39 steps - masterpiece classic

* * *
The most useful thing I did to prepare for watching this program (programme) was to never see the two movie versions that preceded it, nor did I read the book. This allowed the twists to work to their full extent and keep me engaged. Once again, we have a film set in my favorite (favourite) period, just before the great war in Europe. I really liked this film, and intend to chat about it here at more length.

* * *

downton abbey edwardian dreams

England's majestic Highclere Castle is the location for the newest Masterpiece Classics multi-episode drama, Downton Abbey. I just watched Episode One earlier this evening, and it was instantly engrossing. I'm not a fanatic or even a regular watcher of period dramas-- even when well done they can sometimes be a bit tedious for my taste once I tire of the art direction-- but this one grabbed me right away.

The story begins in 1912. For some reason I've always been attatched specifically to those few years of the early 10s. It always seemed like such an exceptionally fascinating time, that brief period poised between the old world and modern times.

Besides being set in a beloved period for me, I soon realized this elaborate drama really has it all. If the elaborate soap opera*, great dialog, superb characterizations and solid acting isn't enough to immediately draw you in, there's the overall convincing sense of the Edwardian era including layers of nuance illuminating its extensive class and gender issues, all presented with painfully beautiful cinematography and rich production design completed by excrutiatingly beautiful costumes and museum-piece household items. As a bonus there's an endless array of glittering period-look jewelry I dream of having for myself.

As you may have noticed, I've just used up this month's allotment of adjectives and superlatives, so I'll wrap things up and say, check it out. Oh, and you'll see some familiar faces.

Here's a link to the show's page. Have fun.

* * *

*When the show began, I had a private bet with myself that we'd see a homosexual subplot tossed into the bubbling stew before too long. After all, as the catch-phrase goes, "this... is PBS".

films, revisited

What films do I turn to again and again, the media equivalent of comfort food? Recently I tried to answer that question, and came up with a list of twenty, closely followed by another batch of twenty. And that would seem to answer that intriguing question for me.

But wait! There's no way I can have a favorite multiple viewings list without "Galaxy Quest" and "Ghostbusters"! Horror of horrors; what was I thinking? And now, upon further reflection, maybe I impulsively included "Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus" merely because I viewed it recently... would I really want to see it multiple times? Maybe I need to rethink that one. What else would have to go off the list to make room for those two entertaining favorites?

The great thing about that group of titles was, their assembly was not encumbered by criteria such as literary quality, technical mastery, creativity, cinematic or historic importance (although this doesn't mean many of them didn't have such qualities). Someday I'll put together such a list, or I should say lists, and they will be very different.

Lately, more than ever, I watch a film to go to another place, a dreamlike escape-realm designed to be just what I need at a given moment.

There are some so-called important films that I'm grateful to have seen, films that have truly achieved something, films that played a key role in cinematic development, or affected me or surprised me or grabbed my attention, or haunted me. But they're not the film equivalent of comfort food. Would I really want to see "Saving Private Ryan" or "Inglorious Basterds" or "No Country for Old Men" over and over again, kicking back after a long day of modern-day anxieties? Honestly, I think not. "The Godfather" is an important, compelling piece of filmmaking, but it's just not where I want to be right now, and neither is "Chinatown". Not for me.

And yet, it's not simply that I prefer a happy or cheerful film, because my list isn't made up of silly fare or romantic comedies... not even close.

"Gone With The Wind" might be one of the greatest films ever made, but "The Matrix" or "Monsoon Wedding" or "Metropolis" seem like better choices for my personal plug-in-drug collection.

There's a strange logic behind my viewing habits lately, one that isn't easy to explain. Those choices might say just as much about the times we live in and the role film and television play in our daily lives as it does about my own idiosyncracies, but its no obvious formula. Fascinating.

