinema.

Stephen King a quarter-century ago published Danse Macabre, an excellent thesis on the appeal of horror, with two superb chapters on the horror film and intriguing analysis of prime movies in this genre. It is recommended reading for anyone who enjoys a good adrenaline jolt from celluloid terrors.

With Halloween just 10 days away, I would like to offer something similar, but without King's exhaustive analysis on the enduring appeal of horror films. Instead, here is the list of what I consider to be the 10 most outrageously terrifying movies made to date, all suitable for a Halloween marathon. Criteria for the selection includes influence. Each of these movies had a profound impact on the horror film genre.

Why no Exorcist? Because it is just a silly picture. Slick and effectively directed, sure. But it's not scary. Anyone frightened by The Exorcist (1973) took Sunday School far too seriously.

I've also compiled a list of 10 more fantastical flicks that evoke not so much fear, but an uncanny sense of unease and dread that will creep into your subconscious and lease permanent space in your mind.

Ready? Set? Boo!

10. Spoorloos (The Vanishing; 1988) directed by George Sluizer. This Dutch psychological thriller follows the mysterious disappearance of a young woman and her lover's obsessive three-year search for answers. Along the way, he meets a psychopath who holds the key. The ultimate revelation haunted me for days. Avoid the director's needless American remake with Jeff Bridges and Keifer Sutherland.

9. Night of the Living Dead (1968) Directed by George Romero. This hugely influential film launched Romero's career as king of the zombies. Seldom has low-budget, black & white filmmaking with documentary techniques been put to such effective use in scaring the hell out of an audience. When the dead become reanimated and attack the living, 7 people hole up in an abandoned farmhouse to make a last stand against armageddon. That nihilistic ending still has the capacity to shock.

8. Rosemary's Baby (1968) Directed by Roman Polanski. Waif-like Mia Farrow is the eponymous Rosemary, who wonders if her mind is unravelling or if she really was raped by the Devil.

7. The Mist (2007) Directed by Frank Darabont from a script adapted from a Stephen King novella. A ragtag group of individuals representing a microcosm of society board themselves up in a grocery store when an ominous mist descends over their quiet New England town. Savage creatures lurk inside The Mist, but as Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption) demonstrates convincingly, there is nothing more deadly than zealots who envelop themselves in a shroud of religious belief as justification for their evil deeds. Here is another example of how the delicate threads holding together the fabric of society will unravel at the first sign of genuine crisis. That's more frightening than any beastie lurking in this movie.

6. Night of the Hunter (1955) Directed by Charles Laughton from a screenplay by James Agee. Robert Mitchum, in his greatest performance, plays a psychopathic preacher with a switchblade hunting two little children across the American heartland during the Depression. A classic parable of Good and Evil, with silent film star Lillian Gish representing the former human quality in one of her last screen appearances. "Did I ever tell you the little story of right hand, left hand? Of love and hate?"

5. The Shining (1980) Directed by Stanley Kubrick from a script adapted from Stephen King's novel. This eerie mood piece posits the provocative idea that nothing is more terrifying than one family quietly going insane together. My main problem with the film is Jack Nicholson flies off the rails so quickly that his descent into madness doesn't seem like much of a stretch. But Kubrick creates an aura of dread over the proceedings so profound that the elliptical ending can be forgiven. Let's just say Kubrick's point is to create a Moebius Loop of cyclical terror and leave it at that. Jack has always been the caretaker of the Overlook Hotel. The result is existential horror that would make Camus proud.

4. The Silence of the Lambs (1991) Directed by Jonathan Demme. Everybody remembers Anthony Hopkins' Oscar winning performance as the charming, malevolent Dr. Hannibal Lector. Few people are aware that he occupies the screen for less than 17 minutes during a nearly 2-hour run time. Now that's what I call making an impression. Silence of the Lambs presents a sympathetic and sturdy heroine in Jodie Foster, who also won an Academy Award, facing implaccable and utterly insane evil so bizarre and incomprehensible that her situation seems beyond hope. Dr. Lector steals the show. By comparison, Buffalo Bill is a girly-man, figuratively and literally.

