RIP: Tough times for Texans

No sooner had King of the Hill expired on Fox than Patrick Swayze lost his battle with pancreatic cancer. I stood by the sitcom for its entire 13-season run, through the thick of some choice episodes where its gently satiric tone was at perfect pitch to the thin of weeks where it was preempted by football (apparently its 10th, and nearly final, season was made up largely of shows that went unaired during its ninth). Mike Judge's other TV shows and movies get more ink but I think Hank Hill and the gang, whose travails held a mirror up to the red/blue state "divide," will endure as his finest work. Though animated, it was the best real-life family sitcom on air. Then again I couldn't not love a show with a character named "Bobby," a name drawlingly syllabilized the way Judge delivered it, with affectionate exasperation. Rumor has it that it may resurface on ABC but like Scrubs it came to a fittingly bittersweet end for me.

As for Swayze: Well, the 80s icon had trouble extending his career past 1990 and his biggest hit, Ghost--his extended cameo in the long-delayed Dirty Dancing sequel is something of an embarrassment. I liked him (maybe for the wrong reasons) in the down-and-dirty camp classic Road House (1989), his out-Zenning of Keanu Reeves in Point Break (pictured) is inspired, and he earned enough of a cult reputation to be a part of the cult sensation Donnie Darko (2001). His final campaign was as valiant as fellow Lone Star statesperson Farrah Fawcett's.

Corman conquers the Oscars

The venerable producer Roger Corman is receiving an honorary Oscar this year, less, perhaps, for his inspired, budget-maximizing direction of Attack of the Crab Monsters, Poe adaptations, and biker flicks than his nurturing of the talent that made the 70s such a watershed decade for Hollywood filmmaking. The good news is that he and a gratifyingly full slate of recipients--Lauren Bacall, John Calley, and Gordon Willis also made the cut--will get a dinner devoted exclusively to them. The bad is that they'll get scant attention on the actual telecast, due to a rules change designed to trim the running time. That's too bad; who wouldn't want to see Corman surrounded by the likes of Coppola, Scorsese, etc., and clips from pictures that never baited Oscar? But It, who conquered the world in 1956 with Beverly Garland by its side, is pleased.

Double header

Breaking radio silence to lighten the load on a more-dreary-than-usual anniversary, two from Popdose: A review of Criterion Eclipse's set of hard-edged Japanese crime melodramas, "Nikkatsu Noir," and an overview of movies featuring John, Paul, George and Ringo after they were fab, tied of course to this week's CD re-release.

Popdose: Summer Hits and Misses

What was In the Loop (pictured)...and what was out of it? Find out as I wrap up the season. (The finger-jabbing Peter Capaldi, all these years after Local Hero, was equally outstanding in this summer's gripping Torchwood: Children of Earth, surely the genre TV event of the year.)

Hip-hop paradise

A neighbor reported that former renter Jay-Z has immortalized our building in song on his new album. You can hear the address about 30 seconds in. The owner reports that he's unsurprised that Jay-Z, who lived here in 1992, used it as his "stash spot." So, too, did actor-musician Lord Jamar, who lived in our very unit when not reporting for duty on the HBO show Oz. Jazz trumpeter extraordinaire Terence Blanchard also lived here for a time. Rosie Perez almost moved in--but was irked when a would-be neighbor asked for her autograph and backed out of the deal. Come back and visit, Jay-Z, and bring the Mrs.--I think you have the money now to afford to buy your own crib.

TCM in HD

Woo-hoo...almighty Time Warner Cable, which taketh away HDNet Movies a few months ago in a corporate snit, hath giveth Turner Classic Movies in hi-def, on channel 782 here in New York (that's exactly 700 up from its standard-def berth, so easy to remember). Terrific. Now if only I could get the HD set downstairs to watch it...

Popdose: Jeanne Dielman on DVD

A bedraggled Delphine Seyrig (no Last Year at Marienbad glamor here) goes from numbing household task to numbing household task in Chantal Akerman's 1975 classic, new on disc from Criterion. Girlfriend, I can so relate.

Mobile movies

We've gone from worrying about watching Lawrence of Arabia on cellphones and what that might portend for the death of cinema to this. But the question remains: Does anyone want to see Jude Law in a movie, even a mini-movie on your phone?

