Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Battleship LaGuardia

Films in which flying is a theme are not as quick to come to mind. Going through the discomfort of airport security just makes me feel violated. I mean how come I always have to “take off my jacket” and then get complimented on my “nice top”. The guy behind me in the suit doesn’t get that treatment. I guess I’ll miss the TSA looking at my tits when I’m older, but I gotta say sometimes I’m just not in the mood. I feel no matter how successful I become or what I have achieved I always still have to smile and let the TSA look at my tits, or they will call me an ornary bitch and call security , detain me and keep me from my flight. I would love to know what the sexual harassment charges have been since the TSA has wielded so much power in recent years. Real or perceived. So how about a good sexual harassment by a woman film for a Wednesday morning. Red Headed woman with good ol Jean Harlow comes to mine as well as the relentless Baby Face, but I digress. I always love some Baby Face.

Let me think..Flying down to Rio,Wings ...

But since we are about to board the airport, lets move on to a far more interesting topic. Detention. I’m thinking Battle Ship Potemkin may satisfy this airport experience. I remember I went to a film festival last year where the film was featured. The reason they were playing it was that someone had scored the silent film. The airport brings that experience to mind because I had brought my parents and it was like traveling with family. We were stuck in this small screening room unable to leave due to the awkward position of the door and the projector. One would have to climb over a row of people and the projector operator (who by the way thought he was screening Nosferatu until we were an hour in and someone had to bring to his attention that these angry Russians were in fact not going to experience a Vampire after their uprising). My father started giggling and my mother started shifting, their knowledge of films before 1950 is almost like taking Rainman to a casino. The Phillip Glass inspired score, or maybe I don’t know, this guy only learned how to play three or four notes over and over and use anvil like percussion with no regard for what was actually happening on film felt like a government experiment. I was afraid my poor father was going to go into some Vietnam flashback and get all Jacobs Ladder on me. Anyway, despite all the anxiety we really did enjoy watching all those people run down the stairs. If you want to see some serious extra work this is impressive. I can’t imaging someone didn’t get trampled to death making this film. Really incredible. Detention over. Now I have to board the plane.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Snakes on a train

So the Swine Flu has been bumped up by the World Health Organization to a level four and the cases in the US have gone from 10 to 50. Our quarentine is going to last awhile. So let's explore what really has been bugging us all lately. The Man. The man who gets it all, keeps it all, wants it for free, whines too much has no real identity beyond his job and no real emotional investment in anyone other than himself. You know this guy. I had a bad altercation on a train recently after having survived a modern music concert and enjoyed a drink after the show. I had missed my train and had to take the 1:30 am train home which can be quite unpleasant. Not dangerous, just drunk. I was seated next to a gaggle of unbearable human beings. An older white man in a suit, a few younger very aggressive more casually dressed, they were joined later by more men in suits. Passing beers around and stories of prostitutes, cocaine and loud testiments to what their carnal plans were for women they saw on the street and didn't speak to.
I cracked and went after them. It was not pretty. There are reasons why someone like me takes on these creatures, knowing I'm outnumbered and that they are ultimately more powerful. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of working for these people, I'm sick of putting up with them, I'm sick of them on bubble tv and I'm sick of people telling them they are fun or funny or interesting because they are sad and pathetic and shells of human beings. Luckily for me (and because I know exactly how to handle these people: Shock, humiliate, ignore and discard) I convinced the conductor the dispose of these dregs of society. They should also know, that NO ONE LIKES THEM RIGHT NOW! Now is not the time to swagger and brag about money, status and prowess. Now is not the time to wag your entitlement around. Try watching these fine films which Warner Brothers called "Americanism stories" The match king (1932), Skyscaper souls (1932) and States Attorney (1932). Really, really indulgent greed movies. These films make Gordan Gecko look like an amateur. Maybe by watching these films they may learn to get a little humility and think of others before they drop that prostitute off of the balcony.

Monday, April 27, 2009

Love in the time of Swine Flu

So I wake up this morning and am bombarded with sneezing pigs. Vomiting pigs from Mexico. Swine flu has arrived in all of its ad revenue generating programing. Nothing can give us a boost in ad revenue like a good old fashioned health scare. Remember all that duct tape and plastic wrap you bought during the bio chemical scare back in 2001?

While you are holed up in quarantine, hiding from your infectious children let me suggest a few good precode films which may help you get through this time without breaking down and buying some crazy anti-biotic pinata at Home Depot.

The Rains Came (1937) OK, a few years off, but pretty interesting. You can tell this is a post code movie because Myrna Loy falls in love with an Indian doctor and then dies. But, she is very aggressive towards her love interest and is quite the woman of the world. Just to be clear..I'm not saying that Indian people are comparable to Mexican culture, but it deals with people traveling outside of their borders and their experience with another culture and infectious disease. I enjoyed it very much because it has this very powerful Indian woman, I think she's the equivalent of a queen who smokes and talks like Obama. Pretty cool.

