Happy Birthday, Brother John!

The man standing next to Ernst Stavro Blofeld is my Big Brother John, who turns mrphmty-murmph today. Called him earlier (earlier than usual, anyway) and we had a good chance to chat after I gave him the traditional serenade of "Happy Birthday" in the inimitable Wison fashion (off-key, and deliberately slow). He fairly cackled that since My Seester got her cell-phone, he could leave "Happy Birthday" on TWO voice-mails (Man! Wish I'd thought of that--he's always smarter than me!).

Happy Birthday, Big Brother. We'll be talking.

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What a wondrous sight to behold at this time of year. There at our front-door, was a jolly fat man with hair and beard the color of snow, a red bob of a nose, cap on his head and a laugh that made his belly shake.

It was Barney, the Electrician.

A few weeks ago (Hallowe'en, in fact), K and I were watching "The Innocents" when the set started to flicker, then konked out along with the reciever and DVD player. Right at a scary part, too. Killed the mood. But we got out another surge protector and plugged everything into that and plugged it into the bedroom socket. Everything worked fine. But ever since, the house has been electrically...intermittent: a socket would go dead. you'd plug something into another socket and it would come to life. Lights would flicker and die, with perfectly decent bulbs screwed in. Electrical efficacy would bounce around the house, with us chasing after it with our little gadgets plugging them into one socket, then another until they purred to life.

Which would be fine...be merely an annoyance...if we didn't live in a completely wood cabin. Then it gets to be a matter of concern. So, we called the last electrician who'd come out. Didn't return our phone-call. That's to be expected on "The Rock," the contractors get hired for some new development and all of a sudden you have to make an appointment to get a phone-call back. I tried. K tried. No spark. A couple of days ago, I tried again. I called, left messages--I did get one "live" one, though. He said he was booked up to January 17th, and he figured that might be a little long to wait. With such keen instincts I wanted to hire him on the spot, but I decided to make other calls.

I made ten, then called it a fine day of one-way convesations. Thirty minutes later, Barney called. He said he could be out first thing Thursday, I gave him directions, and he asked if I wanted him to call before showing up. "That'd be nice," I said. "It'll give me a chance to stash the dog some place." "Mean dog?" Barney asked, warily. "Nah, I said. More protective, territorial a bit." "Ah well, that's his job! Ya WANT one like THAT!"

Barney called Thursday morning: "See ya in thirty minutes!" And I took Smokey out to K's car with some chewey snacks, and half an old banana. When Barney showed up, Smokey didn't make a peep. Strange. After getting over the sight of Father Christmas in blue cover-alls, I said "The dog didn't bark." "Nah!" said Barney. "But he was sure curious! Where do you want me?"

I pointed to the walls with the problems--the one behind the wood-stove and the one with the view-windows. "I'll start over there." He pointed to a socket in the open. "I like to start with the easy ones." "Just like eating dessert first," I remarked. "Yup," said Barney gravely. "Life's uncertain."

As if to prove his point, he started to pound on the walls. "You'd be surprised what good this does," said Barney. "Sometimes in the cold weather, it'll just solve the problem, but at least if I see a light flicker, I can trace it." He opened out his pen-amp-meter, looking to see what sockets were "hot." "Yeah, I've had enough of winter," he said as he sat in a corner to test the plug by Smokey's crate (I wondered if winter had even started yet).* Every breath was a grunt and a wheeze as he made his way from one socket to the next alternately pounding the wall, and making his pen chirp. "Lemme go look at the box," he said, and K came out from the office to see what all the noise was about. Suddenly, from the bedroom, he yelled, "Number Six!" "Go see what that's about," said K, and eyes eide, turned to go into the office. I was curious myself. Had the last electrician put in those exotic No.6 fuses by mistake? "What's up?" I said.

"Oh!" he chuckled. "Number Six! I saw your coaster here. The Prisoner! I loved that show!" He was looking at a coaster NPR Dan had sent us from Portmeirion in Wales, where they'd filmed "The Prisoner" in the '60's. It was one of my and K's favorite shows, too, and we'd planned for some time to go there one day. NPR Dan beat us to it, but sent us some piquant tchotchkes. "Man, I loved that show! Too bad it was a limited one!" We gabbed about the show for awhile--a friend of his had made the "kit" car that Patrick MacGoohan drove in the opening. "Aw nuts, here's a white wire," he said, and did something about it. We moved a chest of drawers to see if there was a socket back there, and though we didn't find one, we found the sneakers that K had been missing for months. Then we turned to the plug where all the trouble began. He tested it. No problem.

"Have you got a...?" He opened the door to the bedroom. "Yup! Here's an outlet behind the door." It was the one we'd plugged the surge-protector into. We thought it was the only thing in the vicinity that was working. "You got a flashlight?" asked Barney on the floor. I didn't think to question why a socket-jockey didn't have a flashlight, but I dutifully went off to get one. I handed it to him. "Wait a minute!" I said. "I've got a better idea!" I handed him my baseball cap with "The Bug" on it--the LED clip-light my sister-in-law got me one Christmas. "Try this on for size," I said. "Woh!" said Barney. "That's a BRIGHT one! That's GREAT! I'm almost ashamed to BE here!" He replaced the socket, corroded and with a couple scorch-marks on it, and he managed to do it with one hand, holding the socket in his paw, and using his fingers to twist the wires. Quite the trick. Then he screwed everything in place. "I think I've screwed enough screws to go to the Moon and back," said Barney. Then with a large grunt, he got off the floor and lurched into the living room. "He found it!" he joked to K, as I wrote him a check for $85 (pretty darn cheap, we thought). "Well, have a Merry Christmas" he said as he roared out of sight.