Onward, to more lists!

twenty more films

Beauty and the Beast (Cocteau version)
The Greatest Game Ever Played
A Christmas Carol (Alistair Sim version)
Galaxy Quest
9
2001: A Space Odyssey
Up
Toy Story (series)
Monsters, Inc.
Apollo 13
The Wizard of Oz
The Sixth Sense
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Wallace & Gromit, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Lord of the Rings (first of the three, at least)
The Bishop's Wife
Singing in the Rain
Gunfighter (Coppola version; my 2nd film, makeup artist/art dept.)
Journey to the Center of the Earth (recent version)
Rear Window
Shutter Island
Twelve Monkeys
Ratatouille
The Others

b

PS You're right. This list actually has more than twenty films on it.

twenty films

Tonight, I was asked to pick twenty favorite films.

Absent any detailed explanation, there are many ways to go about this exercise. And while this may not be what the author of the inquiry had in mind, this was my approach: I chose to be very honest with myself and pick twenty films I know I would actually want to watch again and again. I decided to do this in a very spontaneous manner by walking into the media room and selecting twenty DVDs I would physically take with me if I had to go away for an indeterminate length of time.

This is quite different than preparing a more academic report that talks about the twenty most important films, or the twenty best films of all time, or twenty films carefully selected to present examples from major genres. I simply looked at my very own film collection and thought about what I liked to watch again and again, as opposed to creating a list that would cast me as a gifted and insightful expert, or present a well-rounded array.

It's entirely possible that tomorrow morning I might suddenly remember a favorite film, and then scan the list for one to swap out. But I have to believe there's something honest about looking through films I've actually bothered to purchase, and knowing I could watch them all repeatedly.

And so, answering only to my own escapist desires and idiosyncratic whims, and not seeking the approval of a thesis advisor in Film Studies, in no particular order:

To Catch a Thief or North by Northwest
Big Fish
A Christmas Story
The Polar Express
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Vertigo
The Fall
Coraline
Princess Mononoke
The Illusionist
Mirrormask
One recent Harry Potter movie (undecided)
Inception
Lady in White
Clownhouse (my first film; I designed the costumes and makeup)
Chronicles of Narnia, first film
Coco before Chanel

The Matrix

Blade Runner

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To thine own self be true. I'll put some runners-up in a separate blog entry.

b

fashion show ultimate collection: notes by a grouchy fan

This must be what it takes to bring me out of my long hiatus from blogging: a new reality television show about fashion. As much as I hate to admit it (here or elsewhere), I've become a semi-regular viewer of such shows as Project Runway and The Rachel Zoe Project. Under protest, kicking and screaming and grumbling and qualifying, to be sure... but I've begun to watch television shows centered around design.

Make no mistake, I absolutely do grumble about them. I know everybody must say this, but I really do tune in for the design, not the dramatics. Maybe I'm fooling myself, but my sense is it would make me content to relax with a glass of sauvignon blanc and watch designers in a workroom flinging bolts of fabric instead of insults, shopping for fabrics, drafting patterns, frustrated and struggling when things don't work and thrilled when they do, and have the producers do away with the bitch-edits, highly contrived interpersonal venom and vitriol, and general mayhem.

And now, this: The Fashion Show: Ultimate Collection, Bravo's newest attempt to fill the void left by their own Project Runway's defection to Lifetime. Apparently it isn't exactly new; I understand they did a season already (one that flew largely under the radar) with less than phenomenal results. Producers reportedly retooled it a bit, and the show's second season just aired a few days ago.

First, the good news about The Fashion Show's format. Viewers are promised fashion shows on runways without waiting all season because the mandate is to produce collections, along with all the usual runway show accoutrements, week after week. Plenty of runway designs slinking down the catwalk across the entire season, and isn't that the whole idea? Real clothes, not ones made out of seat belts or grocery bags.

Designers arrived to the show and were immediately split into two design houses. And before you could figure out who was who, straight, gay, nice, or naughty, or if they bothered to select any contestants over (gasp) forty, ka-bam! A runway show consisting of representative looks chosen by each designer.