3. Alien (1979) Directed by Ridley Scott. The most terrifying science fiction movie ever made, exploiting our fears of boogeymen creeping around in the dark and, yes, inside our own bodies. Word is, Scott is attached to direct a prequel to his 30-year-old blockbuster. Here's hoping he explores the origins of that weird space jockey (above, right) who our unfortunate friends from the Nostromo stumble across during their explorations of planetoid LV-426.

2. Jaws (1975) Directed by Steven Spielberg. It may be difficult to understand the phenomenon that was Jaws unless you saw the film during its original theatrical run nearly 35 years ago, in an auditorium packed with people who scarcely had a clue what they were in for. The best thing that ever happened to Spielberg's career was a giant, rubber mechancial shark that never really worked like it was supposed to, so he had to improvise by suggesting the presence of a monster while seldom giving us more than a glimpse. The result, as Hitchcock had long understood, forced the audience to use their imagination to visualize something dreadful below the calm ocean surface. And the imagination is always more vivid than any monster a special effects expert can display on-screen, whether it be made of rubber or gigabytes of computer generated imagery.

1. Psycho (1960) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Because nothing is more terrifying than the prospect of losing one's mind, unless you happen to be showering at a hotel managed by a quiet young man and his domineering mother. Hitch always said he intended Psycho as a comedy. It is indeed an amusing picture if you know where to look. "My mother, what is the expression...? Isn't quite herself today."

***

Here are 10 films in order of release year that are guaranteed to evoke a chilling mood 'round midnight (I like to think of these as tone poems):

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) is the granddaddy of films about madness and one of the most important pictures in German Expressionism during the Weimar Republic before Hitler seized power and unleashed real horror on the world. Dr. Caligari and Cesare, his zombie-like somnambulist in a box, roam the countryside as part of a travelling carnival. Wherever they go, the corpses pile up. More importantly, they inhabit a world of jagged angles and steep slopes, where rooms shaped like triangles open onto surrealistic landscapes dotted with buildings on which shadows are painted to the walls. The production design is both the key to the plot and the reason Caligari remains a classic of the cinema. Essential viewing.

Nosferatu (1922) directed by F.W. Murnau is another silent classic from the German Expressionist movement. The full title, Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens, translates as "A Symphony of Horror" and that is precisely what Murnau delivers in this blatant adpatation of the Dracula novel by Bram Stoker (Stoker's widow sued unsuccessfully to have all prints of Nosferatu destroyed). The titular vampire is a terrifying creation as embodied by the aptly named actor Max Schreck. Rat-like and riddled with disease, Nosferatu creeps from his casket to caress the pale, white throats of his lady victims. If some silent films can be described as dreamlike, this is a black & white nightmare.

M (1931) directed by Fritz Lange stars bug-eyed Peter Lorre as the psychotic child murderer of Dusseldorf. When the police are unable to apprehend the fiend, the Dusseldorf underworld engages in a manhunt for the killer because he's bad for business. Lang's masterstroke in this early taking picture is the use of sound to indicate the presence of the unseen madman. As Lorre approaches his young victims off screen, we hear him whistling "In the Hall of the Mountain King," an incessant, intensifying melody from The Peer Gynt Suite by composer Edvard Grieg. An eerie evocation of madness.

Vampyr (1932) directed by Danish filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyer is a haunting, dreamlike ephemera so delicate the picture feels like it might evaporate before our eyes like a poltergeist. The intrigue of the plot is secondary to the hypnotic quality of the imagery. The Criterion Collection edition offers the most complete print available of this important film.

Freaks (1932) nearly ruined director Tod Browning's career. MGM challenged him to make a picture more disturbing than Dracula, which he helmed a year earlier at Universal. He succeeded beyond their wildest aspirations when the film was exhibited in '32 to an appalled public. Banned for decades in Europe and seldom seen on American television, Freaks acquired a cult following among 1960s hippies more than 35 years after its release. The Warner Bros. 2005 DVD release of this incredible film belongs on your shelf.

