chowjoe

This started out so well. Ethan Hawke gives his mission statement, shows some beautifully restored movie excerpts and I actually didn't mind the voice acting of his fellow thespians. Paul Newman is so much more significant a player in my mind than George Clooney that I didn't peg the latter as himself but rather a reasonable voice facsimile of the legendary star, much as Laura Linney was an acceptable stand-in for Joanne Woodward.

And the first couple of episodes were great because you really see how great Woodward was right off the bat (Three Faces Of Eve, The Fugitive Kind) and how Newman was gradually coming into his own as well (The Hustler, Hud). But then the Zoom clips started to pile up and grate - Vincent D'Onofrio's retch-inducing explication of Method was an early warning sign. And one couldn't help noticing the drastic flip-flop of video quality jumping from the beautifully restored movie clips to the Zoom moments, although the latter adequately represents participation from the Newman family. Still any self-respecting, self-editing director would've known when to hit the stop button. But not Hawke. By the last couple of episodes, I wanted to throw things at my TV every time he showed up.

And yes the music. How dare they insert some annoying folkie guitar fingering into Newman's brilliant summation scene at the end of The Verdict? And God only knows you don't need to ram the Beach Boys down our throats while showing the climactic garage scene at the end of Mr. And Mrs. Bridge. Especially while summing up the stars' lives with onscreen text at the same time.

I can only assume that Hawke doesn't have the patience or thoughtfulness or sense of perfectionism to see the project through from beginning to end, and left music supervision to the usual hacks today that are so ignorant as to screw up something so obvious and simple instead of leaving well enough alone.

This gets 4 stars out of 10 just in case younger, uninitiated viewers happen to watch some of this and get turned on to many of the amazing titles featured in the course of the 6 hours. A significant number of them are available to stream on YouTube, Classic Reel and HBO Max.

What a missed opportunity!

I'm old. My favorite movie musical is MY FAIR LADY, not because of the music, a lot of which was memorable, but because of the exquisite production values, the great lead performances and the play upon which the musical is based - PYGMALION, one of the greatest pieces of writing in (and about) the English language.

So now we have the film version of IN THE HEIGHTS. I never saw the original stage production, so I have nothing to compare it to. I did see the "movie" version of HAMILTON, which was very impressive, although I was a little bothered by what I thought was Lin Manuel Miranda's limited melodic vocabulary. This is again evident with his score for ITH. After spending 140 minutes watching this production, I fail to remember a single tune or even line of lyric. Every song was big, vibrant but...ehh. Was there even a tune sung in a minor key? Was there anything acoustically pared down that projected a sense of intimacy, even for intimate scenes? I'm afraid not. As typical of today's Broadway, there was a sameness to the vocal performances and even performers' voices. If I closed my eyes, I wouldn't be able to tell any of the singers apart, aside from whether it was male or female. Even the abuela character in her solo number sounded young and brash rather than wise and soulful.

A number of songs were well staged. I especially liked one where Benny and Nina are dancing on the side of the building (an homage to ROYAL WEDDING?). But all in all, I found the whole thing lacking in substance. There was almost no conflict in the story. I don't get why all the critics are falling over themselves in praise of this mildly passable entertainment in which nothing and no one really stands out. Then again, LA LA LAND was no great shakes either. Hope Spielberg does better with WEST SIDE STORY, though I'm not holding my breath.

I just watched the Dragon Dynasty DVD release of this movie that I'd last seen over 40 years ago as an impressionable pre-teen in Hong Kong. The restoration is quite stunning. The colors are vibrant and the print is mostly scratch-free. You also get to appreciate how director Chang Cheh in the late 60s/early 70s was a cut-above-the-rest storyteller with his camera placement and some fluid tracking shots, thereby transcending a lot of the hackneyed scripting, stilted acting and the studio-bound sets. However, I also took exception to the fact that the DVD did not contain commentary by Quentin Tarantino as promised by the box notes, and the 2 "film students" who did provide commentary left a lot to be desired. Surely Tarantino would have remarked upon the fact that the most noticeable parts of the musical score (including the entire end title scene) was lifted lock, stock and barrel from the 1966 Ralph Nelson western DUEL AT DIABLO. (Composer Neal Hefti's estate should sue!) And at another dramatic moment, a very familiar John Barry suspense motif from the Connery Bond films makes a 3-second appearance. It's really pathetic that these "film scholars" completely missed these cultural touchstones that make Hong Kong movies from this era such crazy-quilt pleasures.