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more notes in a bit!

warehouse 13 redeems itself; probation lifted

The show Warehouse 13 will always have a host of inescapable issues and will never be believable-- nor is that the point-- but a couple of episodes and story directions earlier this season had me concerned...and annoyed. Last night in marathon fashion I got caught up, and am relieved to report the situation is now far from dire, with enough there to keep me watching (as opposed to throwing things at the screen).

And so, to the powers behind Warehouse 13, thank you. Keep up the good work.

christopher coppola, outlaw (continued)

The first time I ever handled a firearm or shot at a target was with director Christopher Coppola on location for a low-budget Western. I still have the official NRA paper target where we tried our skills using a .22 gauge long rifle. He was a fierce competitor, but my very first shot was just a tiny bit closer to the bullseye than his first shot. Sorry about that, CRC!

Flush with unexpected success, later during this same production I would be called upon to shoot at an antique cowbell for an insert shot. That I was good at this sort of thing was as much of a surprise to me as anyone.

Good times.

Back in time to an earlier post about The Gunfighter: here

beauty and the beast, via cocteau

On my nightstand: Re-reading Jean Cocteau's diary of the arduous making of his seminal, luminous film, Beauty and the Beast.

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Above is a pencil sketch I did, while in college, of the artist and director.

hercule poirot

warehouse 13 becoming unwatchable

It pains me to say this, but Warehouse 13 is a great idea shooting itself in the foot before my eyes. It's probably been that way for a while now, but in my dedication to the concept and optimistic outlook, I've somewhat blindly hung in there, cheering it on.

It had such promise-- such a cool premise, such artsy potential with all the steampunk-ish gadgetry, such limitless situations. So what's happening here?

The problem seems to be both in the writing and the directing. Mya and Pete become more annoying with each episode, trying way too hard to be cute. And with their choices in tough situations, who could, even with artistic license, believe either one of them was a secret service agent these days?

The overblown soap-opera character conflicts rampant amongst the entire ensemble seem increasingly contrived. More and more, these supposedly bright people are stomping and pouting like eight year olds. Between the forced humor, immature behavior, and weak dialog, recent episodes leave me feeling more embarassed than anything else.

Sure, Warehouse 13 was never was meant to survive tough scrutiny and be realistic or believable. But for us to willingly suspend our disbelief, they need to meet us halfway. The first episodes had our attention with some compelling, maybe even dazzling notions. And with all that atmosphere, it was easy to go along for the ride. But that was then.

We want to love Warehouse 13, but things are looking grim. And we can't wait forever.

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passage to india

For a so-called movie person, I still have some surprising gaps. One major film I never saw when it came out was Passage to India, released in 1984. It would be director David Lean's last film (Lean was the director of Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Zhivago, and The Bridge on the River Kwai).

The story opens in 1928, first in England, and before long, we're in colonial India.

First, I'll get a few negative comments out of the way. Plot-wise in the latter part of the story it has some perplexing missteps which I can't completely ignore. And while most people reviewing the film carry on about how great the Jarre score was, I personally found it variously jarring, thin, inappropriate, and lacking (to put it mildly). But there's plenty of good news because the film's other cinematic attributes will probably make up for any oddities. Location footage is lush, gorgeous, and atmospheric in that epic style mastered by David Lean, populated with rich characters in an absorbing situation.

The copy I viewed was a recent DVD release, borrowed from my local library. I understand there is a BluRay version, which would probably be a worthwhile upgrade.

Awards and nominations don't always indicate greatness, but it should be noted that this film won two Oscars, eighteen other awards, and twenty-four other nominations.

Before commenting further, I want to see the film again, but this time on the big screen. My viewing was on my computer monitor... not as bad of a way to see a film as it might seem, but among other things, I want to hear the sound fully and properly.

