I Drink Your Blood 

I Eat Your Skin

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The closure of movie theaters this year as a result of The Virus has led to a resurgence in drive-ins. Here’s a first-hand account from this past summer of a mother taking her family to a drive-in. In Queens, a drive-in has been born (with a Brooklyn extension), plus a local diner set up one in Astoria. Others have sprung throughout the tri-state area.

Years ago, I wrote about ways drive-ins could improve, and while my suggestions would be less feasible in the face of a pandemic, I still believe they could work in normal times. As things stand right now, drive-ins are a nice way to retain the traditional theater-going experience.

In the 60s and 70s, drive-ins were repositories for, shall we say, more adventurous cinematic material, the kind that appealed to younger audiences. Horror films were among the more popular genres. 

...Los Angeles City Councilman Mitch O’Farrell unveiled a 90-page concept Thursday [January 30] aimed at creating a less gritty, more welcoming atmosphere for the millions of tourists who visit the Walk of Fame each year. 

The initial proposal draws inspiration from world-class streets across the world, including the Avenue des Champs-Elysees in Paris. That could be achieved in Hollywood, too, the plan says, with wider sidewalks, more shade trees, more space for sidewalk dining — and far less space for drivers.

I haven’t been to Los Angeles. I hope to go one day; the Hollywood Walk of Fame is one of the must-see attractions of the city, a glittering tribute to the men and women who shaped the American film industry. Because I’ve never been there, though, it never occurred to me that for all its glamour and prestige, it’s still part of a street, like any other in LA—two of them, in this case: Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street. And like many big city streets in America, it has been engineered with driving private vehicles in mind over everything else.

This proposal to traffic-calm the WOF area and make it more pedestrian-friendly reminds me more than a little of when Times Square underwent a similar change, over a decade ago. It was considered radical at the time, but the end result slowed vehicle traffic and made walking and biking through the area safer and more pleasant, which was a boon to the local businesses. It didn’t take much, either—just paint and some extra chairs.

I believe the same is possible for the WOF area, but there will likely be those who object, who believe it’ll have an adverse effect on traffic and will drive away business. There always are. So let’s look at what Councilman O’Farrell’s plan entails and see how it works in other cities.

Here's something I haven't talked about yet: the Disney/Fox deal. Last month it was approved by the shareholders, and now I gotta believe Disney won't be satisfied until they own all of Hollywood. This is kinda disturbing. Should one studio have this level of power? If it's not a monopoly yet, it's beginning to feel like one.

One wonders what Unca Walt himself would have made of all this. It's a cinch he wouldn't recognize the business he started so long ago. Maybe I'll do a post on him.

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It occurs to me I haven't been to any outdoor movies this summer. This is unusual; it's something I've indulged in for as long as WSW has been around, but not this year.

Meeting Virginia has meant doing different things with my spare time, so there's that. She's actually not a big moviegoer (I had to remind her who Tom Hanks is), and as you've read, we've been doing things like going to plays and concerts instead.

I don't mind; she's exposed me to new stuff I wouldn't have known of before, and being with her has been more than worth it, even if the play or concert bored me on occasion.

Perhaps going to outdoor movies was a way to occupy my time in the absence of someone like her in my life. Don't know — but I find I haven't missed them much. Hope you haven't either.

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So Spock is gonna appear in Discovery; this does not surprise me in the slightest. As soon as I saw in the first half of the pilot that Cmdr. Burnham was raised on Vulcan and conveniently knew Sarek, I knew it was only a matter of time before they figured out a way to work Spock into the series. That's not what I wanna talk about.

I read the news on a Star Trek Facebook group. I'm not part of the group; I was just lurking. Ever since I chose not to subscribe to CBS All Access to watch Discovery, I've shied away from the fan groups, blogs, and news sites because I knew Discovery would be a big part of their coverage. I looked at this group, though, because I missed being part of the fandom.

The Trek canon (not owned by Disney) is growing, and will continue to grow in the near future —maybe not in all the ways I want it to, but it is happening. Will it follow the Discovery model and be part of the streaming service? Unless someone says otherwise, I can only assume so, which means I may have to reassess my anti-streaming stance. I know I said Trek fandom no longer needs to rely on CBS or Paramount, but things have changed in a big way since then. Maybe I need to get with the times?

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Starting to pick up a little around here; we got some more blogathons scheduled for the coming months, and some good-looking movies are on deck. Hope you'll stick around.

Links after the jump.

