C+

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Video posted on by moviebloke

(UK/USA 1975)

“I, Robert Sabetto,
Pledge allegiance
To the lips
Of The Rocky Horror Picture Show
And to the decadence
For which it stands
One movie, under Richard O’Brien
With sensuous daydreams, erotic nightmares, and sins of the flesh for all.”

—The Rocky Pledge of Allegiance

Through high school and into college, a sure bet on a Saturday night was that two films would be playing at midnight: Pink Floyd’s The Wall and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Every. Damned. Weekend. In the case of Rocky Horror, it’s no wonder: dressing up, shouting at the screen, throwing shit around the theater, and acting and singing along to the movie is more fun than a burlesque science fiction gothic drag hoedown—essentially what it was. At some point during the ’90s, it stopped. I couldn’t resist catching Rocky Horror again with a group of friends when it played at a theater near me.

A movie version of Riff-Raff/Richard O’Brien’s stage musical, the story is silly—stupid, even: a newlywed couple, Brad Majors (Barry Bostwick) and Janet Weiss (Susan Sarandon), are forced off the road during a rainstorm. I love that Janet reads The Plain Dealer in the car. Anyway, they end up at the castle of mad scientist Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry)—he’s just a sweet transvestite from transsexual Transylvania—who’s about to unveil his newest creation that took him just seven days to make: Rocky (Peter Hinwood), a gorgeous tan man with muscles and tight gold shorts. A strange journey of an evening tinged with sexual tension, motorcycles, and music and dance ensues.

The characters and costumes are iconic, and the songs are a campy blast. Watching it this time, I picked up on a sexy overtone that I was kind of surprised to see it retains. Bostwick exudes an adorably dorky charm that I’ve always liked. It’s impossible to picture anyone but Curry as Frank-N-Furter, but Mick Jagger was after the role (http://www.broadway.com/buzz/171159/happy-birthday-dear-rocky-38-freaky-facts-about-the-rocky-horror-picture-show/). Meat Loaf makes for an interesting cast member. And who doesn’t love Magenta (Patricia Quinn)?

The Rocky Horror Picture Show bombed when it was originally released, but an astute marketing person recognized its potential in a different format—the rest is history. It’s an okay movie, but what goes along with it makes it a truly unique experience. Audience participation is a concept created here, and nothing else ever will be—or can be—quite the same.

In 2005, the United States Library of Congress deemed The Rocky Horror Picture Show “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry (https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/).

101 minutes
Rated R

(Music Box) C+

http://www.rockyhorror.com

 

IMG_7175

Akron

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2015)

Kudos to screenwriter and codirector Brian O’Donnell for his first film, Akron. After a great setup, he throws in a crazy plot twist and completely changes the trajectory of the story: what starts out as a sweet, almost too cute romance turns into something weird, dark, and potentially calamitous. The drama here slowly simmers to a boil and starts to bubble over. O’Donnell treats a gay relationship as incidental and not something strange; it’s a given from the outset. Plus, he makes the city of Akron a major character without becoming a cheerleader.

Benny (Matthew Frias), a student at the University of Akron, meets another student, Christopher (Edmund Donovan), at a pick up football game. They start dating, and Christopher invites Benny on a road trip to Florida to meet his mother (Amy da Luz) over sping break. While waiting for him on the morning they head out, Benny’s mother (Andrea Burns) mentions to Christopher that Benny had an older brother who died when they were both kids. Christopher realizes that he and his mother are connected to the tragedy.

As much as I liked Akron—and there is quite a bit here to like—it has problems. The opening scene, which takes place a decade or more before the story, is confusing; no hints are given to tip us off that we are in the past. The scene is shot in a grocery store parking lot with current cars and license plates. It threw me off, and it took me awhile to realize that this scene occurred a long time ago. It’s a critical piece of the story, so it should have been done more carefully. For the most part, the acting is good; however, Benny’s mother is a Latina-lite Stepford wife who ultimately comes off as one-dimensional caricature rather than a fully developed character. Burns overdoes the doting mom thing. Particularly annoying is her peppering her speech with basic Spanish words that everyone knows; it doesn’t ring authentic because she’s whiter than Christopher. Sadly, the story fizzles in the end; the resolution is too fast and too neat, and some of the characters—especially Benny’s father (Joseph Melendez) and sister (Isabel Rose Machado)—get lost in the melodrama. I could have done without the sensitive folky score.