The Mummy (1932) directed by Karl Freund is essentially a remake of Dracula made a year earlier, for which Freund served as cinematographer. Same essential plot. Same supporting cast. Same peculiar use of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. With a mesmerizing performance by Boris Karloff, billed here as "Karloff the uncanny." The first 5 minutes will raise the hair on the back of your neck. The rest is merely excellent.

I Walked with a Zombie (1943) was directed by Jacques Tourneur for legendary producer Val Lewton at RKO. Lewton knew how to get mileage out of his production dollars; in this case, cribbing from Charlotte Brontë. Yes, I Walked with a Zombie is Jane Eyre on Voodoo Island. An unforgettable mood piece that will haunt you for days.

Venus in Furs (1968) also known as Proximus, is a psychedelic thriller with a pounding jazz score directed by Spaniard Jess Franco, the prolific maestro of b-movies. A jazz trumpeter wandering the beach finds the nude body of Wanda, who was the victim of a sadomasochistic cult, we learn in flashbacks. Later, the musician meets a woman who may be Wanda reincarnated. Soon, her killers begin to die one by one. Shot on location in exotic Rio and half a world away in Istanbul. Wildly inventive. Trippy as hell.

Phantasm (1979) directed by Don Coscarelli played the drive-in circuit on its original release, but don't be fooled by the low budget. This independent horror film about 2 brothers investigating weird goings-on in the local cemetery will scare the bajeezus out of you. Ghoulish Angus Scrimm plays The Tall Man, an inspired character in the pantheon of horror pictures. With a trip to another dimension, diminutive hommunculi armed with daggers, sex in a graveyard and an unforgettable flying steel ball with spikes for impaling victims in the forehead.

Jacob's Ladder (1990) directed by Adrain Lynne lifts the thoughts of German philosopher Martin Heidegger to tell the tale of Vietnam veteran Jacob Singer (Tim Robbins) whose war flashbacks and horrifying visions threaten his sanity. Contains some of the most unsettling imagery ever committed to film. Makes a terrific double-feature with An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (1962) when you're in the mood to ponder perception and the nature of our fleeting existence.

Copyright © 2009 by Cinematic Cteve // dba Cinema Uprising. All rights reserved.

A Salute to James Mason

By Steve Evans

James Mason would be 100 years old if he were alive today.

On the great English actor’s birthday, I’d like to highlight a quintet of his greatest performances, with the gentle suggestion that you seek them out for your own edification and enjoyment.

As an actor Mason was every bit the equal of Sir Laurence Olivier, but with half the ego and roughly twice the charisma.

Dig this cinema:

A Star is Born (1954)
The first remake of that hoary old chestnut about a rising ingénue, and the man who loves her and guides her career while bearing witness to his own fade from the limelight. The pain in Mason’s eyes is palpable as he sees his lover surpass him in public adoration. Co-stars Judy Garland.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)
As Captain Nemo in this adaptation of the Jules Verne classic, Mason simmers with rage and madness as an intellectual bent on the destruction of a society he long ago abandoned. This is the best live-action adventure Walt Disney would ever make, with positively stunning production values and eye-popping Technicolor cinematography. Co-stars Kirk Douglas, Peter Lorre and an amazing giant squid built by Bob Mattey, the special effects genius who 20 years later would assemble an enormous rubber shark for Steven Spielberg.

North by Northwest (1959)
Mason plays the hissably evil (and apparently bisexual) Van Damme opposite hero Cary Grant in Alfred Hitchcock’s classic cold war comedy-thriller, still on the short list of greatest films ever made.

Lolita (1962)
As the eternally frustrated Prof. Humbert Humbert, Mason feels the torment of his unrequited lust for the titular prepubescent in this adaptation of Nabokov’s most famous novel. Peter Sellers damn-near steals the show in Stanley Kubrick’s daring (for the time) motion picture about sexual obsession. But it is Mason who brings an air of desperation and gravitas to this sordid tale, while achieving the impossible: we do not approve of his infatuation, but he makes us understand it.

Heaven Can Wait (1978)
Mason plays the benign angel opposite star Warren Beatty in this remake of Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941). Beatty gets most of the screen time as a pro-footballer who’s killed before his time, but Mason makes the strongest impression as the put-upon angel who tries to explain things in the most patient and veddy British manner.