Sabrina (1954)
seen @ Bryant Park Summer Film Festival, Bryant Park, New York NY

I had always thought of Sabrina as a romantic comedy, but there's not a lot of comedy in the movie. For the most part, it plays like a straight love triangle story: very wistful, very angsty. Audrey pines for Holden, Bogey pines for Audrey. Why was it that Audrey's romantic leads were always so much older: Bogey, Peck, Cooper, Grant? I would've liked to have seen her with someone like Monty Clift, or Warren Beatty - but so it goes.

I find it a little hard to believe Audrey could be so dead set against going to Paris in the beginning, although it's not so much Paris as what it represents: two years away from Holden, living a life she didn't ask for. When she comes back, though, she's a changed woman, in looks and spirit. Old movies were fond of mystifying the City of Lights in this way. 

Andi talks about Paris, and Europe in general, so much. I know she had a boyfriend over there, learned the language, absorbed the culture, but try as I might, it's kinda tricky for me to imagine her as having undergone a Sabrina-like transformation. Maybe it's because I met her later in life, after she had readjusted to living in America again; maybe it's because she strikes me as more of a traditional, working class Noo Yawker than Sabrina - who for all of the class differences espoused in the movie between her and the Larrabee brothers, still can't help being Audrey Hepburn!


I was about the same age as Sabrina when I went to Barcelona, but that was for only a month. If I had spent two years there, I imagine I'd be quite different. The one year I spent in Ohio changed me enough! Europe, though... We Americans fought a revolution to liberate ourselves from it and in a way, we've been longing to return to it ever since, in one form or another.


I went to Bryant Park to see Sabrina, although watching an outdoor movie there is not the best experience in the world, because I really wanted to watch this movie again. As before, I noticed a number of people videotaping scenes on their cell phones. Why? Is it only because it's an outdoor movie? If they were inside a theater, it would be a crime (I'm not entirely sure this is all that legal, either). What do they do with these recordings, besides post them on social media?


I can understand using your cell to record a minute or two of a concert. While that's probably illegal too, I get that it's a live, unique experience that can never be perfectly duplicated and some people want to preserve that moment. A movie isn't live, though. Granted, the novelty of a movie shown outdoors is special, but the movie itself is no different than if you were watching it on DVD at home. I could even get behind taking a photo of the outdoor screen to show that, y'know, you were there - but recording a minute or two of the film on video makes no sense to me.

I watched it on the rear perimeter of the lawn, standing up. I had a seat on the left-hand side of the perimeter, but by the time the movie started, too many people were standing in my line of sight; plus, too many others were coming and going in front of me. I think I may opt to stand at Bryant Park for a movie from now on. I had no obstructed views, and it kept me awake.

20 Feet From Stardom
seen @ Herbert von King Park, Brooklyn NY


20 Feet From Stardom was one of those movies that got away from me at first. I remember when it came out; I told myself I would see it for sure, but I never did. Either I was short of cash or it came and went in a hurry; I don't recall. I was pleased to get a second chance at it last weekend as a free outdoor movie.


Stardom is the Oscar-winning documentary about backup singers throughout rock history. They sing the parts of songs that are always fun and easy to sing along with: the shoo-bee-doo-bee-doos, the ram-a-lam-a-ding-dongs. We may not be able to sing like Aretha Franklin, for example, but we can always do the "re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-spect JUST A LITTLE BIT!" part, whether we're in the shower or the car or in Aisle 6 reaching for the can of corn.

Among the many singers interviewed, including superstars like Jagger and Springsteen and Stevie Wonder, the best-known of the backup singers is probably Darlene Love, who sang with many of the big names of the 50s and 60s. The songs on which she sang lead were not credited as such for a long time. She talks about her struggles with uber-producer Phil Spector, as well as the events that led to her solo career and greater recognition, in and out of music (she was Danny Glover's wife in the Lethal Weapon movies).

Darlene Love

We get to meet other singers, mostly black, mostly female. Things changed for them when they were encouraged, and more to the point, allowed to sing the way they knew how, the way they were used to singing all their lives as opposed to simply filling in the spaces between the lyrics. Rock stars like the Stones, Bowie, Lynyrd Skynyrd, put them on their records, brought them on tour, made them more in-demand. Why didn't these singers become stars in their own right? The movie suggests there's no one answer - but they have no regrets. (Seeing this made me wish, not for the first time, that more black people made rock music today - and that radio would play them - but that's another post.)