Be seeing you, Barney. I have half-a-mind to send him a "Bug"...and one of my "Prisoner" coasters for Christmas. I think he'd genuinely enjoy that.

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Speaking of bologna, I got some at the store the other day, I'm not sure why, but maybe it has something to do with my Father. I've been thinking of him a lot since the 7th, and I remember him once walking into the kitchen, and looking at the lunch my Mom had made him. "Ya know," he said a bit wistfully, "last night I had a dream where I was sent to Hell, and all there was to eat was bologna sandwiches." My Mom shot him a look that spit daggers, but he'd made his point...and maybe he didn't get a bologna sandwich the next day (if he was lucky to get a lunch at all!)**

So, I'm eating a bologna sandwich a day until his birthday, December 26th. I mentioned this to K, who thought it was a bit wierd that I'd be focussing on bologna, but I did manage to keep the dog away from her while she was eating dinner by tempting him with the word "bologna" said in the same reverential tones we say the word "bacon." I knew he'd like it, but I didn't expect the ecstatic look on his face when he tasted it for the first time. He looked like he was going to cry, he enjoyed it so much. I walked into the bedroom where K was eating, with my bologna sandwich, and told her about Smokey's reaction. "Actually," she said, "the way I've been eating lately (she's been on a strict, almost harsh diet), I'm wondering what it tastes like--I'd like to try it..." I gave her a bite. "That is really good," she said.

Ah, bologna.

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K. mentioned that "Alvin and the Chipmunks" was playing at the local drive-In, and wanted to know if I wanted to go. I didn't particularly (it sounds like "My Name is Earl" with extra vermin), but Smokey might like a trip to the Drive-In. I asked her if she wanted to go, and she said "No. I hate the Chipmunks--always have." ***

I told her we could check out "Enchanted" (which we might), but I really want to see "I Am Legend." I told her the story--it's one of my favorite books, and she became intrigued, especially at the premise of deer running up Broadway. "He just stays in his barricaded apartment with his German Shepherd," I said. "Just like a New Yorker," she said, going back to her paper, "...keeping a German Shepherd in an apartment..."

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*Nope. Not 'til December 22nd. Glad I didn't tell Barney.

** Which brings to mind an ethnic joke, and for the requisite "dumb" minority I will use "Irish Catholic" since they're taking a lot of hits lately, and since I was one, I can get away with it.

Three construction workers, a Latino, an Italian and an Irish-Catholic were sitting on a girder, eating from their sack-lunches. "Madre Dios!" says the Latino. "Tacos again!! I swear if I get tacos for lunch again, I'll throw myself off this building!" The Italian looks at his lunch. "Mama Mia!!" he says. Another meat-ball sandwich!! I swear on the souls of my grandparents that if I get another meat-ball sandwich I will throw myself off this building!!" The Irish-Catholic looks at his lunch. "Faith and begorrah!" he says, "Ecumenically blesssed corned beef and cabbage AGAIN!! I swear, by all that's holy that if I open this bag tomorrow and see ecumenically blessed corned beef and cabbage, I will throw myself off this building!"

The next day at noon, the three open their lunches. "Tacos! Tacos again!" yells the Latino and throws himself off the building. "Ayee," says the Italian. "Meat-ball sandwich again!!" and throws himself off the building. The Irish-Catholic looks in his bag and yells "Ecumenically blessed corned beef and.." and he's dead before he can get the whole thing out.

At the funeral the wives are bereft. "Oh, if only I could have made burritos that day," says the Latino's wife. "If only I could have put in a slice of pizza...anything different...he'd still be here," wails the Italian wife. They look expectantly at the Irish-Catholic's wife.

"Well, don't look at me," she says. "He made his own lunch!"

Thank you, try the salad bar, we'll be here all week.

*** Last time in Portland a DJ (on 106.7 "K-HITS") played "Christmas, Don't be Late" and ended the song, saying "Looove the Chipmunks...especially roasting on an open fire")

On this same radio station, this same DJ made a joke about the O'Jays song "Used to Be My Girl" that went something like"...and here, from the soundtrack of 'The Rene Richards Story'--'She Used To Be My Girl." I thought "That's a rather arcane reference for a joke about a sex-change..." and it was right then I realized I'd made the exact same joke when I was a DJ...it wasn't so arcane back then.

Movie Review - The Complex Art of Film Noir, Winter 2007

I: "Before The Devil Knows You're Dead"*

In Broad Daylight

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Just ask Andy and Hank Hanson. They both need money because they want to do right by their families: Andy, so he can get out of debt and maybe move with his depressed wife to Rio De Janeiro; Hank, because he's a few months late in child support, and he wants to do right by his daughter...oh, and his mistress, and ...well, all of Hank's dreams are short-term.

