It's been 20 years since I've seen Gone With the Wind, the jewel in the crown of the Hollywood studio system, released in its pinnacle year of 1939. When I last saw it, in 1989, it was under the most ideal circumstances imaginable -- a restored print, at Radio City Music Hall, on a screen 80 feet high. (And, it so happens, sitting next to director James Ivory. A coincidence let me hasten to add; he was not my date.) The impact of David O. Selznick's lush, meticulous production was immediate and overwhelming, but the callow young writer inside me dismissed the plot as simple romance and soap opera. I'm happy to announce that I greatly shortchanged the value of this American epic. I used to say that Gone With the Wind was okay for, you know, girls, but The Godfather was clearly the superior movie because it contains a powerful socio-political subtext. Well, more fool me.

( Read more... )

The Cotton Club is the third in our trilogy of Showbiz movies. Like Cabaret and All That Jazz, it concerns the lives of showbiz types and the power the performing arts have to transform. Like Cabaret and All That Jazz, it is directed by a filmmaker who came to sudden prominence in 1972 -- in this case, Francis Ford Coppola. Like Cabaret, it throws the lives of its performers against the backdrop of violent social change and grand historical paroxysms. Unlike Cabaret and All That Jazz, it lacks a strong, motivated protagonist, and that makes all the difference in the world.

( Read more... )

At the end of Cabaret, Sally Bowles sings her cheery, upbeat tune about how "life is a Cabaret" and how high living and good times, music and dancing, sex and drugs and booze, are the only way to get through life. The lingering question at the end of Cabaret is: Is that really a way to get through life, or just a way to end it faster? Director-choreographer Bob Fosse is obviously of two minds on this question, which seems to dominate his brief-but-spectacular film-directing career. Cabaret, Lenny, All That Jazz and Star 80 all perceive Show Business as a kind of pathology, an unhealthy compulsion, a road to ruin. (In Cabaret, it is also hinted that the amoral, self-indulgent performers of Berlin are somehow responsible for the rise of Nazism, which seems like a stretch to me, but indicates how seriously Fosse takes his subject.)

( Read more... )

A new project has crossed my desk that compels me to watch a specific collection of movies: Cabaret, All That Jazz, The Cotton Club and Gone With the Wind. (And Schindler's List, but I've watched that one recently.)

I remember Cabaret from my adolescence as being a daring, provocative, decadent, weird movie about the rise of Nazism in Weimar Berlin, as told through the eyes of a couple of young folks with complicated romantic lives. And it is still that, but what surprised me on this viewing is that it is, under all its decadence, a fairly conventional love story.

( Read more... )

Yes, it's true! The new installment of my long-gestating graphic novel Feeder Birds will be presented as part of r_sikoryak 's long-running cartoon-slide-show evening CAROUSEL. If you, like me, are in New York City next week, this will be where you will want to be. In addition to me, there will be actual talented cartoonists present.

WHEN? Thursday, May 28, 2009!
WHERE? The new Dixon Place, that's where! 161 Chrystie Street, btw Rivington and Delancey!
HOW MUCH? $15 smackeroos, that's how much.

See you there!

After weeks of ignoring my blog and using it only to promote the work of friends, finally I have something of my own to promote! Right Jab, Left Hook is the heretofore mysterious webseries I've been concocting with Venture Bros-star-political-blog-obsessive James urbaniak . It peels back the shiny facade of the political blogosphere to reveal the squirming pink egos raging beneath.

And we're shooting the pilot next week! More to the point, we need extras! If you live in the Los Angeles area, and your corporeal self shows up on digital video, we want you in this pilot! The pilot takes place at the launch party for the titular website, and so we need people to be at that party. And, just like a real party, there will be a lot of standing around and awkward conversation!

From the call put out by our extraordinary producer Holly Golden:

PARTY GUESTS IN COCKTAIL ATTIRE NEEDED for web series pilot shooting in Culver City May 18, 19 and 20.

This is a pilot being filmed for MyDamnChannel.com (other shows include Pilot Season starring Sarah Silverman and David Cross, Wainy Days starring David Wain).

This pilot stars network talent (The Sarah Connor Chronicles, The Starter Wife, The Office).

You should be able to commit to filming from noon to midnight on one of these days.

Some payment, plus credit, copy, and meals.

PLEASE REPLY ASAP W/ PHOTO AND AVAILABILITY TO HOLLY GOLDEN at hollygolden1@gmail.com.

I thank you for your attention.