Naturally, I thought of my sister Lynne as I watched this, though in her case, it's different. She's the lead singer of a band, one that has been her support structure for years as they play around New York. Her husband is part of that band. As far as I know, she hasn't tried being a backup singer for anybody. Still, the theme of pursuing a career in the field, gaining recognition, resonates.

Lisa Fischer

I think Lynne is a great singer, but she kinda got a late start in going for a career, and in a field that values youth so highly, I think it's fair to say the odds of ever hearing her on the radio one day are long. I think if she did nothing but play bars and clubs with her band for the rest of her life, though, she'd be okay with that. She enjoys the music so much; always has. I think that's what matters most - and Stardom suggests that's the best way to be.

This was the first outdoor movie of the season for me. Von King Park is deep within a part of Brooklyn with which I was unfamiliar. It was a warm summer night, with lots of people having cookouts and playing music and kids roaming freely - but with few people actually watching the movie.

Merry Clayton

The inflatable screen was set up on a largish lawn area. I came without a blanket to lie on (I forgot) and I was concerned my spot would get eaten up by the encroaching audience, like it would if I were at, say, Brooklyn Bridge Park. In fact, the crowd was so sparse, there was room for kids to play catch with a small dog and to kick a soccer ball around. This went on behind me for the most part, though the dog trampled my leg once while running.

If the surrounding park-goers had any interest in the movie, they didn't show it. Far behind me, music (modern hip-hop, of course) continued to play, though the movie was loud and clear enough that it wasn't a problem. With the Fourth of July just around the corner, at one point fireworks went off behind the screen. You'd think a free movie prominently featuring black people would attract more interest in what looked like a mostly-black neighborhood. I dunno. I'm just glad it didn't rain.

So the most eagerly awaited movie-going moment of the year for me - the grand opening of the Alamo Drafthouse in Brooklyn - turned out to be less than I had hoped due to the high cost of the theater, at least in comparison to its Yonkers location. I'd be willing to go back there, but it would have to be for something super-special, not on a semi-regular basis as I had hoped. Still, all movie lovers should see a movie at the Alamo at least once. I have no problem recommending it to the uninitiated. Just be prepared to unload some dough.

At any rate, I still had some wonderful moments seeing movies at other venues this year. And here are the best:


5. Spaceballs at Syndicated Bar. Other venues are starting to replicate the Alamo experience, and Syndicated, also in Brooklyn, is one of them. It's a repertory house and not a first-run, but I enjoyed their food and drink, their seats are very comfortable, and they're a whole lot cheaper. Seeing a great movie like Spaceballs with my friend Alicia was the icing on the cake. I hope to go back there this year.


4. Lust for Life on video at Vija's place. If for no other reason than seeing her cat and Chris' dog interact, which was pretty funny. It would've been nicer to have had a DVD that didn't act up, too, but the company and the food more than made up for that. Also, Vija didn't find the DVD at first. I had told her that was okay, I'd watch something else, but she kept on looking until she found an available copy. This is why she has been my friend for over twenty years. I'm so lucky to have her in my life.


3. Nosferatu/Dracula's Daughter at the Loews Jersey City. With Aurora, no less! Halloween at the Loews is always a special time. This wasn't on October 31 exactly, but it was close enough for another huge crowd to turn out for this sweet vampire twin bill.


2. Run Lola Run at Prospect Park. In case it wasn't apparent, none of the versions of the story I told about seeing this movie at Celebrate Brooklyn was 100% accurate. I was aping the storytelling style of the movie itself. The stuff about the music - the musical guest, Joan as Police Woman, and the band live-scoring the film, The Bays - that was true. Most of the time, CB makes excellent choices with the films they show, and this was no exception.


1. Star Trek Beyond in New Paltz with Bibi & Eric. Yeah, this is a pretty easy choice. A Trek movie, during the 50th anniversary year, in a slightly peculiar-shaped theater, outside of NYC, with two of my favorite people in the world. It simply does not get any better than this. And I got to hang out with them three times last year! Highly unusual for us. What luck!

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Previously:
2015 top five
2014 top five
2013 top five
2012 top five
2011 top five

Run Lola Run
seen @ Celebrate Brooklyn, Prospect Park, Brooklyn NY

This is a story.

Last Thursday I went to Prospect Park's Celebrate Brooklyn festival to see the German movie Run Lola Run. I took the G train. A street musician entered the subway car at the Carroll Street station. He had a violin. Right before he began to play, though, he sat down, holding his stomach. Then he threw up onto an AM New York someone left on the floor.