Akron isn’t a bad film. It could’ve been a lot more interesting, though—it certainly has the elements. It ultimately doesn’t meet is potential.

(Akron-Summit County Public Library) C+

Cleveland International Film Festival

http://www.akronthefilm.com

Hello, My Name Is Doris

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2015)

The title evokes in my mind the song “My Name Is Jonas,” but even Weezer is probably too hip for Doris Miller (Sally Field), a sixty-something kooky cat lady who works in the fashion industry—not as a creative but a clerk in a cube, a job she’s held for decades. She develops a crush on the office’s new art director, thirty-something John Fremont (Max Greenfield), after a crowded ride in an elevator. When a self-help speaker (Peter Gallagher) convinces her that anything is possible, Doris decides to pursue John despite their age difference. Naturally, nothing pans out as she wants or expects—mostly because Doris misinterprets things and can’t quite deal with mixed signals. Her crush gets more intense as she gets closer to John. Is this really getting somewhere?

Written by Laura Terruso and director Michael Showalter, Hello, My Name is Doris is a cute if scattered “feel good” movie that really shouldn’t work. First, the story is not believable. I don’t mean an older woman falling for a younger man—the turns that the story takes are what ring fake. The situations are so far-fetched they’re downright inane. The business with electronic music star Baby Goya (Jack Antonoff), for example, is an eyeroller. The clothes Doris wears are out there, and not in a good way. Second, the film is loaded with one cliché after another—old people having problems with technology, silly hipsters being pretentious, superficial electronic dance music gags, Staten Island lacking culture, crazy cat lady hoarding stuff. The film’s biggest sin, though, is its predictability. From the outset, you know her cringeworthy actions are going to backfire on Doris. It doesn’t take much to see where this story is headed.

Despite a weak, aimless script that gives shallow treatment to its subject and its characters, Hello, My Name Is Doris works largely due to Field, who almost single-handedly elevates it to something meaningful. She pours a lot into Doris, giving her dimension: she’s eager, excited, nervous, vulnerable, even relatable. Field accomplishes this not so much through her lines but rather through her delivery, verbal and physical. She’s great to watch here. She and Greenfield create a chemistry that succeeds. The fantasy sequences are the best parts of the film, and there’s some great physical comedy here. Tyne Daley as gruff Roz brings pizzazz to every scene she’s in.

Hello, My Name Is Doris definitely has its problems. They’re not so severe that they ruin the film, though. I enjoyed it for what it is: an offbeat sort-of romantic comedy.

(ArcLight) C+

http://www.hellomynameisdorismovie.com/#trailer

 

Cleopatra

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1963)

Joseph Mankiewicz’s Cleopatra takes me back to high school Latin class, where I saw it the first time. One of the most expensive movies ever made—adjusted for inflation, its budget of $44 million amounts to roughly $336 million today (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056937/trivia?ref_=tt_trv_trv)—Cleopatra is a straightforward albeit very glamorous and maybe not entirely accurate history lesson. Everything about it, like ancient Rome, is impressive, excessive, and just plain epic. The characters are practically real-life deities, and the actors who play them—Elizabeth Taylor (Cleopatra), Richard Burton (Mark Antony), Rex Harrison (Julius Caesar)—are legendary. The sets are huge and overwhelming. Watching Cleopatra is a luscious Technicolor orgy for the eyes.

Is it a good movie? It kept me engaged, at least what I stuck around for (see next paragraph). Taylor injects her wry wit into Cleopatra. It’s fun and weird to see Carroll O’Connor (i.e., Archie Bunker) as a Roman senator. All that said, though, Cleopatra is not exactly entertaining.

Speaking of Latin class, Cleopatra was parsed out over a week, so it didn’t seem as long as it is: over four hours—edited from its original plan of six hours! Even the trailer is long. Fuck. Sadly, it’s too much for a school night. I left during intermission after the first segment—Julius Caesar and Cleopatra—and that is still longer than most movies today. For the record, I’m not counting this in my official tally because I didn’t stay for the whole thing. Et tu?