But Andy has a plan that's fool-proof: a robbery. "No one gets hurt. It's perfect." Trouble is, Hank's a fool, and he agrees before he knows all that it entails. Andrew, a real estate accountant, gives him a down-payment. "There's $2,000. See what that does for you. Imagine the rest."

They can't imagine. Because, as they say in the magazine-shows, things go "horribly, horribly wrong."

"Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" might belong to that sub-genre of comedy films called "The Incredible Mess," where seemingly simple plans go increasingly awry, but it's no comedy, except in the perverse way perfect disasters pile upon perfect disasters. But I would contend that the movie, as written by Kelly Masterson, is a film noir, that species of film where the world maliciously has it in for an honest man, and corruption runs so deep that it's manifested in a shade of fathomless blackness--"where the world is dark with something more than night," as the saying goes. One of the laureates of the proto-noir story was Raymond Chandler, who laid out the ground-rules for his brand of detective fiction in an essay titled "The Simple Art of Murder," first published in 1944, and quoted extensively below.** In it, he railed against the "drawing room" brand of of detective fiction as weak and unrealistic, and that a detective-hero must try and find Truth in a fabric of deception, obfuscation, and agendas so thick it's like wading through a cess-pool. "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" is so steeped in layers of corruption that any transgression amplifies to the worst possible conclusion, and by chain reaction drags the innocent down as well as the guilty in a tragedy of Shakespearean consequences. No one is immune from the veil of evil. The world of "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" is so corrupt, there is no hero. And it all happens in broadest daylight.

There's been "daylight-noirs" before, like "Gun-Crazy," and, of course, "Chinatown" takes place in sun-blasted L.A. But "Devil" takes place in New York, and mostly gentrified New York at that. New York, because the director is Sidney Lumet, who quite rarely makes a movie anywhere else. Lumet's an odd choice for a noir film, although he's made many films in the squalor of New York--"Serpico," "The Pawnbroker," "Prince of the City," "Q & A," and he's made many movies that intertwine family and crime--"Dog Day Afternoon," "Murder on the Orient Express," and "Family Business." As a director, he's not very stylish, and is, in fact, pretty clunky, as in "Twelve Angry Men," and "Fail-Safe," or, dare I mention it, "The Wiz." Lumet expends his energy on performance, rather than construction. In fact, Lumet has rarely risen above his roots as a director of live television: a master shot, the occasional close-up, and that's about it. His camera work is utilitarian, at its best, sometimes inelegant, brightly lit, nothing fancy. He tends to using film scores, thinking them too pervasive and detracting from a scene's manufactured reality. When he does try something different (in other films, it was crudely distorting lenses) it's always in your face. Here, it's an editing transition that flashes forward and back three to four times, similar to the "druggy" transitions in "Easy Rider," but with an annoying clacking noise at each edit. The story-telling technique employed is similar to that of another noir, Stanley Kubrick's "The Killing," where the actual caper is viewed from one character's point of view, then rewinds back to another participant's during the same time period and beyond. The plot advances and coalesces in increments until the inevitable end-game where all stories come together. And "Devil" ends in the only way this noir-in-daylight could end.

Because it's Lumet, it's the performances where the movie shines: Philip Seymour Hoffman is all sweating self-pity as Andrew, Ethan Hawke is Hank, a pitiful train-wreck doing a poor job of trying to appear together, Albert Finney goes a bit over the top as their father Charles, and Marisa Tomei shows the promise that her early Oscar win belied as Andrew's wife, caught in the middle. But the smaller performances of minor characters like Michael Shannon and Aleksa Palladino stand out as well. It's a blackly depressing film that owes whatever greatness it achieves to the writing and performances.

"Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" is a cheap (and sleazy) matinee.

II: "Gone Baby Gone"

That, in All Things

Now walk down these mean streets a little further--all the way to Boston. Here you'll find private detective Patrick Kenzie, the very definition of the term John D. MacDonald used to describe Raymond Chandler. "He writes," said MacDonald "like a slumming angel." Kenzie knows the back-alleys, the crack-dens, the gang-bangers, the dealers, the dive bars and the angles and he knows how to handle them with a cock-suredness that belies his years.*** But that street cred only takes you so far, because although he's lived in Boston his entire life, New Orleans transplant detective Remy Bressant (Ed Harris--extraordinarily good) tells him "I've been here longer than you've been alive." And Bressant has seen the long continuous story of those places Kenzie merely visits. But if Bressant knows more, nobody tops Captain Doyle (Morgan Freeman, completely dominating the three scenes he's in), whose daughter was kidnapped and killed, and has dedicated his life to making sure it doesn't happen again on his watch. 4 1/2 year old Amanda McCready has gone missing from the neglectful eye of her good-for-nothing mother and Kenzie and his partner Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan) have been hired by an aunt to find her, however reluctant they are to take the case. Within 24 hours, there's a good chance they can find her alive and unharmed. She's been gone, now, for 60.

And soon, after all the slumming and the chance-taking, the compromises with the police and the stake-outs gone bad, the case comes to a dissatisfying end, and like any good noir dick, that's just not good enough for Kenzie. He has to keep pushing for Truth, no matter how hidden, no matter the consequences. But the Truth hurts and can lead to decisions made for the best of reasons but the worst of consequences. And this "slumming angel," this noir-hero by Chandler's precise description, will suffer the consequnces for his decision, both personal and professional. But because he is the hero, he must fight that corruption even if the result is not a more perfect world, but the same tainted world as when he began. And maybe, even one that's worse.

