May I offer up this the 1985 SciFi Enemy Mine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_Mine_(film) )? It is an excellent adaptation of Barry B. Longyear’s novella of the same name, Directed by Wolfgang Petersen (of Das Boot fame). It had a low budget (40 Million) and its special effects are well, dated even for 1985. Excellent acting by Dennis Quaid and Louis Gosset as the principals. Bombed at the box office as it was Neither Star Wars, Dune, nor Wrath of Khan.
I would also like to add in the war film department the 1969 film Battle Of Britain . To say the storyline is weak is an understatement (although it is briefly redeemed by Susannah York prancing about in her knickers). The killer here is the aerial fight scenes. These involve LARGE numbers of actual Spitfires, Me109 and Heinkel 111 aircraft (Me109 and Heinkels being part of the Spanish Air Force). They are well scripted and had input from Douglass Baeder and Air Marshall Dowding. It has a G rating but some scenes are almost too realistic and freaked out the 8-year-old me, who dunned my dad into taking me to the movie.
I always thought this was a great short story. What a perfect subject for an easily made mini-movie. No super complicated special effects. Some old clothes and props. I like it.
I watched “Barry Lyndon” for the first time last night. I read that it was one of Stanley Kubrick’s masterpieces. And I do respect Kubrick’s art. But after watching it I realize that a masterpiece can be terrible entertainment.
(Spoiler Alert – Skip down to last paragraph to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)
The movie is the story of the career of Redmond Barry an Irish man who allowed his passions to dictate his fate to a degree that is painful to watch. He gets into a duel over a girl (his cousin) and this forces him to flee his home to avoid legal prosecution and then he joins the British Army during the Seven Years’ War and by deserting his service he ends up in the Prussian Army and after that he becomes first a spy and then a crooked gambler. And finally, he marries a rich English widow and attempts to become part of the nobility. And while attempting this he allows his philandering to alienate his wife and step-son and eventually lands him in a duel with this step-son in which Redmond loses a leg. Along the way his wife presents him with a son of his own and the little boy is tragically killed in a riding accident. He ends his life in exile returning to Europe to attempt to live off his ability to cheat at cards.
If this sounds like a ridiculous plot for a movie, it’s because, it is!
Ryan O’Neal plays Redmond and Kubrick directs the film as a straightforward narrative with very little dialog and only a few scenes that provide much in the way of emotional discovery. What this movie provides is cinematography. Beautiful landscapes, remarkable palaces and estates, perfectly lighted and photographed interior shots; all of the products of a master cinematographer. As a photographer myself I can appreciate the care with which the shots were set up and displayed for the viewer. And the costumes and battle scenes and rural settings are amazing. But that’s all you get. The story moves forward at a glacial pace and there really isn’t anyone in the story (except the six-year-old little boy who dies) that you care about at all. Redmond himself is a selfish, dishonest man. And he is surrounded with mostly the same kinds of people. Who can I recommend this movie to? I guess photographers, cinematographers and diehard fans of Stanley Kubrick. It’s just too slow and empty and bleak for a general audience. It’s visually beautiful and emotionally empty. Sorry.
I wanted to do a movie review. I’ve recorded Barry Lyndon and was going to watch it. But I got home late from work and the movie is three hours long and I thought I might fall asleep before I could write a review of it. So, I’ll wait for a better opportunity.
But it got me thinking about all those lists of the top twenty, fifty, one hundred or two hundred movies of all time. So, I looked at a bunch of lists. Some by leading directors, some by professional critics and some by just regular people.
I was horrified.
So many movies that I know are truly awful get on these lists. It makes you wonder if there can truly be a list of the top twenty movies of all time, never mind the top one hundred. One list from IMDB had, “The Shawshank Redemption” as the second-best movie of all time. It had, “Raging Bull” as the fourth-best. I find both of these rankings impossible. There are literally dozens of movies better than either one of these (in my opinion). By the same token, the list made up by famous directors also had movies listed that I’ve seen that were awful. Any top 100 list that includes, “Eraserhead” needs to be scrutinized very carefully to see if the judges have been using LSD at the time of the survey.
Okay, maybe there is no such thing as an objective list of the best films. But surely there must be a way to write an algorithm that incorporates several criteria to eliminate the worst excesses of either hyper-artistic avant-gardism and knuckle-dragging philistinism and provide a solid dependable list of very good films to look at. I think it can be done.
One thing though. I think it is necessary to divide the list into categories. Comedies, dramas, action-adventure and other genre movies need to be judged separately. It’s too difficult comparing films in different categories against each other. And in a way it’s unhelpful. Someone who hates comedies isn’t going to agree that any comedy can be better than the films he likes. And vice versa.