"Babelgum, the independent Web and mobile content platform, announced today it will release Sally Potter’s new film Rage with an episodic premiere via its free mobile application for iPhone and iPod devices from Monday, Sept. 21. This is the first time a feature-length film will premiere on mobile phones. The mobile premiere will kick off a multi-platform, multi-territory release that includes the US DVD release on Sept. 22 through Liberation Entertainment; an interactive satellite premiere in the UK on Sept. 24; the online release via Babelgum beginning Sept. 28; and the Adventure Pictures DVD release in the UK and Ireland, also on Sept. 28. The red carpet event and Q&A following the September 24th premiere at London’s BFI/Southbank will be broadcast online commercial-free via live streaming site Justin.tv.

The film will be shown in seven episodes through Babelgum’s mobile application, adding one new episode per day, for a full week. This unique strategy fits perfectly with Potter’s vision for her film, as Rage tells the behind-the scenes story of a New York fashion show through a dynamic series of intimate interviews, as if shot by a schoolboy on his mobile phone over a seven day period. The film, which features Simon Abkarian, Steve Buscemi, Lily Cole, Judi Dench, Eddie Izzard, Jude Law, John Leguizamo and Dianne Wiest, premiered at the 2009 Berlin Film Festival. Written and directed by Sally Potter, Rage was produced by Christopher Sheppard and Andrew Fierberg.

Babelgum and Liberation Entertainment are working closely with Sally Potter and the filmmakers on the pre-release campaign, which rolled out with custom online and mobile selections featuring the theatrical trailer and selected clips beginning July 24. A Rage mobile channel will premiere on Sept. 21. Beginning Sept. 21 one new episode will premiere per day and build towards all seven being viewable on mobile devices by Sunday, Sept. 27. The online premiere of the seven segments will commence on Monday, Sept. 28 with two episodes released per week. On Sept. 24, London’s BFI/Southbank will host the first interactive, multi-venue film premiere for Rage, tying in 35 theaters across the UK and Ireland for an up close look at the red carpet arrivals, film and an interactive Q&A to follow with Sally Potter and cast members. Audience members around the world will be able to participate in the Q&A through SMS and Skype.

In a statement from director Sally Potter and producers Christopher Sheppard and Andrew Fierberg, the filmmakers said: “We always wanted to incorporate new media platforms into our release strategy and to find a novel approach to bringing Rage to both new and traditional film audiences. We are delighted to be working with Babelgum, who we see as a true partner in crafting an innovative distribution model.”

Oh, and that's Law in the photo, as a tranny supermodel. Hmm, maybe I'll have to dial up an episode.

Popdose: The Last Days of Disco on DVD

Whit Stillman's barbed lament to the passing of the disco era (and his last film to date, 11 years ago) gets the deluxe Criterion treatment. Does it bring me to my feet?

Popdose: Taking Woodstock

Is Ang Lee's celebration of the spirit of '69 far out? Find out, man. Pictured in their hippie regalia are Kelli Garner, Demetri Martin (playing Elliot Tiber, whose string pulling saved the day when a neighboring community backed out of the event), and Paul Dano.

Popdose: Icons of Sci-Fi: Toho Collection on DVD

Mothra headlines the U.S. DVD release of a trio of Toho terrors, today on Popdose.

Perfect casting

I always thought Hope Davis would be perfect casting for Hillary Clinton, and so did the makers of The Special Relationship, a sort-of followup to The Queen which focuses on Bill (Dennis Quaid? Hmm?) and Hill and Tony, played for the third time and presumably unto death by Michael Sheen. If this works out I'd greenlight an entire biopic.

RIP Dominick Dunne

This reminiscence says it all. I've missed his Vanity Fair columns, which struck exactly the right tone whether he was in high or low society; the magazine has lost a crucial, defining voice. And The Boys in the Band, Panic in Needle Park, and Play It as It Lays, all of which he produced, are good films, emblematic of their time. He rolled with a tumultuous life.

The Fall issue of Cineaste, online and on sale

The new issue is online and on newsstands, wherever newsstands still exist. On our site look for interviews with Bertrand Tavernier (In the Electric Mist) and "Yes Man" provocateur Andy Bichlbaum, reviews of the documentary Forbidden Lie$ (airing on Showtime this Friday night, and featured on the cover) and The Exterminating Angel on DVD, and the proverbial much, much more.

Popdose: Adventureland on DVD

Superbad's Greg Mottola returns with a semi-autobiographical dramedy set in a Pittsburgh amusement park in the summer of 1987. But is it a thrill ride?

A new look

Two or more years after everyone else updated their Blogger layouts, I've finally caught the wave. Now with a Facebook Badge and "followers," as if I'm some sort of deity. But no Statcounter, and my links have blurred. Will have to figure out where all that went as I adjust to the change myself.