As it happens, there is no moral high ground here. There is no "right" and "wrong" for the situation is too far out of control for there to be a "right" and a "wrong" and the two step over each other's line as often as a police tape is crossed. The resolution of the story, the choices made can be argued for days, and the last shot of the movie damns even as it takes the film to a logical conclusion.

This has been a great year for Casey Affleck. First, he stepped out of the star-crush to become more than a glorified extra in "Ocean's 13," carried the bulk of "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford," and now holds his own against Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris at the heighth of their powers. His performance in "Gone Baby Gone" shows great versatility and an amazing range. But if Casey's potential has come to fruition, the emergence of Ben Affleck as a director is nothing short of revelatory. Here he shows a command of time and place, and a wonderful eye for faces that lend authenticity to the grime of the surroundings. An action scene at night may not be as focussed and suspenseful as it should be, but the rest of the movie is assured, and negotiates moral discussions without getting bogged down in high-handedness or slowing the movie down. That fine directorial touch extends all the way to the wickedly oblique final shot that will creep on you days after the fade to black. Given this auspicious debut, one looks forward to the next film featuring Ben Affleck behind the camera.

"Gone Baby Gone" is an impressively full-price ticket

* After the Irish toast: May you have food and raiment, a soft pillow for your head. May you be forty years in heaven before the devil knows you’re dead.

** Raymond Chandler, perfectly describing the fetid world of "noir" in "The Simple Art of Murder:"

"The realist in murder writes of a world in which gangsters can rule nations and almost rule cities, in which hotels and apartment houses and celebrated restaurants are owned by men who made their money out of brothels, in which a screen star can be the fingerman for a mob, and the nice man down the hall is a boss of the numbers racket; a world where a judge with a cellar full of bootleg liquor can send a man to jail for having a pint in his pocket, where the mayor of your town may have condoned murder as an instrument of moneymaking, where no man can walk down a dark street in safety because law and order are things we talk about but refrain from practising; a world where you may witness a hold-up in broad daylight and see who did it, but you will fade quickly back into the crowd rather than tell anyone, because the hold-up men may have friends with long guns, or the police may not like your testimony, and in any case the shyster for the defense will be allowed to abuse and vilify you in open court, before a jury of selected morons, without any but the most perfunctory interference from a political judge.

It is not a very fragrant world, but it is the world you live in, and certain writers with tough minds and a cool spirit of detachment can make very interesting and even amusing patterns out of it. It is not funny that a man should be killed, but it is sometimes funny that he should be killed for so little, and that his death should be the coin of what we call civilization."


*** Raymond Chandler, "The Simple Art of Murder" again, describing the detective hero:

"In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption. It may be pure tragedy, if it is high tragedy, and it may be pity and irony, and it may be the raucous laughter of the strong man. But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective in this kind of story must be such a man. He is the hero, he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor, by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world. I do not care much about his private life; he is neither a eunuch nor a satyr; I think he might seduce a duchess and I am quite sure he would not spoil a virgin; if he is a man of honor in one thing, he is that in all things. He is a relatively poor man, or he would not be a detective at all. He is a common man or he could not go among common people. He has a sense of character, or he would not know his job. He will take no man’s money dishonestly and no man’s insolence without a due and dispassionate revenge. He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him. He talks as the man of his age talks, that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness. The story is his adventure in search of a hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. He has a range of awareness that startles you, but it belongs to him by right, because it belongs to the world he lives in.

If there were enough like him, I think the world would be a very safe place to live in, and yet not too dull to be worth living in."

Even More Tales from the Socialist Literary Collective*

"Friday Night Lights" (Peter Berg, 2005) I missed this movie in its first go-'round, but seeing the pilot for the eventual NBC series put "the hooks" in me. I wanted to see what had inspired the series, which had impressed me, and see if the movie was as good.

Short answer. Yes. And a bit better. It's another High School football movie, replete with all the drama that situation lends to it. The pressure on the kids to win. The pressure on the coach to make them winners. The crush of expectations, and the town's sense of worth wrapped up in the team. It's all there, but shot in the "caught off-guard" style of a documentary that gives it more power, more immediacy. You don't feel sympathy for Tom Cruise in "All the Right Moves" because, hey, he's Tom Cruise. But a bunch of nobodies, with the melodrama tamped down, takes it out of Hollywood contrivance, and makes you look away from the glare of stars and see into the drama. You begin to think that anything can happen. You begin to care. The film is dedicated to Alan J. Pakula, producer-director, who in the 70's made dispassionate, stylistically intimate films that had that same lived-in quality--"Klute," "All the President's Men"--even if it was Jane Fonda and Robert Redford on the screen. Here the biggest star in Billy Bob Thornton, who excells at low-key, lived-in, but even he feels like a bit of a distraction from the rest of the movie's verisimilitude, so completely does Berg maintain the illusion. It's a damned good film.