If you are feeling a little ambitious you could watch the 1914 film. Tess of the Storm Country stars Mary Pickford and Harold Lockwood who died in 1918 at the age of 33 of Spanish Influenza. We can pay tribute to those who were lost to something that we can quite easily combat now with modern medicine.

1918 was the year of the Great Spanish Flu outbreak. This had a very large influence on film. Many stars were affected by or had survived the outbreak. Vera Kholodnaya, of whom I know nothing about but now I am interested, died of the Spanish Flu (or the Bolsheviks) had here career cut short in 1919 at the age of 26. Be Silent, Sorrow, Be Silent, a 1918 film about a circus performer who is married to a drunk acrobat and gets a sugar daddy, Mirages; Children of the Century and Zhizn za zhizn / A Life for a Life.

While you are in hiding, let me know what you find out about these films.

Influeza 1918 (this is an American Experience film, but looks like this may put things in perspective.)

Friday, April 24, 2009

Movies to Celebrate with as GM goes Bankrupt

So I was reading the headline in the New York Times today about how GM is about to bite it. I am someone who grew up in a car manufactuing community. I saw them close their plant in the '80s and honestly the place I grew up in is better off for it. Now I don't think this is a universal scenario, but survival is possible.
Anyway, while you are crying on the couch from the loss of your job, pension, life, car, home...okay while you are watching a VCR in some homeless shelter with a bunch of people you don't know, find some comfort in this classic Pre-Code film The Crowd.(directed by King Vidor and can I just say that King is a baby name that needs to make a comeback) It is basically a great story of going to New York with hopes and dreams and...the concept that you could have a future. And way you become a drone and the machine destroys you. I havn't seen it in a while but I think there is a great uprising and everyone is better off for having bucked the man in the end. Very profound lovely movie and I have read it is the first time a toilet has ever been filmed in American Cinema...so..you know keep your eyes peeled. This is exciting stuff. I wonder when the first stainless steel appliances were first filmed in American cinema.
Another film I think is pretty obvious, but is appropriate for this moment is Metropolis (directed by Fritz Lang...Fritz not as fun a name as King), now for all you special effects buffs out there, I know this doesn't look like much to you now, but I dare you to actually sit there and make all those models and drawings that they shot against now. I think they were glass paintings...wait, I'll check back later, glass painting came later. Someone let me know if I am wrong.
Anyway, Happy End of the American Dream and know that the world has turned after such tragedies and will continue to turn. You may just not get to spin around the planet with your HD Flatscreen TV.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Women Behind Bars

I just saw a story on the news this morning about a woman named Ms. Primoff. She kicked her daughter out of the car and drove home to her million dollar house in Scarsdale, NY. This caught my attention because I live in the area. She was arrested when she went to go pick up her daughter at the police station later that day and spent a night in jail. She is currently out on $1500 bail. I'm assuming she has been under some stress lately since she is a bankruptsy lawyer.
In order to heal the bond between mother and daughter I'm trying to think of movies they can watch together. A film with Barbara Stanwick perhaps. No, wait! I know this is about 10 years outside of the relm of Pre-code, but I think a little evening on the couch with popcorn and Mildred Pierce my start a dialouge going. Sounds like this 10 year old daughter is not that innocent. A sense a little Veda in the works.
If this mom is simply just overworked and under appreciated, maybe the sweet, post code film Stella Dallas could bring them together just in time for Mother's day. This film is why the Lifetime channel exists.
If it was simply a "You don't understand me" arguement, the a little Our Dancing Daughters will be interesting. It shows that young women have been rebelling and mother's have been frustrated for years.
If the mother is just nuts, well then Night Nurse has a great abusive mother in it. This girl should be grateful her mother is not trying to make money off of her dying.
Ah...the recession. We will be experiencing more and more unstable parental behavior.
Try to look to the Pre-code films for a commisuration with it all.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

The Women-The Original Sex and the City

I noticed the other night before on TCM The Women was on. I almost watched it, but I had gotten my finace to watch Grey Gardens the weekend before (he loved it, which really surprised me, but it was quite good). But, I DVR'd it to watch later. But I was thinking as I was watching Sex and the City with my fiance (he surprisingly enjoyed that as well) how similar they are. (I've seen The Women several times, but love to watch it over and over). I can't even talk about the newer version of The Women with Meg Ryan, which I didn't see but seemed like a rip off of Sex and the City since they were released in theatres around the same time. Anyway, the idea of women that they are supportive of each other and flawed and that they have sex and affairs and ruin and save each others lives is not a social network that is seen today in film.
If you love Sex and the City, see the original gangstas. Joan Crawford is a badass in that bathtub and the final line in that movie is great to use at a party or with that girlfriend who has stood you up one too many times.
The thing I think that is most vivid to me is the phone in the bathtub with Joan Crawford. It is fantastic. Oh, and just like Sex and the City the men have a peripheral existance. There are no men in The Women. They exist entirely off screen. Just like Mr. Big's real life and all the men's lives in Sex and the City exist entirely off screen.
Just like most women in most films only exist on the other end of a phone at home or are the accepting hug at the end of a terrible adventure.