* * *

Final notes: Curiously enough, I liked the film even less upon second viewing. It failed, for me personally, in ways involving plot and character believability that seemed hard to excuse. It still looked great, with some memorable-- even haunting-- moments, but the plot problems (especially in the last reels) were nearly enough to deflate the whole endeavor. And while I'm usually a fan of Judy Davis, she did nothing for me in this role beyond her promising opening scenes. My suspicion is that this shortfall was a directing problem, not an acting one. Being mysterious and open-ended or ambiguous is one thing, but this piece of filmmaking fell short of that. And the final scene of Ms. Davis lands with a dull thud. (The rest of the characters were quite good throughout, especially 'Mrs. Moore'). I generally am not openly critical of a work of art, and it pains me to take to task someone like the late, esteemed Mr. Lean, but I won't worry too much as there seems no shortage of fans. Some even call the film Lean's masterwork. Hmm.

rediscovering 'rear window'

vertigo, and going to another place

Growing up in a quiet suburb in the late 1950s and early to mid 1960s, outings of any kind were a much-appreciated treat for my sister and me.

We weren't the kind of kids who had bicycles and roamed in joyful freedom around the neighborhood, and while comfortable, our family certainly wasn't well-to-do. We weren't accommodated in the building of treehouses or go-carts; we weren't taken on extravagant vacations, and we weren't able to become Girl Scouts.

As much as possible, our folks did take advantage of what the area had to offer, for which I'll aways be grateful; I've written elsewhere about treasured family weekend trips to nearby world-class museums: the M. H. De Young and the California Palace of the Legion of Honor. And I have more of those memories to consider, in time.

Spending the night at our grandparents' houses was definitely special: the change of environment, the break in routine, all the fuss made over us. In retrospect my paternal grandmother seemed especially aware of how happy it made us to stay up late and watch television.

We watched television with our parents, of course, but with an earlier bedtime. At home I remember a succession of movies, many of them old even then, and the three-network television programming of the time. But my first vivid memory of being drawn into a feature film and being really affected by it was the night we sat cross-legged in a tiny living room in Richmond and watched Hitchcock's Vertigo.

Vertigo was released in 1958, but I don't know the exact year we saw it. For sake of discussion, I'll assume I was about ten or eleven years old at the time, making the year 1963 or so. Maybe it goes without saying (or maybe not), but on that night long ago, we saw this Technicolor film on a black and white television set.

This post would be the length of a college thesis if I were to begin assessing all the nuances of the film itself. And as fascinating as I'd find that journey, I'll more appropriately simply fire off a few memories, ideas, and talking points. Some points are actually subsets of others, but no matter.

mood

Vertigo has a definite creepy otherworldlineses to it. Even for someone as young and unsophisticated as I was, this was a fascinating exposure to the power of film to create a mood. This, I now understand, was a big element of the Hitchcock filmmaking gift. I'll never forget how the film made me feel, and how fascinating it was to discover that a film could be like that.

score

The musical score by Bernard Herrmann played a key role in the mood of the film. My father was always a big BH fan, and while growing up I began to pay attention to the music of film. Finally, as an adult living here in San Diego, I would have the opportunity to hear sections of several Bernard Herrmann Hitchcock film scores played by our symphony orchestra. Hearing the sounds of real strings filling a warm accoustical space from a good seat is always a delight, but hearing music from Vertigo played live was unforgettable.

the mysteries of adulthood

Because Vertigo has a primary theme of obsession, part of the film's power to me as a child was its suggestion of a strange, even frightening world beyond mine. This feeling remains intact for me in viewing the film as an adult, prevailing even though I can now greater understand the deliberate artistic outlandishness of the film's plot and devices.

My younger self watching Vertigo for the first time, this feeling resonated with the adultness of staying up late, being allowed to watch an adult movie.

local relevance

The steep, vertiginous streets of San Francisco... the venerable Palace of the Legion of Honor... these places were already personally familiar to me. [link to Vertigo's museum scene]

Kim Novak sat in front of a portrait of Carlotta; I had stood in that same wing of the museum. This link to the real world-- my world, at least on special occasions-- made the film even more engaging.