"The Night Of the Hunter" (Charles Laughton, 1955) One of the most stylized, creepiest movies ever made--the only one ever directed by actor Charles Laughton--"The Night of the Hunter" tells the story of an almost-elementally corrupt minister who comes to town seeking fortune by seducing and murdering the wife and terrifying the children of his old cell-mate, and tells it in the manner of a magical fairy tale. As two of the targets of the Rev.'s obsessions are the impressionable children of Willa Harper (Shelley Winters), the film becomes a battle between Good and Evil as seen through their eyes. The Good is represented by the Grandmother, played forthrightly by silent film star Lillian Gish. The Evil is the right Rev. Harry Powell, who strides into town with the conflicts in his soul tatooed on his fists. It's a bravura performance by Robert Mitchum, who wasn't known for bravura performances, usually satisfied maintaining a laconic air to get by. Here he brays and exhorts like a bull and it's an amazing thing to see so theatrical a performance out of him--in fact, it's the role he's best remembered for. The film itself is a creepy blend of reality and fantasy, of realism and theatricality and the clashes of those sensibilities jar one's attention, while burrowing into the soft places of one's skull. Despite poor box-office and crtical pans when it opened in 1955, "The Night of the Hunter" abides. It abides and it endures.

"Wilde" (Brian Gilbert, 1997) A nearly definitive biographical film of the scholar and playwight whose career was destroyed and life shortened by the spiteful trial and imprisonment for "indecent acts" directly relating to his gay trysts. Stephen Fry plays Wilde, and he's a bit too old for the part but the resemblance is there, and his bulk and refinement put you in the sphere of what it must be like to be a bull in a china shop. Vaness Redgrave (wonderful, as always) plays Mother Wilde, Jennifer Ehle as his wife Constance, and as the earnest young men in Wilde's affections, a virtual parade of young British heart-throbs--Orlando Bloom (for 3 s., tops), Ioan Gruffud, Michael Sheen, and as Wilde's obsession Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas, Jude Law in full schizophrenic movie mode. One becomes aware all too quickly that Wilde's problems stem from a bad match and his tragedy is that he could never stop going back no matter the cost to him or those around him. Frye communicates the "struck dumb" quality that must have evoked, which for a man of Wilde's intellect and eloquence must have been over-powering. Tom Wilkinson is hissingly malevolent as "Bosie's" father, The Marquess of Queensbury, the acknowledged "rule setter" for the subtle art of bashing someone's brain in. Here he forgets his own rule about hitting below the belt. The film is a cautionary tale of how reaching the heights of fame guarantee the hardest of falls, and how hubris has a remarkable way of proving to be one's undoing.

"I Know Where I'm Going!" (Michael Powell/Emeric Pressburger, 1945) Wendy Hiller stars as a determined woman whose whole life has been planned out and played out according to her own well thought-out scenario. Now, she's travelling to the Scottish Highlands to marry her industrialist fiancee on the Island of Kiloran. But to get there she must book passage from the Island of Mull. But Nature and Fate conspire to keep her Mulling and scuttle her schedule, while the cutely eccentric citizens cast a spell all their own. Powell and Pressburger create a film concoction with fantasy elements, surreal dream sequences and musical interludes, taking a straightforward story and apply an extremely creative approach to it. The story may seem overly familiar, but not the approach to it which keeps one watching intently to see not so much what will happen, but how. It's a lost little gem that shows what a creative force "The Archers"--the team that made "The Red Shoes" could be. Also, look for a short appearance by a child-actress named Petula Clark. Yup, that one.

"All the King's Men" (Robert Rossen, 1948) The Oscar-winner for Best Picture of 1949 and it's hard to argue. Rossen's adaptation of Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about the corrupting powers of politics, it boasts two powerful (and Oscar-winning)performances: Broderick Crawford as innocent-turned-player Willie Stark and Mercedes McCambridge as his cynical-to-the-marrow political assistant. McCambridge is so good and so inventive that she might just as well have been given the statue for the next five years. Would that the other performances have been as electric as these two, but one could say that they shine even more brightly next to the lesser lights. It's particularly interesting to see Crawford so restrained at the beginning of the film, but once he sees how the game is played he turns on the after-burners and soars over everybody else in the frame with him. Mention should be made of the ocassional glimpses of a documentary style in the rally scenes amid the more traditionally blocked studio framing. And the film may seem a bit abrupt in places--but that's because Rossen, determined to get the film below two hours, gave his editor instructions to take most of the scenes and cut precisely thirty seconds from the front of it and thirty seconds from the back (making sure not to clip off any dialog). What was left was the hard nugget of the scene's core and "All the King's Men" feels more brutal in its pace and attitude because of this uncompromising strategy.

"The Lady Vanishes" (Alfred Hitchcock, 1938) Poor Iris Matilda Henderson has "been everyhwere and done everything," and is on her way to marry what her travelling companions call a "blue-blooded check-chaser" when she gets beaned by a suspiciously-unanchored flower box. She is helped onto her departing train and administered to by the elderly Miss Froy, a vacationing governess in love with the music of the Alps. Waking up from a recuperative nap, Iris discovers the woman missing, and what's worse, no one on the train claims to have seen her. Is everyone on the train lying, or has Iris just imagined the whole thing? The only ally she can find is the eccentric and rather obnoxious musicologist (Michael Redgrave, father of Lyn and Vanessa, and grandfather of Joely Richardson), whose racket has kept her awake nights at their lodgings. But now he comes to her aid ("My father taught me to never desert a lady in trouble. In fact I think that's why he married my mother!") to determine just what's been lost--the old lady or Iris' mind. Redgrave supposedly didn't get on with Hitchcock, and didn't have much respect for movie-acting, either--until another cast member saw him on-stage and wondered why he was so brilliant on the boards and so lackluster on-screen. For his part, Hitchcock took the material and accentuated the comedy and sexual situations, giving each of the train participants their own contrary behavior. It proved to be one of the most beloved of Hitchcock's British films, and legitimately can stand up to any of "The Master of Suspense's" later classics.