One-eyed hacks

OK, Fritz Lang, John Ford and Nicholas Ray aren't hacks, but I couldn't resist the lame wordplay, as Anthology Film Archives premieres a series devoted to one-eyed auteurs. It's an amusing idea for the dog days of summer, when everyone's a little cockeyed from the heat. Those monocles and eyepatches were certainly intimidating, sending an unambiguous message about who was in charge of the set. My Cineaste colleague Jared "Jed" Rapfogel gets a well-deserved shout-out in the Onion article. What next: One-armed auteurs? One-legged auteurs? In any event, Lang has his eye--and only one eye--on you.

Trouble in District 9

New York Press critic Armond White is lambasted every week for this or that offense to film criticism. I rolled my eyes not long ago when White, who praised The Hurt Locker, immediately took it back, calling the movie "severely overrated"--just because a majority of critics happened to applaud it, too. So very juvenile.

But he has a point about District 9, in a negative review that outraged fanboys (out for blood again after their persecution of Dark Knight heretics like myself last summer). Cleverly concocted by South African-born filmmaker Neill Blomkamp and screenwriter Terri Tatchell, the film (which references numerous others but has its own beat) is a set in a Johannesburg-erected shantytown for stranded aliens and the apartheid-like friction that arises. It seems to start in the 80s, when actual apartheid was stlll in force, which the movie doesn't really deal with. Apparently, hatred with the alien "prawn" trumps the real-life racial divide.

That was one sticking point. But what bothered me was the use of Nigerians as the film's whipping boys. The Nigerian characters, who live among the prawn, exploit them mercilessly, even eating them to gain their unearthly powers. Granted that Nigerians don't have the best rep in the world, particularly among anyone who's fallen for a get-rich-quick Internet scheme generated from the country. But I kept waiting for at least one of the Nigerians to show a different, more magnanimous side--which, OK, is an easy way out to excuse the uncharitable portrayals that have come before, one often used to disguise or minimize racism, sexism, and any other "isms" in the movies. But it never comes.

I suppose Blomkamp could be praised for sticking to his guns--maybe he's exaggerating the historical enmity between South Africa and Nigeria for effect. But it negates the movie's premise of tolerance. It makes the prawn the victims of another outcast minority and a few rotten apples in the South African system, as if they and not apartheid itself are the villains. It's questionable, doubly so given the (thin) charges of racism leveled at the film's producer, Peter Jackson. Perhaps it's a case of taking the filmmaker out of South Africa, but not taking the South Africa out of the filmmaker.

There's this to chew on. I'm not satisfied, though. I guess I'll never entirely trust a white South African who says "not me" regarding apartheid to tell me about the "reality" of race and ethnicity in the country. More and more the movie seems to yearn for the good old days of apartheid, which maybe, to hear Blomkamp tell it, weren't so bad as what came after it.

Cary Grant at BAM

Just three days left to see him on the big screen, which fit him like a glove. Including a personal favorite from that banner year, Howard Hawks' Only Angels Have Wings (1939). Meanwhile, a nice appreciation of him from The House Next Door.

Since I went away

The dumbness of American movies and moviegoers is hotly debated. I finger the culprit: the infantilizing PG-13 rating, introduced 25 years ago this month. (Pictured is Taken, a slippery-slope "hard" PG-13.)

Hang on to those VHS tapes and laserdiscs: The end of classic catalog releases on DVD is near. Though Sony has has an exemplary year it certainly feels that way as banal new releases definitively take over. I have issues with the Warner Archive, but not so many that I don't hope every studio introduces its own alternative.

RIP John Hughes. I can't say I was all that crazy about him; he prided himself on working fast and the lack of discipline showed. (And I hated the smug Ferris Bueller's Day Off, a favorite of right-wingers like Dan Quayle.) But he captured a certain zeitgeist that rippled through my college years, and had the good sense to depart Hollywood when the well ran dry. (My Wisconsin visits tend to be death trips for directors: Bergman and Antonioni died the last time we went, in 2007.)

Resnais, Almodovar, and--Daniel?--headline the New York Film Festival, which returns to Alice Tully Hall for its 47th year.

The Film Society of Lincoln Center is due to fete Natalie Wood, who is somewhat underrated almost three decades after her passing, this week. Dyan Cannon and Elliott Gould should be good fun at the Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice screening.

IFC Films has a number of indies available on demand but you should really see the hilarious In the Loop at a theater.