(Music Box) C+

Music Box Theatre 70mm Festival

Little Miss Marker [The Girl in Pawn]

Link posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1934)

Poor Marthy “Marky” Jane (Shirley Temple)—she’s five years old and has no idea what she’s just gotten into. For what seemed a sure bet on a horse race, her father (Edward Earle) leaves her as collateral—a “marker”—with a group of gangsters. He loses his bet and doesn’t come back, leaving cute little Marky, who has a thing for King Arthur, in the hands of Sorrowful Jones (Adolphe Menjou), a bookie, who plans to drop her off at the nearest police station. When Marky serves as an unwitting vehicle to a scam involving the horse of ringleader Big Steve (Adolphe Menjou), Sorrowful has no choice but to keep her around. He enlists the assistance of fellow hoods Regret (Lynne Overman), Sore Toe (Warren Hymer), Benny (Sam Hardy), Canvas Back (John Kelly), and Big Steve’s girlfirend, sassy jazz singer Bangles Carson (Dorothy Dell), in caring for the girl.

Big shock: Marky grows on all of them, softening their hard, criminal hearts with her sweetness and light. Sorrowful reads Marky bedtime stories, pays for a new wardrobe for her that Bangles picks out, and even teaches her how to pray. Bangles sings a duet with Marky—a great number called “Laugh, You Son of a Gun”— and tucks her in at night. Sadly, their rough edges and shady ways soon rub off on Marky, turning her into a “bad girl.” How can they save her innocence?

Little Miss Marker was Temple’s first starring role in a major motion picture, and it was a hit. Despite its dips into heavy handed morality, it’s a cute story that kept me engaged. It’s gritty, bawdy, and maintains a kind of cynical comedy that ultimately pulls at the heartstrings. Translation: it gets sappy at the end. Little Miss Marker reflects its time: it feels like a Prohibition/Depression Era film, which it is (Prohibition ended the year before). Marky is an orphan in the big city, and she works her cuteness to get her from rags to comfort if not necessarily riches. The accents are affected in that overdone, early “talkies” way. Crime and sex are part of the story, and I had the fortune to see it as part of a lecture series during which it was pointed out that the film is rife with undertones of pedophilia. Um, hello: Temple runs around in tiny shorts that nearly expose her cooter, she climbs all over the men and talks to them in a weird manipulative way, and in one scene she coyly removes her underwear beneath a bathrobe in front of Sorrowful before slipping into his bed, leaving him to sleep alone on a chair—with a bad case of blue balls, no doubt. Creepy!

In 1998, the United States Library of Congress deemed Little Miss Marker “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry (https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/).

(Gene Siskel Film Center) C+

https://indieflix.com/indie-films/little-miss-marker-38794/

 

Gabo: the Creation of Gabriel García Márquez [Gabo, la creación de Gabriel García Márquez]

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2015)

Despite a misleading title that suggests TMZ-like journalism, Gabo is a decent biography of one of the greatest authors from the Twentieth Century—and probably the best-known Latin American writer, ever. Justin Webster does a thoughtful and thorough job covering García Márquez‘s impressive life from his humble beginnings in Colombia to his lean days in college and his careers as journalist and then Nobel Prize winning author. He touches on major works and even gets into García Márquez‘s politics. Comments from celebrities like Bill Clinton are nice, but the best stuff comes from García Márquez‘s siblings, Aída and Jaime, and his friends.

Warning: those expecting an in-depth discussion of García Márquez‘s literary works or his “magical realism” will be sorely disappointed; Gabo is very much a factual account of the man’s life. It’s not a biography that humanizes its subject, nor does it mirror his work.

(Gener Siskel Film Center) C+

http://www.icarusfilms.com/new2015/gabo.html

 

All the President’s Men

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1976)

Hot off the heels of seeing Spotlight, All the President’s Men seemed an apt choice for another “investigative reporting” drama. And it was; depicting The Washington Post’s historical investigation into Watergate by reporters Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman), I definitely see its influence on Spotlight.

The best movies came out of the Seventies, and I’m aware of the Oscar buzz All the President’s Men created in its day. It’s a good film, don’t get me wrong; it just didn’t keep me glued to the tube to find out what happens next. I found myself more interested in spotting future sitcom stars like Polly Holliday, Valerie Curtin, and Meredith Baxter Birney and mentally ranking Hoffman’s roles from other films I liked better. I also found myself more in awe of the sets– that big, bright, colorful, open, and kind of disheveled newspaper office– than the story. Perhaps I wasn’t as in the mood for this type of drama as I thought I was.

In 2010, the United States Library of Congress deemed All the President’s Men “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry (https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/).