"Road to Rio" (Norman Z. McLeod, 1947) I've got a weakness for the "Road" movies--those Paramount programmers with Hope, Crosby and Lamour--where the least excuse for a plot is thrown together (usually the boys are scammers on the run), Hope and Crosby do their best to ad-lib over the other one, and the fourth wall is practically nonexistent. In fact, one of my favorite jokes in this one, has Crosby and Hope do a 3/4-quarters-in recap of the plot and what has to happen to resolve everything, when suddenly there's an off-screen scream. "What was that?" says Bing, and Hope looks askew and says "It's the Warner Brothers--they're jealous." Right. This, the fifth in the "Road" series has the boys on the lam to Rio De Janeiro, where they hope to keep Lamour, hypnotized by her scheming aunt, from marrying a hand-picked ne'er-do-well. And with that much sophistication to the plot, you know Hope-Crosby have to get hypnotized, too. It ain't art-house material--more like burlesque-house--but it is entertaining.

"Broken Flowers" (Jim Jarmusch, 2005) Don Johnston ("You're Don Johnson?!" "No. With a 'T'") is in a funk. A computer millionaire, he has no energy for anything. No desire. No drive. Certainly no energy for his girlfriend who walks out on him at the beginning of the film. In other words, he's Bill Murray's usual grown-up slacker, but without the savage wit. Murray may be the best conveyor of malaise since "Buster" Keaton was drummed out of the talkies. Adding to his girl-friend's anger, he has just recieved a pink envelope addressed in red ink from an old girl-friend, who warns him that the son he never knew existed is looking for him. It's a mystery,a nd he wants no part of it. But it's a "clue" to his mystery-buff neighbor (Jeffrey Wright) who sets up an elaborate scavenger hunt with four of his "passed ships" as the check-points (and they are Sharon Stone-really good, Frances Conroy, Jessica Lange, and an unrecognizable Tilda Swinton). It's a bit like Ulysses on an Odyssey of old battlefields. But he's a reluctant Ulysses and never too sure what to say to the women, but the object of his quest is his son. And by the end of the film, his world has been opened up, or at least there are more opportunities for him to get into trouble.

"The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao" (George Pal, 1964) One of those movies I wanted to see as a kid, but never got the chance. An ersatz Western directed by film-fantasist George Pal ("The War of the Worlds," "The Time Machine") with a screenplay by the mordantly sunny Charles Beaumont, responsible for many of the best mind-twisting "Twilight Zone" episodes. Dr. Lao is the "Mysterious Stranger" who comes into the troubled town of Abalone with a circus that exposes truth, shines a light on hypocrisy, and turns lives around. One might be a bit off-put by Lao's initial pigeon-English, but it's as epehemeral as everything else about Dr. Lao, for he's not any nationality ("He looks like a 'Jap' to me" "Naw, he's more Chinese" "How d'you know that?" "'Cause I'm not stupid!"), sticks to no dialect or any sex, for that matter--if he's made of matter, at all! One should be more concerned with the idea that a "Good Man" will unstarch the collar of the Local School-Marm, except that this transformation (by the Circus' "Pan") leaving Barbara Eden sweating and panting is bravurely provocative for a G-rated kid's film. That's something Disney wouldn't try! Everything turns nicely-nicely at the end, but there is trauma along the way to balance it. Tony Randall plays Lao beneath all sorts of William Tuttle (another "TZ" alum) make-up that doesn't hamper the elasticity of his performance, and as a kind of bow/acknowledgement he appears in the circus audience gravely shaking his head.

But back to Beaumont. Check out this thesis speech delivered in low reverent tones by Randall:

"The whole world is a circus, if you know how to look at it. The way the sun
goes down when you're tired, and comes up when you want to be on the move.
That's real magic. The way a leaf grows. The song of the birds. The way the
desert looks at night with the Moon embracing it. Oh, my boy. That's circus
enough for anyone. Every time you watch a rainbow and feel wonder in your heart.
Every time you pick up a handful of dust, and see not the dust, but a mystery--a
marvel, there in your hand. Every time you stop and think "I'm alive, and being
alive is fantastic!" Every time such a thing happens, you're a part of the
Circus of Dr. Lao."

That is heavy stuff, delivered in an intoxicating rhythm and smoothness of tone--it's joy mounting as the commonness of the examples increases, getting down to the dirt. That's a great speech. And as Beaumont could be dark in tone, his words could excite and throw apart any veil of despair. But even if that speech gets a little heavy, Beaumont has the cure. "I don't understand," the child answers. Lao grabs the top of his head and leaps over it. "Neither do I!" he exults, and begins a high-kicking dance. Life is too wonderful to spend your time saying how wonderful it is. Use it. Dance!