But for today’s post I’m going to ask the audience to take an active role. Pick one movie that you think has been neglected by critics that deserves to be elevated to a loftier status. And then pick a movie that is hailed by critics or the public as outstanding that in your opinion stinks. If you can only do one or the other, please feel free to provide that. I’m always looking for good movies to watch and I think it will be interesting to hear what movie you think doesn’t deserve the acclaim it currently enjoys.
I’ll start the ball rolling. Hitchcock’s, “Vertigo” always ends up in the top twenty movies according to high-brow critics and top flight directors. I’ve seen it and think it’s terrible. I’m not sure what exactly all the hype is about but it must be the “cinematography.” Something about camera angles. Well, they can keep it.
A movie I think has been overlooked is an earlier Coen Brothers movie, “Miller’s Crossing.” Gabriel Byrne is the protagonist; a gangster named Tom Reagan who works for Leo O’Bannon played enthusiastically by Albert Finney. John Turturro and Steve Buscemi are also part of the cast. True to the Coen Brothers style, there is over the top violence and emotional havoc in all directions but the effect is powerful and very interesting. If you like gangster movies this one is worth a watch.
Here’s yet another movie I haven’t seen in forty years. Although in a sense this is the first time I’m seeing parts of it because it’s the “director’s cut” which added twenty additional minutes to a movie that was already 161 minutes long.
I’ll dispense with the idea of plot spoilers. The whole movie is the confession by aged composer Antonio Salieri of his “murder” thirty-some-odd years before of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a man he openly admits produced music of a divine quality. Basically, Salieri sets out to destroy Mozart as a way of taking revenge on God for giving the gift of producing sublime works of musical art to a man he judges to be obscene and undeserving instead of to himself whom he judges to be pious and deserving.
Over the course of several years, he does everything imaginable to ensure Mozart cannot make enough money to flourish including using his influence with Emperor Joseph II of Austria to discourage any patronage from the nobility. Eventually he discovers that Mozart has a deep-seated neurosis around his father’s dissatisfaction with the way Mozart lived his life and after his father’s death Salieri impersonates Mozart’s father’s ghost by showing up as a masked figure to commission Mozart to compose a requiem mass. Salieri knows that Mozart will assume the mass is for his father and this will further injure his physical and mental health.
Finally, because of mental stress, malnutrition, alcoholism and probably tuberculosis Mozart collapses during a performance of one of his operas. Salieri takes advantage of Mozart’s wife Constanze’s absence to persuade Mozart to work through the night to try to complete the mass which Salieri hopes to pass off as his own during Mozart’s own funeral as his final insult to God. But Constanze arrives just in time to take away the manuscript from Salieri and mourn for her husband as he expires.
All of this story is told as a confession by Salieri to a priest who arrives at Salieri’s room in a mental hospital where he was installed after attempting suicide on account of guilt for killing Mozart. But at the end of the film he is unrepentant, insane and declares himself the patron saint of mediocrities, a man whose works of art are completely forgotten by the world, while Mozart’s music continuously grows more and more popular and celebrated over time.
Basically, this movie is a tour de force by F. Murray Abraham playing Salieri with Tom Hulce as Mozart coming in a close second. But let’s face it. No one is watching a three-hour period piece about Mozart unless he wants to hear the music. Between the actual recordings of his chamber music and generous chunks from several of his operas this is not just a theatrical presentation. It’s a concert too.
And for that reason, I don’t think I can recommend this movie to anyone who dislikes classical music. I believe it would be painful to watch that much of something that doesn’t appeal to you. I’m not sure if even the theatrical release version of the movie at 161 minutes would be short enough for the non-music lover. But for people who don’t mind a little opera sprinkled on their corn flakes this might be a movie to consider. I thought it was pretty good.
A while ago I spoke of buying a book I owned fifty-some-odd years ago. So, here’s a story from that book to talk about. The author Fritz Leiber was pretty popular back in the day. So, I don’t intend to rewind the plot here because it’s a short story (twenty-eight pages) and anyone can find it out there in the public domain, I’m sure.
But I just want to give some impressions of the best aspects of the story. This is explicitly a post-apocalyptic world. New York City and Washington DC are craters. And because of the disaster the US government has been supplanted by a regime called the Thinkers. They are frauds who have convinced the populace that they have supercomputers and atomic rockets that go to Mars to commune with the all-wise Martians and something called the “Mind Bomb,” etc., etc., etc. The real scientists have been cowed into keeping quiet and the nominal leader is a guy named Jorj Helmuth who was a publics relations specialist in the before time but now believes his own hype and thinks he’s a master of sleep learning and hypnotism and whatever else he’s made up.
The story is basically the maneuvering of Jorj, his cronies, the scientists and a few other actors on stage. Leiber lays out the story and the characters in broad strokes but very skillfully and it’s fun to recognize the Soviet (and American) propaganda playbook being run to fascinating effect. It’s a cautionary tale about idealism and chicanery and power politics and the danger of believing in your own lies. And even thought this story was written in 1951 it reads the same as if it was written today or tomorrow.