In the seemingly non-stop parade of Alcott-friend projects blasting out into the cultural marketplace at the moment, Michael Kupperman's Snake 'n' Bacon TV show debuts, tonight, at the home of The Venture Bros, [adult swim]. Starring yet another friend-of-Alcott James urbaniak as the titular Bacon. All readers of this journal are commanded to attend. It is, in the [adult swim] tradition, 11 minutes of nonstop surreal weirdness, straight from the mind of Michael Kupperman, one of America's greatest living cartoonists.

My heart leaped into my mouth when I discovered that old friend sometime collaborator Tony Millionaire has created the cover for the new Elvis Costello album. Finally, two of my favorite living artists united.

My deepest apologies for bringing this journal to an unplanned screeching halt. I have been deeply enmeshed in creating the pilot for the webseries I've been putting together with Mr. James urbaniak . The difference between Urbaniak and myself is that I've temporarily abandoned blogging altogether (while developing a webseries about, er, blogging) while Urbaniak has merely moved his operations over to Facebook and Twitter, two forms of entertainment I find difficult to grasp.

However! Regardless of my temporary non-blogging status, I would be remiss if I did not direct my readers attention to another webseries (all the cool kids are doing them now) by Friend of Wadpaw and lj-er gazblow , whose real name is (I'm not telling tales out of school here) Gary Schwartz. Gary and I go way back in Olde Neue Yorke Towne, where we use to direct each other's work, hang out together and collaborate on the odd screenplay or two. Now Gary's created his own webseries, Money in the Bank, about a bunch of amoral folks in the financial sector (are there other kinds?) who scheme to swipe some money from somebody. Will their plan work? I sure hope so, I hate it when the plans of amoral folks in the financial sector go poorly. I will say this bunch of crooks is off to a great start -- one is an ex-prostitute, one is a bitter middle-management type, and one is a woman trapped in a loveless marriage, and they all seem to hate each other. What could possibly go wrong? Mr. Schwartz's trademark jaded cynicism and bitter misanthropy runs rampant throughout, and the plot unfolds in a kind of mosaic style, with each episode not-quite-following the one before. The impression is less soap opera and more dark comedy. My favorite episode so far is #3, "The Miscarriages," which mercilessly dissects a woman's failure to conceive a child in stark, unsentimental cinematic terms.

Also note: Firefox does not recognize "webseries" as a word, which certainly must reveal something about something somewhere.

For 35 years or so, I've been a night owl. I do my best thinking at night, after all distractions are gone, the stores are all closed, the phone has stopped ringing and the streets are empty.

As my profession is "writer," it did not become a problem until recently, when I was expected to attend school functions for my children and morning pitch meetings for my work. Someone will mention a morning event I'll need to be at, and I'll say "Well, that's a little early for me because I work at night," and the person will subtly recoil as though they have suddenly noticed that I'm a vampire.

( Read more... )

Weeds have begun to sprout in the corners of this blog as I attend to other matters -- mostly, other blogging. This "other blogging" I've been doing is top-secret urbaniak - related webseries stuff, which will be trumpeted loudly from every promontory the moment we have something decent to show you fine people.

In movie-viewing news, the Bollywood-related project I was working on came a cropper, so I haven't needed to become an expert in Bollywood musicals after all, although I did set aside three hours or so to view Devdas, a period romance (a sort of Indian Wuthering Heights) starring Shahrukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai, based on a classic novella which has, apparently, been filmed no less than 11 times, twice in this decade alone. Take that, An Affair to Remember!

I know Devdas was not on any of the lists that my kind and attentive readers sent me -- rather, it was the recommendation of my local video-store clerk. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Hi, do you have a Bollywood section?
Clerk: Um, not really. (To be fair, this particular video store doesn't have an anything "section," they just have heaps of empty DVD cases sitting around -- you kind of have to know what you're looking for when you go in -- an excellent selection, just not at all walk-in friendly.) What are you looking for?
Me: Well, um, I'm not really sure. I just kind of have a need to familiarize myself with the genre.
Clerk: (grabs a DVD of Devdas off the shelf) Well, this was popular.
Me: (scrutinizing DVD) Um, do you have a copy of Sholay? (That is, a movie that was recommended to me by Indian Scriptwriter.)
Clerk: Um, yeah, but, that's like, old.
Me: Um --
Clerk. I mean, that would be like if you wanted to learn about American movies by watching something like, you know, On the Waterfront.
Me: (the downside of this eludes me) Um, yeah -- okay -- can I take it anyway?
Clerk: Um, if you want.