"Get Out Your Handkerchiefs" (Bertrand Blier, 1978) French comedy about a man in love with a woman who is acutely depressed. He doesn't understand women. He doesn't understand much of anything. All he knows is he wants to make it better so he'll feel okay.

Hilarity ensues.

Well, not so much. The hilarity is under the surface a bit, since the film only shallowly reflects real behavior for comic effect. Below the goofiness, though, is some truth. For instance, to prod her out of her zombie-like depression, Raoul (Gerard Depardieau) approaches a narcisistic academic (who loves Mozart--acts like they're best of friends--and his apartment is dominated by a collection of every Penguin Pocket Book ever published, alphabetized). "She's attracted to you! Sleep with her!" he says. And as she's attractive (and spends much of the film undressed) he does. But she's still subject to collapsing into a fugue state at the drop of a stitch (she's a constant knitter--and folks, that's a clue) Suffice it to say that these adults aren't nearly mature enough, but she does find happiness, fulfilment and a good jolt of "wake-me-up" in unexpected places. It's safe to say that this film is in the top five of Mary Kay Letourneau's favorite films.

As I do with foreign language films, I watch the English language version and turn on the captions to see if there's any major disconnects between translation and performance. Nothing too disparate here, But there was an odd side effect. The actor dubbing Gerard Depardieau's "Raoul" has a distinctive New York whine that sounds alarmingly like Jerry Seinfeld. Within ten minutes, I was seeing the film as just another "Seinfeld" episode, albeit one with a point besides how self-absorbed people can be.

* Your Public Library
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Bumper Sticker of the Day: "Driver Does Not Carry Cash (He has six grand-kids)"

Song in me head: "So What" (Miles Davis)

Movie Review - "Fred Claus"

Sibling Revelry

I know what you're asking: Is this a Christmas Movie where someone has to SAVE CHRISTMAS and do they?

Short answer: Yes.

Come to think of it, just about every Christmas Movie is about SAVING Christmas. From the Martians, from the Grinch, from Tim Allen, from adults, from the Gubernator, from just about everything, except all the right-wing nutters who really DO think there's a War on Christmas. Excuse me, Xmas.

The "SAVING Christmas" movie is so prevalent, it could be a genre all to itself. As long as you threaten Christmas verbally, physically, psychically or by omission, in the real or fantasy-sense, that's all that's required. How many movies or stop-motion animation specials can you name? Swell, I just came up with dinner-table conversation for this Christmas. And believe me, I looked at this blog's budget, that's all you're getting (I need the lumps of coal to heat the house).

So, in "Fred Claus" it turns out that Clement Moore didn't know a thing about Santa Claus' older, dumber, bitter brother. That's right, the Clauses had another son, who after the birth of little Nicholas, was left parched of his parents' affection. I mean, c'mon, how can you compete against a really cute fat baby whose first words are "Ho Ho?" It doesn't take long before Fred has transitioned from Promising To Be The Best Big Brother In The Whole World to throwing things at the little saint's head.

Fred goes off to the Real World, while Nick becomes an icon with a Factory-town at the North Pole with an indentured population of elves. Guess the North Pole is outside the jurisdiction of fair and best practices law. Anyway, Santa has built up quite the little illegal monopoly up there, plus there's the stress of reading every kid's mail, producing the specifically-requested toys for delivery and then shipping them all in one night on a twelve hour turn-around. Add to that, this year there's an Efficiency Expert (played by Kevin Spacey--when did he stop knowing how to be funny?) prowling around who seems determined to Shut Santa Down, though "Why" and "For Whom" goes unanswered (and the possibilities dance like sugar-plums in my head--China? Wal-Mart?).**

Then, Fred calls out of the blue, wanting to borrow money, and Nick is SUCH a Nicely Overwhelming Holiday Icon that he can't say no. Well, he does attach a rider saying that Fred has to work it off at the North Pole determining who is "NAUGHTY" and who is "NICE" and then condemning the former children to an unhappy Christmas. Despite this, Santa still has the snow-balls to say to his wife "I'm a Saint, sweetheart. Tough love is a little difficult for me!"

Not for me, sweetheart. "Tough" love is the only love this flick will get.

It's all meant to be whimsical, but one walks out wanting to "clock" a bell-ringer. The North Pole seems to have all the charm of a Wal-Mart town, with exactly the same sort of benefit-policy for their work-force. To determine who will be stamped "Naughty" or "Nice" Santa and his pint-sized voyeurs in the "Judgemental" Department have a magic snow-globe that they use to spy on every child's behavior. You think Homeland Security is a threat to privacy--you've never ever thought about peeping Santa. Just the emphasis that Santy sees you when you're sleeping and knows when you're awake (just like the NSA!) is probably not too jolly an idea to bring up during these liberty-crushing times, but "Fred Claus" makes it a key plot-point.

The cast does what it can, in its best "Tim Allen/Chevy Chase-in-overdrive" way, but it all amounts to hanging tinsel on a dead tree. Vaughn pulls off some nicely ad-libbed fast-talk. Paul Giamatti as Santa has a bit more sand to it than you might expect--but you just know the rest of the cast said "Hey, Giamatti's in it--there's gotta be something to this," so you have Rachel Weisz (as "Girl-friend"), Miranda Richardson (as Mrs. Santa), Kathy Bates as "Mom" Claus, all vamping, waiting for the movie to become better. And it doesn't.