We're off to see the Wizard--this time in hi-def--on Sept. 23. Vacation, incidentally, allowed me to read Michael Sragow's fine biography of its director, Victor Fleming: An American Movie Master.

RIP Budd Schulberg

On the Waterfront alone would a great screenwriter make. But an On the Waterfront plus A Face in the Crowd makes for legend in a debased business--and all the wiser for having just a handful of credits in the field. (I wish I had seen the rare Wind in the Everglades at Film Forum last week.) A TV version of What Makes Sammy Run is next in my Netflix queue. But I really should read the book.

Brits and other bad guys

Paraphrasing Lloyd Bridges in Airplane!, I picked the wrong week to go on vacation. At Anthology Film Archives, Maniac director and DVD maven William Lustig is screening some gritty gems from the 70s, many of them unavailable on home video, that killer of retrospective programs. Pick hits include The Outfit (1973), with Robert Duvall and Robert Ryan, Elliott Gould and Robert Blake as cops in Busting (1974), and Tommy Lee Jones in the Vietnam-infected Rolling Thunder (1977).

I hope to see some of Film Forum's "Brit Noir" series upon our return. If Film Forum hauling out Dr. Strangelove every other week makes series like these possible, I'm all for it. Most of these are new to me, but the well-cast Hell Drivers and a villainous Peter Sellers in Never Let Go on the weekend of Aug. 21-22 make for an exciting double feature. The series is practically an homage to hell driver Stanley Baker, whose two-fisted career bears closer examination. And any exhumation of the so-called "British Marilyn Monroe," Diana Dors (including her Ruth Ellis-ish turn in Yield to the Night) is worth the price of admission.

RIP Harry Alan Towers

I'm not sure the schlockmeister made more than a handful of good films in what appears to have been a colorful life, but he kept a lot of aging actors in work and made them right up to the end, which counts for something. One of the better ones--1969's Manfred Mann-infused Venus in Furs, with his wife Maria Rohm--probably surprised a lot of sleepy late-night TCM viewers with its nudity and aura of salaciousness when it aired a couple of weeks ago. That film, and Towers' other collaborations with the also furiously prolific director Jess Franco, were the highlights of a career better remembered for dealmaking than filmmaking, trumpeted by big ads in Variety back in the day. But I also liked Anthony Perkins' attempt to out-Psycho Psycho in the super-sleazy Jekyll and Hyde story Edge of Sanity (1989).

Daily dose of cinema returns

Well, that was fast. No sooner had he departed IFC then the tireless cinematic chronicler David Hudson returned with The Auteurs Daily, a somewhat Twittery version moored to the promising site. I don't tweet, but it looks as if I don't have to. Just happy to have it back.

Popdose: Repulsion on DVD

Roman Polanski's horror classic comes to DVD, courtesy of the Criterion Collection. Beware the clutching hands!

Zhang Yimou's next...

...is a remake of the Coen Brothers' 1984 debut film Blood Simple. As Woody Allen says, whatever works. Meanwhile, the Coens are remaking Zhang's 1987 debut, Red Sorghum.

Popdose: Summer Shorts

All around the indie movie scene, with Sam Rockwell in Moon (pictured), plus Francis Ford Coppola's Tetro, Woody Allen's Whatever Works, and the difficult-to-define Chilean film Tony Manero.

Dillinger is dead

Seventy-five years ago today, outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago. The Biograph was a movie house for many years after Dillinger bought it, following a screening of Manhattan Melodrama. I saw a lot of films there when I was a Northwestern student, and recall its annual screenings of the William Powell-Clark Gable-Myrna Loy hit on this date, at Depression-era prices. The theater itself is 95 years old this year, and today is a live venue for the Victory Gardens Theater (now housing the excellent play Blackbird, with William L. Petersen). I assume the bronze plaque commemorating this day in history is still in place.

As for Depp's Dillinger--I liked Public Enemies well enough, but wish Bryan Burrough's superb book had been made into a more expansive HBO miniseries, as originally intended. It's certainly a return to form for Michael Mann, after the catastrophic Miami Vice movie, but I'm not all that crazy about his form these days: The soundtrack, which favors gunshots and an irritatingly "contemporized" score over dialogue, is something of a chore, the digital cinematography sometimes lapses into instability, and the movie is "over-cast," with too many good actors lost in the shuffle. (One who isn't is Stephen Lang, superb as a taciturn law enforcer.) Mann is clearly aiming at the immaculately designed purity of a Jean-Pierre Melville picture like Le Samourai, but the Dillinger story wasn't the right vehicle. Still, it's handsome, has rousing sequences, and is blessedly adult. But I think Warren Oates' 1973 Dillinger may have been closest to the mark.