Copyright © 2009 by Cinematic Cteve // dba Cinema Uprising. All rights reserved.

Flashback to Groovy Peter Sellers

I Love You Alice B. Toklas
Warner Bros. // 1968 // 94 Minutes // Rated R

Reviewed by Steve Evans

“I’ve got pot, I’ve got acid, I’ve got LSD cubes. I'm probably the hippest guy around here. I’m so hip, it hurts!” — so sez Peter Sellers.

Opening Shot
Brilliant comedian Peter Sellers (Being There) stars in this badly-dated picture about the hypocrisies of the 1960s counter-culture. Most of the jokes are built around squares who ingest drugs by accident and discover the joys of getting high, while making the case that hippies were relatively benign (though ultimately goofy and, therefore, safe for mainstream America). The results are sporadically funny, like your silly-ass uncle cracking jokes about things he’ll never understand.

A bit of pot, er, plot…
Career-minded Jewish professional Harold Fine (Sellers) thinks he’s in love. At least that’s what his badgering fiancée (Joyce Van Patten, St. Elmo’s Fire) keeps telling him. She wants to set a wedding date. Harold’s bored; he wonders if this is all there is to life. But when he meets groovy Nancy (Leigh Taylor-Young in her film debut), a free love-espousing hippie, Harold decides to tune in, turn on, drop out — and get laid.

Turns out Nancy is quite a baker, thanks to her secret ingredient, high-octane pot. She leaves a plate of freshly baked goodies at Harold’s apartment. Later, when Harold and his harridan fiancée come home with Harold’s parents, they greedily devour the chocolate treats over coffee — clueless to the magic ingredient inside.

Harold’s hooked. He leaves his fiancée at the altar to pursue the counterculture life — free love, music, blissed-out afternoon delights — but he soon discovers that hippies are as hypocritical as any other group of people. This leaves Harold with a dilemma: Turn back? Remain in stoned stasis? Or move on?

Historical Context and Significance
Screenwriter Paul Mazursky got his start in Hollywood as an actor (Blackboard Jungle) and would later direct such social comedies as Down and Out in Beverly Hills, a remake of Jean Renoir’s classic satire, Boudu Saved From Drowning. A satirist at heart, Mazursky's career never really took flight into A-list status, possibly because his projects are so anchored to the period in which they were made as to be instantly dated and soon forgotten. I Love You Alice B. Toklas is the example that proves the point. Then again, taking pot-shots (!) at hippies and squares is not the riskiest subject for satire. It should come as no surprise that people can be shallow and self-absorbed whether they smoke a fat doobie or quaff martinis at the country club.

All that’s left of any significance is Sellers himself, and this is his show all the way. He mutates from buttoned-down professional into flute playing hippie, segues into a tuxedo for an aborted wedding and then takes off again on a new tangent. A master of understated comedy, Sellers brings a deadpan bemusement to his various personas, yet he can effortlessly explode into mania. He was a fascinating talent (dying too young of a heart attack at 54), and remains the lone reason to watch this film. As his fiancée, Van Patten is a shrill harridan who bypasses humor to go straight for annoyance. Taylor-Young (Soylent Green) is a lightweight actor, but effervescently sexy – and that’s all her role really demands.

The title track is sung by Harper’s Bizarre (below, right), and if you're hip to that, then you said “ugh!” before reaching the end of this sentence. The smiling, shiny-people ethos of this deservedly forgotten vocal group is so unctuous as to induce nausea. Harper’s Bizarre makes The Association (“Cherish”) sound like Black Sabbath. Such was the state of saccharine, hippy-dippy pop music in 1968: featherlight, inchoate nonsense. Middle America, the target audience for this movie, wasn’t quite ready for Jimi Hendrix on the soundtrack; and the hippies who wandered into the theater were probably too ripped to care.

What’s on the Disc, Steve?
I’ll tell ya. The video transfer is sharp and clean. Audio sounds adequate in the original mono. A theatrical trailer is the only extra on the disc, which is too bad. I would have enjoyed a Mazursky commentary track (director Hy Averback, who worked mostly in television, died in 1997).