A pair of guys who looked like they were a couple came over to the musician. They propped his feet up. I heard one of them say he was a med student. He asked the musician questions about his health, who he was, that sort of thing. At the Smith/9th Streets station, the med student's boyfriend ran for the conductor, and sure enough, the train was delayed. There was nothing I could do for the guy, and the med student looked like he had things under control, so I got out and walked to Prospect Park.

Finding Nemo
seen @ Fort Greene Park, Fort Greene, Brooklyn NY

Finding Dory
seen @ Movieworld, Douglaston, Queens

It had been a long time since I had last seen Finding Nemo, and with the sequel, Finding Dory, due soon, I figured it was a good time to revisit this film. The Alamo Drafthouse sponsored the outdoor screening of the former at Fort Greene Park, which made sense, since the theater chain is opening a new location a short distance away in the downtown Brooklyn area.

I've written about Fort Greene before, but not about its park. It's largish; its most distinctive feature being the great column at the top, the Prison Ship Martyr's Monument, a Revolutionary War memorial standing 149 feet high. The park is basically one big hill, and it is steep! Scaling the paths leading upward to the top sometimes reminds me of the summer camp I worked at where once, our bunk was atop a similarly steep hill which we had to traverse every day. I suppose the view from high above is worth the effort, but most of the time I don't need to enjoy the view that much. Otherwise, it's a very nice park.

Breathless (A Bout de Souffle)
The Red Balloon
seen @ Flicks on the Green, Central Park, New York NY

Okay, I understand that Jean-Luc Godard is an Important Filmmaker and Breathless is an Important Film. I spent a week writing about the French New Wave several years ago; I know the kind of filmmaking JLG and his peers made was unlike anything that came before, and I recognize that in this movie.

I dug the location shots on the streets of Paris. Combined with the hand-held cinematography, it made the whole thing look very modern. I didn't expect the jump cuts to be used as rapidly as they were in places, but that, too, was clearly a dramatic departure from the way films had been made before, and I can appreciate that. I would not dream of denying JLG his place as a radical director who helped kick-start a cinematic revolution. All that said...

...I hated this movie! First of all, it didn't help that I watched most of Breathless while needing to pee. The clearing in Central Park where the movie was shown somehow neglected to include port-o-potties in its set-up, so I had to hold it in for maybe three-fourths of the movie until I said the hell with it and packed up my blanket and left, so I could find a tree to pee behind. And did I mention how cold it was? I wasn't watching under the best of circumstances...



...but I would've put up with it if I had liked the movie more. Jean-Paul Belmondo's character is an ugly man who thinks he's God's gift to women, when in fact all he does is sponge off of them and use them for sex - and they LET him! This actually made me angry; that chicks, including those in the audience, would find a guy like this "witty" and "charismatic," when in real life he'd be called on his bullshit before he made it to first base. Actually, if the chicks in the audience did think he was funny, maybe his schtick really would work, but any girl who falls for a dude like that is no girl I would want.



Which brings me to Jean Seberg. There's this one long and dull scene in her bedroom with her and Belmondo that stops the film dead in its tracks. All they do is talk about useless crap, and she's constantly beating his grabby hands off her. What does a foxy chick like her see in a shallow, horny Lothario like him? For the life of me, I could not figure it out and after awhile I stopped trying. I fiddled around on my cellphone (which I wouldn't have done if this wasn't an outdoor movie) until the scene mercifully ended. The rest of what I saw before I walked out didn't do much for me either.



The night wasn't a total loss, however. I also got to see a short film I hadn't seen in ages, The Red Balloon. It played in front of Breathless, and boy, was I happy about that. I feel fairly confident in saying this may be the first foreign film I ever saw, and the memory is still strong. I was in grade school, maybe third grade, and we were on a class outing to our local library. We were shown around the place and told how it worked, and then the librarian showed us the movie - which must have been on 8 or 16mm or something like that. Home video was still several years away.

It's an almost-silent short about a kid and a balloon with what appears to be a mind of its own. Looking at it now, it reminds me somewhat of Little Fugitive in that we're following an unsupervised child all over city streets and he doesn't appear to be in grave danger. The streets and alleys of Paris are well put on display in lush Technicolor.

Balloon is one of those kind of tales where the magic of something like a sentient balloon is taken for granted, but that's part of its charm. I know it appealed to me as a kid, and I'm glad to know it still does over thirty years later.