Maybe next Christmas, kids.* Maybe instead of saving Christmas, someone should try to save the Christmas Movie.

"Fred Claus" is a cable-watcher, but I have a better time in Mall-traffic.

* Okay, there is one scene that works. Fred decides to go to a support group for "overshadowed" brothers, and among them is Frank Stallone, Roger Clinton, and Billy Baldwin. That scene is genuinely funny, as the 'brothers" gamely mock themselves.

** Doesn't all this turning of childhood fantasy into a corporate metaphor a little creepy? Saving Christmas, Pshaw! How about saving childhood?

Tossing the Dice

Today, the links are highlighted. They're all parts of the story.

First off, today is Pearl Harbor Day--a not-insignificant date in the life of my family, as regular readers *of this blog know.

The echoes of that event have reverberated down through time, and the memory of it resulted in this story, which was the first spark for my returning to the "QWERTYUIOP" keys to write again.

But every spark has to have a generator and that was Mr. Jeff Hoyt who, one day in a mass e-mailing, asked for stories with lessons learned for a class he was auditing. He took that piece and made it part of a collection called "Memory Song." "I want to do something with that thing of yours," he said last year, and a couple of weeks ago, he stumbled onto this blog through the vibrating strings of the Intra-web, and decided, "Now's the time."

You can peruse that story (Now called "From Mom to Mary," and any number of Jeff's brilliant little pieces) on his Pod-Cast Central "Hoytus Interruptus." It should be "up," starting today.

But another story about my Mom and Dad, and Pearl Harbor, and War, and the sacrifices and the courage that Life takes.

When Pearl Harbor "happened," my Mom (Mary) was living at home with her folks. Her Father was a former Sheriff of King County, and once had run unsuccessfully for Governor. He served as sheriff during a time of bootleggers and corruption that is now quaintly looked on as Seattle's "colorful" past. My grandfather had a reputation for implacable honesty, which was tough to do in those times in the Seattle PD. He was not a glad-hander, a panderer, a slick operator, or an easy mark, but he was a stubborn man--a determined man, and he expected the same integrity from his children. He was a strict disciplinarian. He and my Grandmother had six kids that survived the ravages of childhood disease--one son, Buddy, never made it past three--and he made sure that the Survivors toed the line, and would not bring Scandal and Dishonor to the reputation that his incorruptibility fought against for so many hard years.

Mary was working as a fashion-buyer at Frederick and Nelson downtown. She met John (my Father) through the urgings of his twin sisters, Katherine and Marybeth, who were models at the store. Their first date was to see "Fantasia," (Mary's first words upon seeing John at the door were "You don't look anything like the girls!"-- which is not an auspicious beginning) and when my father asked Mary how she liked it, she tartly replied, "Well, I saw it already last week." With another guy. With better prospects.

His twin sisters were waiting up for a report on how their little match-making escapade went. "Didja kiss her?" they wanted to know. "No," he said quietly. "But I'm going to marry her."

Sounds just like my Father.

This is the story of how they got married.

Mary was home. John was at Pearl. My grandfather heard the news of the attack over the radio and had to break it to her. What must have it been like to hear that the country had suffered a terrible attack with so many casualties, so many dead, and know that your fiancee was right in the middle of it? What must that have done to someone? And she wouldn't hear from him for days. A black-out had occurred, security was tight in Hawaii, and within days Roosevelt had declared war. World War. But where was John? News wouldn't come for quite awhile, and when it did it came in the form of a post-card, with few options to be checked off. "I am well." "I am injured and in hospital." He had checked off "I am well." One check-mark. That was all she got. That's all he was allowed to make. A scratch of life. And the only hope. Not much to go on.

But soon they were writing. John couldn't say much, but at one point, he said he would be getting leave in San Francisco, and they should get married while they could. Mary agreed.

Her family thought she was nuts. Get married in war-time, while he's in the service in the Pacific? Insane! Stupid! Throwing your life away! She got all that. Probably said it a couple times to herself, but she was determined to go to San Francisco. And if there were any doubts about her father's views on the subject, they were answered when he wouldn't accompany her to the train station. Her mother, dutifully, saw her off. Her father stayed home, for all the good it did.

And she went by herself to San Francisco. Along with all the other service-wives with their infant children, to greet the ships when they came to port, to see their husbands, their fathers--to catch a glimpse of them before they returned to the war from which many of them wouldn't return. She took the trip alone. Without the blessing of her parents. And she helped with babies, and talked with the wives. She was surrounded by the possibilities of her choice the whole way and knew, they all knew, that they were rolling dice taking a chance on the future when war was chewing it up.

She said it was all worth it when she saw John. They made arrangements to be married in between church services at a local parish, and Mary stayed with John's fabled Aunt Marie. On the day of the wedding, traffic was bad and Mary was late for the service. When she got there, with John and the priest and the early-birds for the next Mass, he looked at her in terror and said, "What, are you trying to kill me?" which is a rather ironic thing to say, considering.

They got married. That's them, up at the top of the page on the day of their wedding, photo by Aunt Marie. Eventually, John returned to the war. Mary took the train back to Seattle, to wait for him and for the war to end...for Fate to play out.

Don't we all?


* Are there regular readers? Really?