And it has a great villain who just exudes realpolitik and a feme fatale and even a twist ending to make sure you don’t forget that it’s from the golden age of science fiction. And even the title of the story is the punchline.
All these same people inhabit our present world. The lies and make believe from then is no different from the BLM or Antifa grifts that we see all around us. Probably the closest thing would be the climate change scam that has bankrupted Europe and exacerbated the monetary problems we’re experiencing.
So, that was fun. There are a few more stories in the book that I’ll highlight in later episodes of this book review. But I’ll say that “Poor Superman” is the crème de la crème of the entire collection. And since it’s the last story in the book you finish it off with a smile on your face. See, that Bob Heinlein really knew the trick to editing an anthology. Make sure the last story leaves them wanting more.
So, who remembers this story or at least remembers the name Fritz Leiber? Surely, I’m not the only old science fiction fan here and I’d love to get some other opinions. After all, I’m just one man. And I’m not even superman.
“The Dresser” is a very odd film. It’s based on a stage play and since it involves the staging of a performance of King Lear, you could say theater suffuses the movie. It takes place in England during WWII. Albert Finney plays Sir; an aged Shakespearean actor of the old school, full of exaggerated gestures and overblown histrionic elocution. He leads a company of actors travelling around Britain performing Shakespeare to the wartime population. But it’s not going well. Because of the draft, Sir declares that he must find his actors from amongst, “old men, cripples and nancy-boys.” And he says this to his dresser Norman even though Norman is obviously one of those nancy-boys.
Tom Courtenay plays Norman as a somewhat flamboyant homosexual who assists Sir in preparing for his performances. He bathes him, helps him apply his make-up and if necessary, reminds him of his lines from the wings. But this assistance has of late become much more difficult because Sir seems to be having a mental and physical breakdown. He becomes incoherent and agitated and is liable to run screaming through the streets shouting that he can’t go on.
On the day of his first performance in a new city he is hospitalized because of one of these fits coming upon him in public. And the company and especially Madge the business manager are convinced that Sir has reached the end of his career and must retire to a rest home. But when he shows up back at the theater Norman uses all of his knowledge of Sir’s psychology to calm him and orient him into the mental state needed to perform the part of King Lear. Using visual and vocal cues he walks him through the ritual by which the make-up and costume of Lear bring Sir back into the mindset needed to perform.
And that is the film; Norman coaching, praising, wheedling and sometimes chastising the old man into producing a performance of Lear that the audience receives enthusiastically. And during the performance and the breaks in the play when the Lear character is not on stage we learn about Sir’s relationship to his troupe; Madge’s basically unrequited love for Sir and his relationship with his wife; “Her Ladyship” who is playing Cordelia and how he stands with the other members of the acting troupe, who mostly fear him for his cantankerous temper.
And by the end of the play when Sir dies peacefully in his dressing room with only Norman there to witness his end we find out that Norman loved him too although it was completely unexpressed in life. And he weeps over the body of Sir.
Now this is a very strange film. And if it’s a pro-homosexual movie then it’s a very odd one. Norman takes abuse by anyone outside the theater who sizes up his obviously gay speech pattern and mannerisms. He’s told to “sod off,” “get stuffed” and “bugger off” by three different characters. One of the actors who knows of his friendship with a homosexual actor who has been arrested, notes to Norman that, “The pansy fraternity is always upset when one of their own is caught.” And even Sir, when discussing this actor’s arrest with Norman states that he himself “holds no brief for buggers.” So obviously this is not one of the modern paeans to gayness.
But I found it quite entertaining. Albert Finney’s portrayal of Sir is by turns; interesting, humorous, sad and extremely human. The character of Norman is also well-drawn. He’s a fussy, neurotic but loyal friend to Sir and a hard-working part of the acting company. You can see that this acting troupe is his whole life and Sir’s death represents the end of his own small world. He will be all by himself.
Recommending this film is difficult. The gay identity of Norman may put off some viewers. So, let’s put that in as a caveat. If that doesn’t preclude someone from watching the film then I can recommend it from the point of view of entertainment. The play within a movie keeps your attention and the characters are well-drawn and interesting.
As I mentioned a day or two ago, I’ve finally finished my story about the sniper. Of course, it still needs a spell check and another read through for errors and any “infelicities” of style that I may find. But for the most part I’ve brought it to a close.
But now comes the really hard part. Self-publishing versus traditional publishing. And for me it’s especially difficult because the story is unacceptably “right wing” from the point of view of anyone in the traditional publishing industry except for one or two houses like Baen Books who cater to stories from our side of the great political divide.