I almost wasn't going to do a Top 5 this year, because I honestly didn't think I had enough to round one out - but then I realized that not every positive movie-going experience has to include something odd or unusual, though this list includes those too. Once again, I was fortunate to have seen some world-class films on the big screen, on celluloid, and those should be acknowledged too. So here you go:


5. Pather Panchali @ Film Forum. I wish I could've seen the rest of the Apu Trilogy at the Forum as well, but I can hardly complain about getting to see the first film in the series, on a big screen. It was as good as I remembered it.

4. Lawrence of Arabia in 70mm at MOMI. It wasn't the greatest movie I've ever seen, but seeing it on a big screen in 70mm was worth the trip - and it certainly increased my appreciation for seeing films on celluloid. Seeing it with an appreciative crowd always helps.


3. Son of the Sheik with the Alloy Orchestra at Celebrate Brooklyn. One thing I never mentioned about that summer night in Prospect Park is that after the movie, I happened to run into my old girlfriend as I was about to leave the ampitheater. It was totally unexpected; I didn't think she had any interest in old movies in general, much less silent movies, but she was there with a friend of hers, talking to some other people, and she was pleasantly surprised to see me, to say the least. The three of us hung out at a nearby bar afterward. It was the first time I had ever bought her a drink - strange experience, that. I had never seen her imbibe before. But it was a nice way to end a terrific evening.


2. Being at the Loew's Jersey City the night FOL won their court case. This is perhaps a bit of a cheat: being there was actually kind of anti-climactic given that I had found out the news while I was still in Hoboken, earlier in the day - but it was part of that thrilling eight hours or so where I was constantly on my cellphone, searching for news articles and updating my blog as I learned more about the story. It was fun to act like a real journalist for that day, especially when it involved a story I cared about. And even if this wasn't an "exclusive," at least I got video footage (however grainy) of the announcement at the theater, so there's that. Without a doubt one of the best moments in the history of this blog.



1. First-run movies returning to Forest Hills' Cinemart with American Sniper. If you saw my supplemental Tumblr blog, you might remember when I wrote about this from wa-a-a-a-a-y back in January: the Cinemart Fiveplex in Forest Hills, a second-run theater for years, resumed showing first-run movies with the release of American Sniper, and in so doing, gave their 90-year-old cinema a shot in the arm. It was quite exciting, in a small-scale way, to have been part of the festivities, and naturally, I'm pleased to see a neighborhood theater continue to thrive amidst the multiplex chains. I went back there this month to see Spotlight, and they look like they're still doing well.



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Previously:
2014 top five
2013 top five
2012 top five
2011 top five

Raging Bull
seen @ Central Park Conservancy Film Festival, Central Park, New York NY

You certainly don't need me to tell you how great an actor Robert De Niro is, but I haven't talked about him in detail here, so indulge me for a little bit. I don't remember the first movie I saw him in. Might've been The Untouchables. Might've been Midnight Run. Not sure which. I watched both of those movies on cable quite a bit as a kid. The big ones - Taxi Driver, Godfather 2, Mean Streets, and today's subject, Raging Bull - didn't come until later.

Is it possible we take physical transformations in actors for granted these days? Whether it's Christian Bale getting super-skinny for one movie and fat for another, or Nicole Kidman wearing a fake nose or Charlize Theron getting ugly, we may appreciate and celebrate actors who go the extra mile for a role, but it's fair to say that it's not as unusual anymore. It's hardly a new practice - Lon Chaney Sr. was probably the originator for this sort of thing in Hollywood movies - but you look at a movie like Bull and you see De Niro go from being a physically fit boxer in his prime to being fat and bloated in middle age and it still has the ability to amaze after all these years.



One can't talk about De Niro without talking about Martin Scorsese, and indeed, it's remarkable how time and again, the director has been able to summon personifications of the reckless, out-of-control human id in the form of De Niro, his greatest collaborator. De Niro's Jake LaMotta is possessive, ill-tempered and full of himself sometimes, but he's different from the psychotic Travis Bickle in Taxi or the delusional Rupert Pupkin in King of Comedy. And yet the essential De Niro is recognizable from role to role. He's not like, say, Johnny Depp, who can disappear into a role, but that's okay. It's what makes him De Niro.


De Niro has gotten some flack in recent years for appearing in movies that would seem to be beneath him, but honestly, how many roles like Jake LaMotta are out there? More to the point, how many movies with characters like Jake LaMotta are being made by Hollywood these days? Not that the past fifteen years have been a total wasteland: of the ones I've seen, the original Meet the Parents was funny (can't speak for the sequels); and he was quite good in Silver Linings Playbook. Plus he had that cameo in American Hustle.