(Home via iTunes) C+

Tab Hunter Confidential

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2015)

Some may find it hard to imagine today, but it wasn’t long ago when being gay was not acceptable in America– not even in “Hollyweird,” as Tab Hunter’s autobiography demonstrates. Tab Hunter Confidential is an interesting and entertaining albeit innocuous slice of what life was once like.

Hunter (real name: Art Kelm) discusses with candor and good humor his rise, fall, and personal life in the closet. He is open but definitely guarded: he treads lightly, ostensibly in the interest of privacy. He’s rather gingerly, too: he doesn’t say he slept with anyone, he says he “went up to his room;” he doesn’t say he dated, he says “we were together.” You get the idea. Appearances from celebrities popular in his day– Debbie Reynolds, Connie Stevens, and Mother Superior Dolores Hart (yes, a starlet turned nun)– round out his story and convey how well-liked he was, and still is.

Co-produced by his partner of three decades, Allan Glaser, Tab Hunter Confidential is not exactly the tell-all the title implies. It shares some great anecdotes and Golden Age Hollywood gossip, but no bombshells. Those seeking salacious details will be disappointed. The many images of young Hunter, however, make up for the lack of sleaze.

(Gene Siskel Film Center) C+

http://www.tabhunterconfidential.com

Nashville

Posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1975)

Nashville has all the elements of a Robert Altman film: a massive ensemble cast of well known actors, a bunch of interconnected subplots under a general overarching story, naturalistic plot development and dialogue, social commentary, sarcasm, humor, sadness, and even a few cameos by celebrities playing themselves. Just like The Player and Prêt-à-Porter much later, Nashville takes on “the industry”—here, country music.

I don’t know much about Grand Ole Opry and I was never a fan of country, but neither matters: Nashville is a hoot to watch. An awful lot of talent is present, but the performances I like best are Gwen Welles as Sueleen Gay, a wannabe star who can’t sing a note to save her life; Shelley Duvall (I didn’t recognize her until the credits rolled) as a skanky roller girl from L.A.; Henry Gibson as an old school George Jones (maybe?) star; Keith Caradine as Tom, a womanizing and opportunistic uber Seventies Kris Kristofferson type; and Lily Tomlin as Linnea, a session backup singer with two deaf sons. Jeff Goldblum has a very minor and silent part—probably one of his earliest. The songs, purportedly written by the actors, are great, arguably the best part of the movie. The ending comes out of left field, which scores big with me for being unpredictable.

Although I enjoyed Nashville, I had some problems with it. Like many Altman films, it’s gratuitously long; two hours and 40 minutes is more than enough time to tell this story. My mind wandered at times, mainly because of the meandering way the action plays out. It’s a lot of work to follow 24 characters. Many of the conversations take place over each other, forcing you to choose which ones to focus on—that gets tiring. The running gag with the BBC reporter (Geraldine Chaplin) goes on too long. I’ve heard some lofty praise for Nashville, some of it warranted. However, it’s not my favorite Altman film by any stretch—if you’re wondering, Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean or the aforementioned The Player are in my humble opinion much more satisfying.

In 1992, the United States Library of Congress deemed Nashville “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry (https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/).

(Music Box) C+

https://www.criterion.com/films/28427-nashville

Sunset Boulevard

Posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1950)

Stars are ageless, aren’t they? I’ve known about Sunset Boulevard my whole life– who hasn’t? I can’t believe it took me so long to see it. Delightfully campy, everything about it is ridiculous: the soap opera story, the narration, the sets– that crazy Addams Family mansion and tacky leopard-lined car, oh my!– the overacting, the facial expressions, and the diction. So off the charts. And of course the cast of crackpot characters– not just Joan Crawford, I mean Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) but Joe Gillis (William Holden), Betty Schaefer (Nancy Olson), Max (Erich Von Stroheim), even the repo men who take their job way too seriously (Larry J. Blake and Charles Dayton). I didn’t know Cecil B. DeMille played himself. The drama of it all!

Hearing famous lines that have become part of everyday vernacular– “I am big, it’s the pictures that got small” and “All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my closeup” in particular– made me giddy. Nonetheless, I doubt I could sit through Sunset Boulevard again; it’s just not that great a film. But it was perfect for a flight to L.A.

In 1989, the United States Library of Congress deemed Sunset Boulevard “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry (https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/).

(Home via iTunes) C+