Anyway, I have no idea if Devdas is a shining example of Bollywood cinema or not, but it's certainly a head-turning spectacle. It features what I was expecting from "a Bollywood movie," ie: a slightly giddy style of overacting, beautiful women paired with goofy-looking men, grand emotions set against luxurious, stylized backgrounds and spectacular production numbers with cultural signifiers that feel peculiar to westerners. I had planned to write a whole big thing about my first foray in Bollywood but the project I was doing it for fell apart too quickly for me to articulate my thoughts.

Instead, I have turned to Bergman, viewing not only the aforementioned Thirst but also Persona, Shame and The Passion of Anna, and looking forward to tackling Cries and Whispers in the near future. Persona I intend to dissect scene by scene in a "Favorite Screenplays" piece.

When Hollywood folk ask me what I've been doing with myself (that is, when I'm not working on projects for them), and I respond with "I've been watching a lot of Bergman," they always look at me with a furrowed brow, as though I might soon require psychiactric care.

The extended Eastwood binge I've been on, not to mention the recent Bollywood adventures I've had, have, for some reason, given me a hankering for Bergman. 

Now, there are the Bergman movies everyone knows (The Seventh Seal, Persona, Wild Strawberries) and then there are the movies that are just as good that nobody ever seems to talk about.  1949's Thirst is close to the top of my list of my Favorite Bergman Movies Nobody Talks About. (My number 1 Favorite Bergman Movie Nobody Talks About is the flabbergasting masterpiece Shame, which I had never even heard of before I popped it in my DVD player a few years back.  It seared off my eyelids.)  Honestly, Thirst is just really pretty freaking amazing, and if it weren't for the fact that Bergman went on to make 20 or 30 movies that happen to be better than it, it would stand as a triumph in just about anyone else's career.

( Read more... )

urbaniak has been talking about watching Battle of Algiers since we watched Z a year and a half ago. I have always held Z up as my model of authenticity, a political thriller that really makes you feel like you are there watching history unfold. Now I have seen Battle of Algiers, a movie that, in terms of capturing a historical moment, makes Z feel as authentic as Fiddler on the Roof.

( Read more... )

Harry Callahan is angry again, which is a good thing, but now he's a little too angry, and his anger is a little too general -- he's not angry at anything in particular, he's just kind of angry. Situations that used to make him squint and sneer and move on now get him hopping mad. He seethes and grimaces throughout The Enforcer, looking for a target for his free-floating rage.

( Read more... )

I have crossed over to the other side of the footlights for a few days, shooting some bits and pieces of a new webseries concocted by Mr. James urbaniak and myself. There was not only food, but nudity. The results will soon be found on a computer near you -- perhaps even the one right now on your lap!  Normal blogging will resume soon.

Recent movies viewed: The Public Enemy, Kung Fu Panda, Eraserhead.

A new project has crossed my desk, one which will require me to familiarize myself with the Bollywood musical, a genre which with I am utterly unfamiliar. And so I turn to you, my hip, multiculturally-saturated readers, to educate me. What are the landmarks of the genre, the key works, the inarguable masterpieces? Who are the undisputed masters, whose filmography is unmissable, which stars express the purest expression of the form? As James Cameron is to action movies, as John Ford is to westerns, as Vincent Minnelli is to musicals, who best represents Bollywood?

I thank you in advance.

Magnum Force does the respectable sequel thing and turns the original on its head, or perhaps inside-out.  If Dirty Harry is about society's need to have tarnished knights who look out for the rights of the many, Magnum Force is about society's need to be protected from those who would circumvent due process in their zeal to punish.  In other words, it's about Harry Callahan confronting the world he helped create in the original movie.

( Read more... )

I gotta say, The Beguiled took me by surprise. It's an extreme rarity for Eastwood, a movie that takes his character and puts him in a situation where he's utterly out of his depth, where his skill set doesn't serve him, and, most importantly, he doesn't figure a way out of his troubles.

( Read more... )

I am shocked, nay, stricken by the news of the death of Natasha Richardson. Back in the 1980s, she was, all by herself, a good enough reason for me to go see a movie. I loved her as Mary Shelley in Ken Russell's absolutely stark-raving-mad Gothic, then as Patty Hearst in Paul Schrader's movie of the same name, then in The Handmaid's Tale and again with Schrader in The Comfort of Strangers. I knew that if Natasha Richardson was in it, it was bound to be smart, daring and a little bit crazy. I regret not seeing her on stage in New York when I lived there and she doing O'Neill with Liam Neeson. I have nothing else to offer, except my deepest sympathy for her family.

It's instructive, cinematically speaking, to watch Coogan's Bluff and Dirty Harry back to back. A star/producer and a director, working in consonance, on modern-day urban police thrillers, three years apart, and yet Dirty Harry still rivets the viewer's attention while Coogan creaks and groans.

( Read more... )