Live Design: Next Fall

Patrick Breen and Maddie Corman co-star in Geoffrey Naufft's Off Broadway hit, at Playwrights Horizons through Aug. 8.

RIP Frank McCourt

The author, a New York schoolteacher for many years, chose not to look back in anger, and came up with one of the best memoirs ever written. Angela's Ashes finds beauty, tenderness, and humor amidst terrible deprivation; the literal-minded 1999 film version, unfortunately, found only the latter. It was, and is, meant to be read, not recreated. A tremendous, and tremendously generous, later-in-life accomplishment.

A Brooklyn Fiesta

Ford's "Follow the Fiesta" promotion pulled into Brooklyn last night, as "agent" (and longtime friend) Brad Nelson and his girl Friday, co-agent Emma Frankland, had a siesta at our place before heading northwards. The Oregonians are on a monthlong jaunt through the Lower 48 as they put their magenta Euro-car through its paces before its reintroduction in the U.S. market (discontinued stateside in the 80s, the Fiesta is now the top-selling car on the Continent). It's been quite an adventure, what with 127-degree temps in the Nevada desert, torrential rains and fearsome lightning at Disneyworld, various only-in-the-U.S. oddities along the way, and their first meeting with Lora and Larissa last night, who were in top form. After breakfast at the nearby Ocean View Diner and communication with "Mission Control" they're on the road again--bon voyage, and let's meet up sometime soon at home base in Medford, OR.

Nicholas Ray at Film Forum

The punch-in-the-gut style of director Nicholas Ray (pictured) is in the spotlight at NY's Film Forum, starting with tomorrow's week-long run of 1950's In a Lonely Place, a classic, sad-eyed noir with Humphrey Bogart and Ray's then-wife Gloria Grahame, followed by a two-week festival of some of his best work, including films that the likes of Scorsese, Godard, and Truffaut described as some of their favorites. I heartily concur. Some of the selections include the fast-rising cult movie Bigger Than Life, with James Mason; Joan Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge in the indescribable, must-see Freudian Western Johnny Guitar; the affecting noir of They Live By Night and On Dangerous Ground; the colorful gangster melodrama Party Girl, with Robert Taylor and Cyd Charisse; and of course his most famous picture, Rebel Without a Cause. You can't go wrong with much of a well-culled set of choices, including a movie I've never seen, the Budd Schulberg-scripted Wind Across the Everglades, with Christopher Plummer and Burl Ives. (It was ubiquitous on syndicated TV stations back in the day, then vanished in the cable era.) Two lesser-known Rays I like: 1952's The Lusty Men, an excellent rodeo drama, with Robert Mitchum, Arthur Kennedy, and Susan Hayward, and 1957's World War II saga Bitter Victory, with Richard Burton and Curt Jurgens. Pick a few and strap in for turbulence and fireworks.

First rule of Fight Club

It's only a movie, kid.

On TCM: The Case Against Brooklyn

TCM has put my DVR into overdrive these last couple of nights. There were a bunch of rarely shown Stewart Granger pictures on, mostly Westerns--not normally the kind of thing that gets me going, but I had a sudden jones for Stewart. (Richard Brooks' The Last Hunt, with Granger and Robert Taylor, really needs to be on DVD.) And there was also "undercover" night, which brought a cache of movies about undercover cops, like the entertaining B Bunco Squad, out of hiding.

Most enjoyable was 1958's The Case Against Brooklyn, which, as the trailer and poster italicize, is one of those torn-from-the-headlines melodramas, pitting young cop Darren McGavin against a laundry-based protection racket that uses crooked law enforcement officers as muscle. I doubt the filmmakers got much past the Columbia backlot for principal photography (a truck chase is very SoCal in location), but it was fun to hear "Atlantic Avenue" and "Prospect Heights" name-dropped for verisimilitude, and to see my neighborhood portrayed as it was in the bad old days, as a hotbed of vice and corruption. Making the case for Brooklyn was McGavin, a whip-smart actor (always to be remembered as Kolchak: The Night Stalker) in a typically colorful performance. He's Brooklyn, baby.

Great Shakes

The Public Theater has Shakespeare in the Park--the Film Society of Lincoln Center has Shakespeare in the dark, as it begins a two-week series of film adaptations from around the world. The Olivier and Welles chestnuts are there, and also Roman Polanski's stellar 1971 Macbeth (pictured), but the interesting films are further-flung: An Indian Macbeth, and a Kiwi Merchant of Venice, among them. To go or not to go? Go.