Alfred Hitchcock and my Grandmother let me sit by the fire inside a chic San Francisco apartment that night with Jimmy Stewart; I glimpsed the dimly-lit world of the famous Ernie's restaurant (now long gone, where I had hoped to go someday, but never was able to); I was witness to a shopping spree in an upscale department store, complete with models posing in elegant ensembles; I held my breath at the eerie power of an ancient California forest.

There was something very alluring about all of that.

going to another place

There are probably dozens of idiosyncratic reasons why, decades later, I still have dreams about my Grandmother's house. It might well be that the simple activity of watching a certain movie, there, forms a part of that complex equation.

Bricks with moss growing on them in my Grandmother's garden. Narrow wooden stairs. A cedar chest with a Sonja Heni doll inside. Rumaging in a box of glittering costume jewelry. A movie late at night, nobody telling me to go to bed, and a strange world created by a movie director and a group of actors and crew.

Sometimes on these overnight adventures, my sister and I would sleep downstairs in the tiny bedroom that faced the brick patio garden. That bed had a headboard that was also a bookcase: Zane Grey paperbacks, mostly. The room's other bookcase, to the right as we faced out into the hallway, had hardcover books like I Married Adventure with its zebra print cloth cover.

Other years, we would sleep in the main bedroom at the top of the wood stairs, listening to cars glide down the street and the buzz of an old electric radio, the light from a nearby street lamp finding its way in through the wide slats of old Venetian blinds across my Grandmother's dressing table and onto chilly wood floors.

Both profound and trivial, this exemplifies a dazzlingly complex process, all the mysterious and oddly powerful little parts that make up who we are, our ethics and dreams and aesthetics, what we're drawn to, and enact, again and again across the decades. Remembering the same events of my life from different vantage points, flirting at times with an oddly pleasing kind of mini-obsession, I sometimes feel like I'm trying to solve a mystery.

Eventually I would work in film, many years of art-related work primarily in a specific niche of the movie industry. Just between us, I rarely speak out loud about my persistent dreams of writing and directing. After all, everybody wants to direct.

Meanwhile, I still dream of small gardens with brick patios and moss, and thick flowering perennials, gladiolas, honeysuckle, and fuschias. I would despair when my father sold my Grandmother's house shortly after her death. Maybe he was purging something and moving on, not wishing to keep it as a box for memories. Maybe he's right, and we don't need it.

Long ago, someone who used to be me spent the night away from home and watched a movie. Transported.

One of the realizations I now have about Vertigo was that it taught me, indirectly but deeply, that a film may be a lot of things, but at its core-- like books and memories and dreams and photo albums and plans for the future-- it's all about going to another place.

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my first hitchcock film

Vertigo is a strange film, directed by an odd but gifted man. It was the first Hitchcock film I ever saw.

When you really look at it in the light of day, the film's plot, not to mention certain aspects of the characters' behavior, is preposterous. And yet, the realization that a film can be unbelievable and still superb is key to what I appreciate about the art of filmmaking.

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more on this topic soon

quirky warehouse 13

photo courtesy SyFy network

According to Wikipedia (I swore I'd never utter those words except in irony, which only goes to demonstrate the never-say-never principle), Warehouse 13 will be returning with a new season on SyFy this July. Huzzah!

This silly-yet-partly serious guilty pleasure has style and curb appeal, enough for any Alice-in-Wonderland James Bond X-Files Indiana Jones steampunk science fiction nerd. Sure, the characters are silly. The dialog is contrived. The plots are weak, and the humor is childish. The episodes are getting weaker, and the groans grow more frequent. But I still like the idea of it all, I guess.

Fun and fantasy is just what I need more of, these days.

Ladies and gentlemen, Warehouse 13.

surrogates

Surrogates
starring Bruce Willis
= = = = = =
Blade Runner;
Terminator;
Stepford Wives;
Minority Report;
Solaris;
I, Robot

speaking of horror films

This particular piece of digital cinema is so exclusive, only a handful of people will ever see it. You probably never will.