Bull looks like an Old Hollywood film, and not just because it's in black and white. Certain camera movements and compositions Scorsese makes throughout the film give it an old-school kind of feel to it. I've thought about whether or not Scorsese has an identifiable visual style. I think he does, but it's hard for me to pin down exactly. Bull looks different from GoodFellas, which looks different from The Wolf of Wall Street, but I think they all "feel" like his films to a certain extent. I dunno. I'd have to look at a bunch of his films all in a row to describe it better.

I saw Bull with John and Sue in Central Park. I had been there for movies before, but I had forgotten how much pre-show activity there was. There was a trivia contest, and some annoying local TV sports newscaster, all of which I could've done without. There was someone there from the Museum of the Moving Image, however. That wasn't so bad. Anything to promote Queens, after all.

Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
seen @ "Movies With a View" @ Brooklyn Bridge Park, Brooklyn NY

If I were to pick one word to describe the films of Stanley Kubrick, I would pick "tense." Even in a comedy like Dr. Strangelove, there's a palpable sense of tension that Kubrick always knew how to generate. I've always thought it was the result of his cinematography - the way he framed certain shots and then held them, shooting long takes with minimal cross-cutting. It looks simple, but the way he did it was so distinctive. I'm thinking of the scenes between Sterling Hayden and Peter Sellers in Strangelove; the "Open the pod bay doors, HAL" scene in 2001; the scenes between Jack Nicholson and Danny Lloyd in The Shining, the bathroom scene with Vincent D'Onofrio in Full Metal Jacket, the bedroom scenes with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in Eyes Wide Shut - if you know these films, you probably understand what I'm talking about. You can always spot a Kubrick film.



Kubrick got his start as a photographer, at a very young age, before he became a director. In this random selection of some of his photos, you can see hints of the greatness to come in the field of filmmaking. Like the best photography, they look both spontaneous and posed at the same time. Composition is also key; knowing where to shoot and how to frame the shot is something you have to have an eye for, but it also has to be well-trained.

I remember taking a photography course in college, back in the prehistoric days before digital photography. Yes, sports fans, I learned how to develop pictures in a darkroom - chemicals, machinery and all, and I remember finding it a wonderful challenge. It was fun going all over Manhattan with my uncle's old Nikon, just snapping shots of anything and everything, and then figuring out how to make them come alive in the darkroom. I paid attention to things like composition and light and shadow, but not too much. I tended to save that for the developing end. 



Of course, photography was an expensive medium back then, particularly for a college kid who was much more of an illustrator than a photographer anyway, so I never stuck with it - and now, these days, anyone with a cellphone can fancy themselves the next Vivian Meier. Indeed, a few of my friends have been experimenting with digital photography through their cellphones, posting their work on their Facebook pages. 

Taking pictures with my phone was, like most of my forays into digital media, something I begun with the most tentative of baby steps - a random shot or two here and there, posted on my page as if they were kindergarten finger paintings. Now I take photos in bunches whenever I go someplace unique. I do wish I were a little better at it - if you've seen some of my film festival photos, you probably wish the same thing - but it's not a priority in my life.



Getting back to Kubrick: like contemporary filmmakers such as Steve McQueen and Andrew Dosunmu, a background in photography served Kubrick well in film. Strangelove is a good example. Some of the most memorable shots include: the wide shot of the war room, with that halo of light shining down on the circular conference table, and the Big Board in the background, makes for a startling and memorable image. This shot of Sellers as Dr. Strangelove looks like a Frank Miller comics illustration. The worm's-eye-view close-up of Hayden as he rants about "purity of essence" emphasizes both his menace and his madness. These shots linger long after one has seen the movie.

Much has been written about Kubrick's meticulous process in not only setting up a shot, but making a movie in general. This epic video highlights his use of one-point perspective, for example. The recent documentary Room 237 goes deeper than deep into the perceived meanings behind The Shining, based on Kubrick's cinematography, set design, and many other subtle cues. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. You can probably count on one hand the number of directors who inspire this level of obsession. Something about Kubrick does, though, probably because he never tried to explain his process in any way. What is it they say about staring too long into an abyss...?



Nothing much to say about seeing Strangelove at Brooklyn Bridge Park. It was a beautiful night, another huge crowd, the usual plethora of bugs (my bug spray did little to fight them off). At one point about a third of the way or so into the film, a great big sailing ship passed behind the inflatable movie screen, slowly making its way up the East River towards the bridge. I should've taken a picture; it was a nice sight.