Popdose: The Edge of Love

The two ladies vie for the affection of Matthew Rhys' Dylan Thomas in a drama that's truly "smokin'."

Popdose: For All Mankind

Woodstock has Woodstock; the other big event of 40 years ago in summer (other than my younger sister's birth) is beautifully commemorated in Al Reinert's artistic record, in a new edition from Criterion.

Popdose Flashback '89: Cosmic Thing

Recalling a favorite traveling companion from my expat years, when I roamed all around the world.

Popdose: The Hurt Locker

"The best American film of the year to date," now playing in more theaters.

"Shocking facts"

Cinema Styles is hosting a "Spirit of Ed Wood Blog-a-thon" all this week, in honor of the auteur behind the 50-year-old Plan 9 from Outer Space. And make no mistake about it--Wood was an auteur, with a style and signature all his own.

I introduced my classmates to Wood at a public speaking course I took in the 11th grade, in 1982. I was enthralled by Michael and Harry Medved's Golden Turkey Awards, which has come out a year or two earlier. I saw the movie after I had read the book, when it started making the rounds on Philly TV stations that my family could get with the arrival of cable, and it didn't disappoint. Surely this was the worst film ever made. So, when it came time to pick a topic for our final public speaking presentation, I picked, "The Worst Film Ever Made."

And I have to say, I killed. The usual stories that I knew from my limited knowledge of Wood and the movie made for great material. Just quoting from the film was enough to get everyone laughing. Wood's life and legacy were an A+ that day.

But I only got a B+. Why? Because I went over five minutes in my presentation. There was too much funny stuff to cram in and I didn't want to let any of it go. I loved whomping on Plan 9 too much.

In time, I came to change my opinion, as I learned more about Wood, and as my notion of what constituted a "bad" or "worst" movie altered. The bulk of bad movies are simply boring-bad, too dull and inert to raise any response. The worst movies are those that commit the unpardonable sin of putting you to sleep. But Plan 9 , like Glen or Glenda and Bride of the Monster before it, gets the pulse racing and the synapses firing. You feel the guiding hand, however shaky and unsteady. It's utterly unique and eccentric; there's nothing cookie-cutter about it. Its belief in itself is inspiring.

To paraphrase the great Eros, with my ancient, juvenile mind I developed explosives too fast for my mind to conceive of what I was doing. I was a callow teenager, passing on the received wisdom of my ignorant elders. A half-century later, Plan 9 from Outer Space endures as some kind of monument, one that wobbles but never falls down.

Live Design: Twelfth Night in Central Park

Some enchanted evening, Shakespeare-style, as a feisty Anne Hathaway makes merry in the Delacorte production of Twelfth Night.

Disaster porn

Roland Emmerich's upcoming intellect scrubber, 2012, gets a drubbing in a YouTube spoof of its trailer, which reduces the whole uselessly expensive thing to the level of the movie-within-the-movie in 1976's Drive-In. Dig the shag carpet era music, too.

Popdose: Uwe Boll on Tunnel Rats

The two-fisted stinkmeister is back, with--surprise--a not-bad Vietnam movie. I have the review, plus a few words from the filmmaker to get the Boll rolling.

RIP Karl Malden

Unlike this week's other passings (including Pina Bausch) it can't be said that the Oscar-winning actor died before his time. Indeed, he lived to enjoy a full and active career onstage, onscreen and on TV, and made the most of his unprepossessing looks in a string of outstanding character parts. He was an effective counterweight to outsized or more obviously charismatic performers like Marlon Brando in their three terrific films together (A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront, and Brando's One-Eyed Jacks), George C. Scott in Patton, Burt Lancaster in Birdman of Alcatraz, Warren Beatty in All Fall Down, Rosalind Russell in Gypsy, and Steve McQueen in The Cincinnati Kid; wonderful opposite Eli Wallach and Carroll Baker in Baby Doll (my favorite of his roles); and easily fit into quirkier pictures, such as the Matt Helm spy goof Murderers' Row, Ken Russell's Billion Dollar Brain with Michael Caine, and Dario Argento's Cat o'Nine Tails. A "regular guy" with a truly above-average resume, he, like Michael Jackson, was raised in Gary, IN.