In my hand, I hold a CD with a CT scan motion picture taken of the inside of my body. This silent film (with subtitles) has a cast of one. It begins at the top of my head and moves down through my physical self, unfolding as a smoothly-animated series of cross-sections.

Few experiences are as fascinating-- yet unnerving-- as seeing inside one's body with such amazing detail. I was surprised at how clearly I was able to distinguish various organs without anyone pointing them out. And one favorite special effect is worth a special look: brilliant shards of light radiating out of my dental work.

The BNCG Story, a suspense film (or maybe horror, considering the blood and innards), appearing at a special private showing at a doctor's office near me.

revisiting the mothman prophecies

The Mothman Prophecies (2002)

Starring Richard Gere, Laura Linney, Will Patton, Debra Messing, Lucinda Jenney, Alan Bates
Directed by Mark Pellington; screenplay by Richard Hatem, from the book by John A. Keel (covers of Keel's book shown above).

Special DVD edition 2003

The first time I saw this film, I was out of town on a video shoot. I was alone in my motel room, coping with the uneasiness of the situation in my usual way: leaving the television on after going to bed. On this particular night I found myself staying up far too late, watching a mesmerizing film called The Mothman Prophecies.

Fast forward to 2010, and I'm working on building my DVD collection of old favorites. The other day I found myself thinking about the film again, and became curious to see if it was as eerie as I remembered. As it turns out, it was.

The special edition has a second disk with additional material, including multiple accounts of supposedly true stories about ordinary people encountering a huge mothlike creature. From a filmmaking standpoint, I was surprised and amusesd to hear about accounts of mysterious men in black supposedly visiting those people who claimed to have witnessed the mothman apparition. This clearly formed the concept behind another non-recent film, Men In Black, one I viewed again, by coincidence, just a few days ago. I had no idea that the Mothman legend included government men in black suits, referred to as the men in black. (Of course, the film MIB played it for laughs, riffing on the legend of government men in black suits running around on coverup detail; this film is one of my guilty pleasures).

Don't look for an action film here, nor will you find a Saturday matinee-style horror flick. Creators of The Mothman Prophecies do not present you with a mothlike creature anywhere near as specific as the ones on the book covers shown above. Their restrained approach makes the film far more chilling, and the result is a beautifully crafted, eerie experience with many unnerving scenes that can still have a strong effect-- even without being viewed alone in a motel room, late at night.

* * *

black rain refrain

Today I watched director Ridley Scott's 1989 film, Black Rain, for probably the fifth time. Black Rain is quintessential visually-indulgent Ridley Scott, its wet-streets-and-neon trademark iconography almost comprising a genre all its own.

Most of my affection for this film is merit-based, but I do admit to a personal fondness for certain 1980s films for nostalgic reasons. After just a few chords of an 80s electronic film score, I'm transported back to my first contact with the film industry.

Although I have no special fondness for Michael Douglas, he did a very good job in Black Rain as the tough NYPD detective barely scraping by. Andy Garcia was perfect as the brash yet charismatic young sidekick, a role he took to a higher level by implementing several of his own smart script embellishments. Kate Capshaw brought cool glamour to the role of a Chicago expat.

The two most memorable performances were, to my mind, those of Ken Takakura and the late Yusaku Matsuda; the former was truly appealing as the quiet, by-the-book detective, and the latter was chilling as the sociopathic would-be Obatsu for the Yakuza.

Hans Zimmer composed the film's distinctive score, a resplendently electronic and percussive work that was perfect for the otherworldly ambience of late 1980s Japan. Jan de Bont was the cinematographer ideally suited to bringing the characteristic Ridley Scott style and vision to life (under apparently challenging conditions).

Once the neon signs are turned off, the fan blades have stopped, and the smoke and rain machines are put away, it's good to remember that nobody can indulge in films like Black Rain without the offerings of solid writers like Craig Bolotin and Warren Lewis.

Second Life photo by Reverielarke Wirtanen