The Sheik
YouTube viewing

The Son of the Sheik
seen @ Celebrate Brooklyn, Prospect Park, Brooklyn NY

So what was the big deal about Rudolph Valentino? It's hard to imagine how big he was during his brief life as a silent film star, because apparently he was HUGE - like Brad Pitt in his prime, Justin Bieber, Beatles-in-'64 huge. And it's not even like he was that great an actor. Acting was kinda beside the point for someone like him.

In her book Silent Stars, Jeanine Basinger attempts to justify the Valentino madness that seized movie audiences in the 20s:

...Valentino was an ordinary Italian boy from an ordinary background, but when he came to Hollywood and stepped in front of the camera, he took on an air of mystery that fascinated everyone, even those who despised him. Valentino's mysterious quality hinted at several different things; throughout his career, people speculated on whether he was superficial or deep, kind or cruel, stupid or smart, male or female. He might be anything, anything at all. That was his gift and what made him a star.

He goes through most of The Sheik looking like this.

First of all, The Sheik is a lousy damn movie, but not necessarily because of Valentino. Agnes Ayres' character brings everything that happens down on her own head because she is the epitome of privilege. She insults Valentino's Sheik and his entire culture (calling them "savages"), she sneaks into a private gathering of the Sheik and his pals simply because she's insulted that she can't attend, and to top it off, she pulls a gun on the Sheik when she's found out, which in the real world would be cause for an international incident - and all because of her superior, xenophobic attitude. 

But that's not the worst part. Later, after the Sheik has kidnapped her and taken her to his desert hideaway, Stockholm Syndrome sets in and we're meant to feel sorry for her because Sheiky won't admit his love for her. I just found her absolutely repulsive. Oh, and I just LOVE the part near the very end when we discover that Sheiky's not really Arabic after all - he's a Brit who was raised Arabic! Miscegenation is averted! Hooray! Valentino was kinda funny, in an unintentional, campy way, of course - Basinger notes that had he lived to the sound era, he might have found a second life doing comedy.



But let's get back to Ayres' character, Diana. People forget that The Sheik was based on a novel written by a woman, and thus, the Sheik was originally created from a female perspective. Basinger points out that Valentino represented some kind of female fantasy of the time period:

...When Valentino's image is analyzed today, he is usually described as androgynous. However, he is not like a Marlene Dietrich, who clearly understood the term and definitely played with sexuality for a dual appeal. Valentino is from a less knowing, more innocent decade, and his films forthrightly present him as a Latin Lover for women... who wanted to escape the bounds of a constricting society that gave only men sexual freedom. He is not a hip, cutting-edge, bisexual figure but a creature out of a romance novel. He is there to rip bodices.

On the surface, I can buy that, I guess, but Diana doesn't come across as repressed. Early on, she turns down a marriage proposal because she calls marriage "the end of independence," and Eurocentric imperialist attitude aside, she's no Victorian prude; she defies her brother's wishes by making an expedition into the desert with only a local to guide her and has no fear of what may happen to her. The way the Sheik is presented, it's as if he's there to teach her a lesson, to restrain her in some manner, which would seem to be at odds with the purposes of the Diana character. At least, that's how I saw it.



The Son of the Sheik was similar, yet it was pretty different as well. For one thing, Vilma Banky was sexier. For another, it's more of an action film than the first Sheik - there are way more fight scenes. I knew Valentino played both Sheik and Sheik Junior, but I didn't realize until I saw it how big a role the former would be. I suppose Original Sheik kinda seems like the same character, though without having seen him through the passage of time, it's hard to tell - even with the brief flashback to the first movie. And the special effect of seeing Valentino, as Sheiky, put his arm around himself, as Junior, was pulled off well.

Junior falls for Banky's character, but he's led to believe that she deceived him in order for him to be captured by the bad guys, but when he demands the truth from her, threatening her life, we can't tell whether she's begging for mercy or insisting that it's a lie and that she always loved him. She's not given a title card to indicate exactly what she's saying, and it looks like she could be going either way. Perhaps this was intentional on the part of the filmmakers, but somehow I doubt it. A movie like this isn't exactly known for its subtle plot turns.



At least I had the music of the Alloy Orchestra to go with Sheik 2. Once again, Celebrate Brooklyn brought their favorite band back to Prospect Park to provide the music for another silent film, and once again, they were marvelous. I sat next to this older couple who were seeing the band for the first time, though they had seen the movie before. They were big film fans. In fact, they run a website where they sell Art Deco paraphernalia, and among their product includes some classic film related material. They gave me a catalog.