Brooke Sheilds on the Today Show

I saw Brooke Shields on the Today Show this morning, talking about how frustrated she was with playing the Mom or the next door neighbor. She was used to playing the lead engenue.
I just want to give a shout out to Barbara Stanwick, Betty Davis, Joan Crawford and Norma Shearer all of whom were playing lead roles in their 40's.
I'm pretty sure about that, correct me if I'm wrong. These women really laid the ground and now it seems as if it's gone with all these unmemorable Kates.

The Catholic League is after Ron Howard

So this is why we no longer have educated frank, interesting films which don't equilize or victemize women. The Catholic League is throwing their weight around and are trying to paint an image of Ron Howard's film Angels & Demons as Anti-Catholic. I can think of alot more things that are Anti-Catholic than a bad Dan Brown story. (To be fair, I just think Dan Brown is just not that good of a writer). I enjoyed DaVinci Code, but this stuff is not exactly great literatrue.
But if we only made movies out of great literature than books that make great movies, blah, blah, blah.
Anyway, I recently went to a film festival and saw some serious Anti-Catholic behavior! Here is a description of the short film.
Our Lady Queen of Harlem by Trinidad Rodriguez (17:00)On a crumbling sidewalk in the heart of Spanish Harlem, a small but impassioned group of women are fighting for their community. When the Archdiocese of New York locked the doors of the church where many of them spent their entire lives worshiping, this determined family of parishioners decided to resist the ministerial decision and take matters into their own hands. A portrait of faith and disobedience, Our Lady Queen of Harlem is an exploration of activism and the very definition of church.

Anyway, call me crazy but kicking people out of their parish is a little more Anti-Catholic.

To me, all this boils down to power. Religion is going to have a rough go of it now. Nobody has complete power over their image anymore with the advent of blogs, twitter, youtube, etc. My advice is to watch The Godlesss Girl and let it offend you and inspire you.

To Mr. Ron Howard, I saw the DaVinci Code and as much as I hated the book, I liked your movie. I thought it thought provoking to all sides involved. I have no idea how someone who is Catholic would be offended by that. If anything it was very pro-Catholic.
But what was important to me about your film as is with the Godless Girl is that it creates a discussion and forces people to ask questions about history. Why that is not important is beyond me. I mean if Frost Nixon gives us an opportunity to take another look at our power culture I don't understand why none of this applies to the questioning of the religious culture.
Also, Mr. Howard, if you are still reading that would be so cool, but anyway more importantly it brings to light again the Catholic Leauge and what damage they did in the 30's through their power and censorship. So much has been lost from film due to this. And from a woman's perspective, I don't think women in film have ever fully recovered. It is a tragedy that Norma Sheer and her contemporaries were once so powerful and now Hanna Montana is what we have to look up to. It is a tragedy. Thank you for pushing them Mr. Howard. Maybe someone will start talking about the damage they did.

Monday, April 20, 2009

The Godless Girl

My fiance was out at the bar and I had to opportunity to just enjoy a really fabulous gem. The Godless Girl is supposed to be one Cecil B. DeMille's last silent film, but there is some debate about that, since there was some dialouge scenes found and added later. What I found just stunning about this movie was the uninhibited debate the movie has with itself about the role of religion in society. It was just so open and honest about how people's experiences and education shape their faith. There is no way that a modern audience would be able to handle this in such a mature and open fashion. Each main charachter gets the shoe on the other foot if you will and has their viewpoints tested and put into real life. I came away with the message that everything sounds great on paper, but until we are put into life's challenges can we really decide what we believe. Interesting movie. The fire in the jailhouse at the end of the film is really unbelievable. Watching it I was horrified, because I knew that special effects were pretty limited at that point and that was a real fire those people were in. I did a little research and found the the actors actually were injured in the making of the film.
The opening title cards are just fantastic. And I have never seen a film about Atheism before. It was just so refreshing and new to actually see what the atheists were debating and how it was done. I mean how on earth could a movie like this get made now!
Opening Title Card: [first card] It is not generally known that there are Atheist Societies using the schools of the country as their battle-ground - attacking, through the Youth of the Nation, the beliefs that are sacred to most of the people. Opening Title Card: [second card] And no fanatics are so bitter as youthful fanatics.