Also gone: Harve Presnell, the musicals star who graduated to gruff, chrome-domed character parts in Fargo and Saving Private Ryan, and Jan Rubes, co-star of Witness and Dead of Winter. A rough patch.

Me on the Hudson

I concluded my contribution to last year's Cineaste film criticism symposium with this:

"In changing times, where critics try to maintain a livelihood, and relevance, in old media and the new bully pulpit, and question whether or not to continue at all, the most powerful person in the blogosphere isn’t a critic. It’s GreenCine editor David Hudson, for the hits he brings us when we are anointed for his daily aggregation. If he or GreenCine Daily decided to pull the plug, we would all be adrift until someone else with stature, authority—and the patience to wade through all this stuff—took over the rudder."

Hudson left GreenCine at the end of last year for a new gig at IFC. And now he's left that, to set up a new venture, with a new format, elsewhere. Every independent film blogger owes him a tremendous debt for his diligent six-year effort with the Daily, which clued me in to numerous new voices while raising my own above the happy clamor from time to time. The first time he linked to me, more than three years ago, was quite a rush, and I always got a thrill seeing my blog (or writing for Cineaste and Popdose) up on the "big board," as they call it in Glengarry Glen Ross. He's a Facebook friend now, so, in closing, I say auf Wiedersehen--and keep those updates coming.

Life is a highway...

...and Popdose is going to ride it, all night long. An impeccable mixtape for summer travelers--Tom Cochran's 1991 hit was left by the side of the road, but it includes my contribution, the B-52's "Roam" (from Cosmic Thing, an album released 20 years ago on June 27.)

Bad memories

CBS News had a report last night about an impromptu memorial service held at the Hoyt-Schermerhorn subway station nearby in Brooklyn, commemorating the filming of Michael Jackson's Bad video on its mezzanine level in 1987. I thought it looked familiar when I saw the video over the weekend, but incorrectly pegged it as the Lafayette stop. (Neither is my main stop.)

Hoyt-Schermerhorn has hosted several film shoots, notably the (bad) remake of The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, where it doubled for Times Square, and also The Warriors (1979) and Coming to America and Crocodile Dundee II in 1988. Props to Jacko for shooting in what is still a pretty dingy and underlit stretch of the neighborhood at night, but I assume director Martin Scorsese and writer Richard Price, fresh off 1986's The Color of Money, knew the score.

(And what does Scorsese think of the passing of his one-time star? And where is Tatum O'Neal in all this? She was the one who was out of MJ's life in that hit song, and she was I assume well-acquainted with the departed Farrah Fawcett. After a decent interval passes, if it hasn't passed already in the ravening news cycle, I'm sure she'll have some stories to tell.)

Popdose: Afghan Star

It's the American Idol of Afghanistan--which, as you might imagine, poses a few problems for the clerics, particularly when the ladies take the stage. A review of the new documentary, now in release.

RIP Michael Jackson

Not to be unkind, but...there are eerie parallels between today's celebrity deaths, though Jackson's actual fame (as opposed to its half-life) crept into the 90s, and Fawcett had no serious brushes with the law. And Jacko's were serious--it was hard for me to square the Jackson 5's cherub with the pathetic figure, bent on claiming Joan Crawford's face, that he became once the music stopped and the self-indulgent madness with kids and money started. Whatever he claimed he brought it on himself, and his death is basically suicide by narcissism. Sorry, but Jackson was no Elvis, and certainly no Lennon. But: I did like some of his music, though the rest has aged badly. I liked that, as a fellow horror movie fan, he gave Vincent Price a job in his senior years. And I did see him on the family welfare Victory tour, and enjoyed watching the famous dance moves live. Tragedy? No. A waste.

RIP Farrah Fawcett

No to be unkind, but let's face it; the actress was pretty much a hot mess from the mid-80s on, what with her turbulent relationship with Ryan O'Neal, various tabloid scandals, gonzo talkshow behavior, a Broadway show that closed in previews, etc. She was famous for being semi-famous, erasing good work in earlier TV movies and making every small, decent part (as in Robert Duvall's The Apostle in 1997, or Robert Altman's Dr. T and the Women in 2000) part of a perpetual comeback. But she was a genuine phenomenon back in the 70s, one my prepubescent self was not immune to (though I was always more a Jaclyn Smith kind of guy). She warmed up movies like Logan's Run (1976) and Saturn 3 (1980), of which one critic wrote, "She shows a T and he (Kirk Douglas) shows an A and they both should have behaved themselves," a memorable line. If the self-generated reality TV hoopla around her death got a few fans of hers to the doctor for a checkup, some good was done.