I have just begun doing my research on some kind of order of operations to maximize my chances to publish the book so that the largest number of people will hear about it. And my level of knowledge of the whole publishing process is pretty darn close to absolute zero. I’ve only reached out to one guy I know of who writes in the same general universe with me but I think I’ll have to feel my way around by reading and watching content that is meant to educate the public about trad publishing vs. self-publishing and then get a better handle on what writers on the right generally do.
So far all I’ve read makes the whole process seem incredibly slow and painful and chock full of interactions with gatekeepers and unsympathetic literary agents who will never return any of my correspondence but will dismiss me as a talentless hack.
But maybe I’m completely mistaken and instead I’ll be embraced by the publishing world as the next Cormac McCarthy and be showered with accolades and surrounded by business agents fighting one another to get me to sign book and movie deals. Within months I’ll be quoted by millions of readers who will flood my website with messages of delight about my brilliant writing and demands that I “take their crowdfunding money” for my next writing effort. The millions of dollars will pile up in Camera Girl’s sewing closet (she likes cash) and I will become a recluse and start wearing outlandish clothes to reflect my new status as a global phenomenon. I can hear it now. The crowds chanting at DragonCon, “photog, photog, photog!”
Okay good. Now I’ve got that out of my system. I’ll go back to finding out whether the “hybrid” publishers I’ve read about that cater to right and libertarian authors are legit or really the infamous “vanity press” scam artists that take all your money and ship a few boxes of print-on-demand paperbacks and tell you to, “Go market the damn things yourself!”
Well, I wanted to try writing a book. Now I’ve done it and I better find out how to get other people to know it exists without spending a million dollars doing it. And that’s another thing. Now that AI can draw covers maybe I can save some money by using it. Of course, I understand that I’ll anger all of the artistic community that does book covers for a living. Hmmm. Maybe I should find out what it costs. There are already so many people mad at me in the world, adding to that number sounds like a bad idea. Well, we’ll see.
Moneyball is a somewhat fictionalized story about how Oakland Athletics’ General Manager Billy Beane (played by Brad Pitt) brings advanced statistical analysis (sabermetrics) to the management of a major league baseball team.
When the A’s are beaten in the fifth game of the 2001 ALDS series by the New York Yankees and subsequently the Yankees and Red Sox steal away the two best players on the team (Jason Giami and Johnny Damon) through free-agency and the A’s owner tells Beane that there is no money to replace these stars, Beane searches for a way to overcome the unfair disparity of his team’s poverty. Beane discovers a young statistician in the Cleveland Indians management team; Peter Brand (played by Jonah Hill) who understands sabermetrics and brings him to Oakland to help him compete for the American League championship against teams like the New York Yankees who have three times the salary budget.
(Spoiler Alert – Skip down to last paragraph to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)
The movie chronicles Beane and Brand battling with the team’s scouting personnel and the A’s manager Art Howe (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) while being crucified in the press and social media by fans and pundits because of the unorthodox trades and policies that they institute. Everything is based on what statistically will reduce the number of outs and produce more runs and more wins. They forbid players from bunting or stealing bases. The assign a badly injured catcher (Scott Hatteberg portrayed by Chris Pratt) as the team’s first baseman because he has a slightly higher on base percentage than the All-Star first baseman they already have. They hire a pitcher who can only throw in the 80-mph range because his price tag is a bargain. And the first half of the season is a catastrophe. But Billy sticks with Brand’s system and before the end of the season the A’s gel as a team and even break the record for longest winning streak in AL history (twenty games).
But of course, statistical success is a long-term concept and in a short series like the playoffs big money still buys baseball heroes who hit lots of home runs in October. And the A’s lose in the playoffs again. But their success with the meager resources provided catches the attention of more well-funded teams and the owner of the Boston Red Sox; John Henry offers Beane an unheard-of salary of $12.5 million to be general manager of his team. Ultimately Beane remains in Oakland for personal reasons (being close to his daughter) but sabermetrics wins over major league baseball and is now the standard method for building a team in baseball.
I’ve read that many of the entertaining details of the story are fictionalized. And I can believe that. But this is a movie not a history lesson so the real question is whether the movie entertains. And the answer to that (in my opinion) is absolutely. Pitt portrays Beane as a former player who has a grudge against the scouting system that lures kids, who won’t be successful baseball players, into the game. He gave up a full scholarship to Stanford to play for the Mets and then wash out. He sees a scientific evaluation of players as the way to avoid all the chaos that, in his view, the scouts seem to cause. Pitt has a good script and he makes the most of it. And Pitt and Hill have a very amusing Mutt and Jeff relationship with the confident Beane mentoring the awkward and inexperienced Brand in how to work with the athletes. Philip Seymour Hoffman as Art Howe gives a disgruntled old-timer portrayal that fits the story well. And there are more than a few very strong performances among the actors portraying the scouts and ball players. All in all, it’s a very interesting baseball story and I think well worth the time to watch it. Highly recommended to baseball fans and movie fans in general.