The World War I in Classic Film Blogathon observes the centennial of the first World War through the films based on or inspired by it, hosted by Movies Silently and Silent-ology. For a complete list of participating blogs, visit the links at either site.

Grand Illusion
seen @ "Films on the Green Festival," Pier 1, Riverside Park, New York, NY
7.18.14

When I was in college, I took an art class whose specific name I don't remember, but I certainly recall the teacher. Julie was perhaps my favorite college instructor, partly because she was such a cool person, but also because she encouraged us to think outside the box when it came to our art, and to try things we wouldn't ordinarily do.



In the second half of the class, in the spring, our assignment for the whole semester was to make an art book - a booklet of whatever size featuring original artwork which may or may not have a theme. (See here and here for examples.) This was a new concept to me, and though she didn't say otherwise, I thought she meant a graphic novel, so that's what I did. After wracking my brain for ideas, I came up with a story set during World War 1. Why? Like I said, Julie encouraged us to think big. Even though I had never written a war story of any kind before, nor did I have any experience with drawing things like biplanes or tanks or guns (all of which had to be period- and place-specific), I took a shot.

No, I won't go into detail about it because looking back on it now, the end product is pretty damn embarrassing. I will say a few things about it: I lucked out in finding a photo book on WW1 in a used bookstore, which was of tremendous value. Still have it, in fact. I put myself and a bunch of my friends in the story as characters, which they got a kick out of. And Julie liked my finished book (which I bound myself as well) enough to give me a passing grade. Still, if I were to do it again, it would look very different.



The WW1 movies I've seen almost never get into the politics of the conflict. They tend to just plop you down into the middle of the war and assume you understand why it's going on in the first place. World War 2 movies, on the other hand, tend to be different. It's easy to see why Hollywood, and indeed, the European film industry as well, returns to WW2 time and again, even today. For one thing, it's still within living memory for some. More importantly, though, there are clearer-cut good guys and bad guys. When the Pearl Harbor centennial comes around in 2041, I have no doubt that it'll be a major event that every American will reflect on to one degree or another. The generation who grew up with WW1, by contrast, is gone, and the name Franz Ferdinand is arguably better known today as that of a rock band.



Still, the movies we got out of WW1 are good, and few are better than Grand Illusion. For one thing, Erich von Stroheim gets to speak three different languages, which is pretty boss. It may seem quaint, the way it depicts German officers having such respect and even admiration for their French counterparts, even though they're on opposite sides of the conflict, but I think it says something about the common humanity they share. It's so easy to make the enemy out to be unworthy of mercy or sympathy, especially when they come from another culture.

And of course, for those of us removed from the fighting, it's an aspect of military culture we rarely get to see - at least, not while the fighting's still going on. I'm reminded, as I write this, of a documentary that I saw earlier this year, The Second Meeting, in which two soldiers on opposite sides meet in civilian life years after they met in combat. Once again, war is incapable of obscuring the things we all share, on both sides of the battlefield.



It was a huge crowd, or at least it felt like one, at Riverside Park's Pier 1 on the night I saw the movie, back in July. The pier is comparatively skinny, and everyone was seated close together, which certainly made it seem like there was lots of people. They ran out of seats at one point and the latecomers simply sat down on the concrete, maybe 20-30 feet behind the seated audience at least. It wasn't as windy that night as it was last year, when I went there to see Gold Diggers of 1933, but the weather out on the Hudson River was still cool and pleasant.

The woman seated next to me told me that she and her husband (I think he was her husband, anyway) came without knowing what movie was playing. I had to tell her! They were an older couple, perhaps in their 50s or 60s. They had heard that movies were being shown at Riverside and decided to come down for a lark. I had never heard of anybody doing anything like that before, though now that I think about it, I'll bet it may happen more often than I imagine. Still, I thought it was quite a leap of faith on their part. I mean, the movie could've been Manos: The Hands of Fate for all they knew!



She had a bit of a problem seeing the subtitles in the beginning. She switched seats with hubby but that didn't seem to help. I was sitting on the aisle, and I thought about letting her switch with me, but then she whipped out her cell phone and started texting somebody, and as soon as I saw that, I thought, the hell with it. Let her suffer! They both ended up moving forward when space opened up, so I never found out what she thought of the movie. Oh well.

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Other WW1 movies:
Sergeant York
All Quiet on the Western Front
Wings
War Horse