More Best Pictures

From Tinseltown comes word that the Academy Awards are turning back the clock and allowing 10 pictures to contend for Best Picture, rather than five, which is how it's been since 1944. This means that audience favorites like The Dark Knight will get a shot, and pictures like WALL-E, scrap-heaped to the so-called "animation ghetto," may crawl their way out. Which will of course goose ratings.

On the plus side, it may also give well-regarded indies and movies that just missed it (like Revolutionary Road) a chance in the limelight. On the downside, it diminishes the prestige of the nomination, and has the potential to add God knows how many more minutes to the telecast. In an off year will there be a top 10 to nominate? (In an on year these days are there really five? 2009 isn't shaping up to be another 1939.) I assume that one reason the number was halved originally was to prevent the less-than-immortal One Hundred Men and a Girl (1937) and One Foot in Heaven (1941) from getting one foot in the door toward Oscar gold.

20 years ago today...

Batman went into release. I was living in Hong Kong at the time, where it didn't premiere till Chinese New Year 1990. By then, a staggering eight months later, everyone who had an interest (low in that part of Asia) had seen it on tape or laserdisc, and distributors of Hollywood films learned the hard way to strike while the iron was hot and get their wares into the global village promptly. After all the hype it was OK--Tim Burton was clearly hamstrung by the suits, who insisted on ninjas in the belltower in the final scene, the Prince tunes, and that sort of dumbing-down thing. The 1992 sequel Batman Returns, Burton unchained, is much more to my liking, and I prefer both to the huffing-and-puffing pseudo-seriousness of the naturalistic, no-fun Christopher Nolan pictures. Then again I preferred comic book adaptations when they were a rarity and not the mind-numbing, summer-hogging norm.

Popdose: Last Year at Marienbad on DVD

It's arthouse with a capital A as A, X, and M triangulate in Alain Resnais's classic collaboration with Alain Robbe-Grillet, now part of the Criterion Collection. Hmmm...why don't the trees in the garden cast any shadows?

U2 conquers Earth

Where rock concerts are concerned, it's U2's world; we just live in it. Live Design editor David Johnson is live-blogging the rehearsals from Barcelona as this monster gets ready to rock on June 30. It hits Giants Stadium in September. And I thought the one I saw at the movies, in 3D, was impressive. (That would be the Vertigo tour, pictured.)

Phedre live

Emulating the Met and its popular operacasts, the UK's National Theatre has started NT Live, which kicks off here in the New York City area with live telecasts of Jean Racine's Phedre, as adapted by Ted Hughes and directed by Nicholas Hytner. Helen Mirren and Dominic Cooper (one of Hytner's History Boys, recently seen in Mamma Mia!) star. Sounds like something worth getting off the couch for.

From the PR:

"In the New York City area, screenings can be seen at Film Society of Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Director’s Guild Theatre, Cinema Arts Centre, Fairfield University (CT), Monmouth University (NJ) & the Shakespeare Theatre Company (DC).

The broadcast will also be shown on screens across the United States including the Mann Theatre in Hollywood, the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago and the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis and many more.

WHEN:
The launch of NT Live is Thursday, June 25.

Broadcasts in the New York City area include:
●The Director’s Guild Theatre – Thursday, June 25 at 7:30pm
●Monmouth University, NJ – Thursday, June 25 at 7pm
●Brooklyn Academy of Music – Thursday, July 9 at 7pm
●Film Society of Lincoln Center Walter Reade Theater – Monday, July 6 at 4pm and 8pm
●Fairfield University, CT – Saturday, July 11 at 2pm
●Shakespeare Theatre Company (DC) – Monday, June 29 & Monday, July 13 at 7:30pm
●Cinema Arts Centre (Long Island) – Friday, July 24 at 7:30pm

The press release says about Phedre (co-starring Margaret Tyzack): "Consumed by an uncontrollable passion for her young stepson and believing Theseus, her absent husband, to be dead, Phedre (Mirren) confesses her darkest desires and enters the world of nightmare. When Theseus returns, alive and well, Phedre, fearing exposure, accuses her stepson of rape. The result is carnage."

Coincidentally, I just saw Jules Dassin's 1962 take on the tale, a contemporized version featuring the toothsome Melina Mercouri and a miscast Anthony Perkins. An interesting try, prettily filmed in Greece, but this well-reviewed production should be more the thing.

Popdose: Pelham 1 2 3

All aboard for a ride on the remake, shot in my hood, with John Travolta.