I mention with amusement that the DVD keepcase lists an R rating for the film. Ludicrous. The picture was released in October 1968 and the MPAA ratings system did not come into place until the following month. My suspicion is Warner Brothers some years later resubmitted the film for a rating and it was saddled with an R. Regardless, the picture, at most, contains content deserving of a PG rating.

Tangential Musings
As comedy and social commentary, the picture is anchored securely in 1968. This can be a fun, lighthearted time capsule for viewers in a playful mood with minimal expectations.

I wish I’d known that 30 years ago, as I might not have bothered.

This film actually screened at my high school when I was a junior. Incredibly, members of my English Lit class persuaded our teacher to rent the picture and show it to a gathering of all English classes in the waning days before summer vacation. Understand, these were the days before video rental stores, when VCRs cost upwards of $400 and there was still a serious question of whether a superior videotape format known as Beta might yet dominate the market. It just wasn’t possible for delinquent kids to acquire movies on their own, much less be able to afford the rental of a 16mm print. We also had a greater purpose in mind. The idea of making a political statement in school with a counterculture comedy, however benign and 10 years after the fact, was ridiculously appealing. So how to pull this off?

Hang with me a moment for a brief lesson in English Lit. and human psychology.

An audacious bunch, the ring leaders of our little scheme claimed that watching I Love You Alice B. Toklas would be a worthwhile educational experience because Gertrude Stein was a famous writer and member of the 1920s Lost Generation that included Ernest Hemingway and whose members hung out in Parisian cafes, boozing it up while composing great poetry and fiction (this part of the story was true). We had been reading Hemingway that year and a bit of Stein. Convincing our teacher that this had anything to do with a Peter Sellers dope comedy took a bit more ingenuity.

The connective thread to all this bullshit was the fact that a woman named Alice B. Toklas was Stein's lover and muse during those heady years in Paris. Toklas had also achieved notoriety for baking fudge infused with hashish (Google the name and you might come up with her 1954 recipe). Since we also knew that our English teacher was a lesbian (when you notice her at a Bavarian restaurant kissing another woman, it’s a fair bet), the twisted logic of our scheme seemed foolproof: persuade an instructor to rent a countercultural movie extolling the joys of hashish and pot, and screen it in the middle of a school day, by implying to her that the picture had something to do with one of the great literary love affairs of the early 20th century, involving two women.

I provided the clincher, telling teacher that only six years earlier Peter Sellers had co-starred in an adaptation of Nabokov’s most famous novel (also a true statement). Dropping Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita into the conversation was like catnip to this bookworm. So she booked the film, sight unseen, knowing next to nothing about it. We were lucky; reference books like Leonard Maltin’s annual guide to film were scarce and the Internet did not exist.

A month later we watched the picture one afternoon before the school buses arrived to carry us home. Afterward, we all pretty much agreed that the late 1960s were a strange and not terribly funny period for movies.

And so, as often happens in this life, our efforts far and away exceeded our reward. Funny thing is, teacher wasn't amused, either. She went from gullible to galled in 94 minutes.

That’s my shaggy dog story concerning I Love You Alice B. Toklas. A couple years later I caught Dr. Strangelove at the local revival house and decided that Sellers was a hipster genius after all.

The Contrarian View
I Love You Alice B. Toklas is a must for fans of Peter Sellers. His bemused, put-upon characters are always a hoot, and this picture is worth one spin if only to see Sellers flirting with Leigh Taylor-Young. She’s hot in that spacey-blond “girls just wanna have fun, so c'mon and throw it to me, daddy-o” kinda way. That butterfly tattoo on her upper thigh is also attractive.

Coda
Unless you’re a Peter Sellers fan the picture is merely a passable diversion, a relic of a bygone era, and nothing more. If the film wasn’t so dated, it could play today on network television as a tame Movie of the Week. Can’t say whether mainstream America would toke up before watching.

Copyright © 2009 by Cinematic Cteve // dba Cinema Uprising. All rights reserved.