Official Cinematic Crush Update (Union City Blue Edition)

"Before Madonna, there was Blondie. Her name was really Debbie Harry, but everyone knew her in the beginning as Blondie--the name of the band that emerged in the late '70s as a refreshing alternative to faceless, recycled corporate rock.” – Robert Hilburn 

You may have heard that Madonna is about to launch a new tour and you may have heard that she is supposedly going to mash up her song "Express Yourself" and Lady Gaga’s song "Born This Way" to prove once and for all that Lady Gaga ripped off "Express Yourself" for "Born This Way" even though Lady Gaga has actually gone on record as essentially saying that, yes, she did rip off "Express Yourself." And that she MEANT to rip off "Express Yourself" because it was an homage, not unlike another song on the "Born This Way" album titled "Scheiße" in which Gaga borrows the beat of Kool and the Gang’s "Ladies Night" for a song about female empowerment. I repeat: she uses the beat of "Ladies Night" for a song about female empowerment. Any way you slice it, THAT’S genius.

And that, of course, is what pop music IS. Gaga takes from Madonna and Madonna takes from Kylie and Kylie covered "Vogue" on her 2009 mini-tour to the States to show that I am her and she is me and we are all each other.

And anyway, none of that matters in the end because Debbie Harry came before ALL of them. Which is a long-winded way of saying that, hey! Guess what?! As reported by Variety, my official Cinematic Crush Malin Akerman is set to play Debbie Harry in the forthcoming "CBGB", Randall Miller’s film about the deceased iconic NYC music venue. Because of course she is! Because who else BUT Malin Akerman could play someone so bodacious, so beautiful, such a personne qui lance une mode?

Exactly.

Unstoppable

A runaway train is shooting down the rails at hyperactive speeds in Pennsylvania when at a railroad crossing, which the police have essentially shut down meaning there are many stopped cars and gawking onlookers, an older gent in a large truck comes over the hill and down the road is fiddling with the radio and isn't paying attention and doesn't see the commotion ahead and when he finally does -  ye gods!!! - it's too late!!! And he hits the brakes and swerves and slams right into a long trailer and the long trailer goes skidding onto the railroad tracks at the precise moment - ye gods!!! - the runaway train turns the corner. Ah, this is no mere a trailer, this is a horse trailer! And - ye gods!!! - there are horses aboard!!! And so the owners of the trailer hurry to evacuate the horses as the train bears down and this allows for several dramatic shots of lovely horses with flowing manes kicking with the runaway train in the background and then - just in the nick of time!!! - they get the horses outta the way and the train slams the trailer off the rails and keeps on going. Whew.

This is to say that although Tony Scott's 2010 action flick "Unstoppable" is based on the 2001 true story of a runaway train in Ohio that roared for 70 miles with two tank cars containing thousands of gallons of the hazardous material molten phenol acid, that is just not enough meat on the bone for Mr. Scott.

So what if the runaway train is on a collision course with a Pennsylvania city, threatening to blow it sky high?

And what if the one of the men aboard the train that goes after the runaway train in an effort to latch onto it and slow it down is Frank Barnes (Denzel Washington) and what if Frank has a seriously estranged relation with his two younger daughters and what if the two younger daughters work at Hooters and what if during Frank's attempt to chase down the runaway train we keep cutting back to shots of all the girls at Hooters watching and cheering him on (literally saying at one point "Go, Frank!") as if it were the Big Game?

And what if the other guy aboard the train with Frank is conductor Will Colson (Chris Pine) and what if his comely wife recently stopped talking to him because he thought she was having an affair with a cop and so he threatens the cop with a gun even though it turns out (surprise!) he wasn't having an affair with his wife but now the cop has taken out a restraining order and Will's wife won't talk to him and won't let him see his son and so when......eeeeeeeeh, I mean, if Will saves the say, what if there are wondrously dramatic shots of the reunited family embracing?

And what if during one scene where Frank and the dubious Vice President of the Train Company (Kevin Dunne) - he'll talk about things like, say, devaluing stock for the company - and the dispatcher back at base......wait, we need a woman for that part. A really attractive woman. Hmmmmm. How 'bout Rosario Dawson? She could maintain our interest even though she spends the whole movie talking into a headset, right? Good. Write it down. Anyway, what if during one scene where Frank and Will and the Vice President and the dispatcher back at base all have a three way conference call we shoot it with endless, swooping pans, right to left, left to right, right to left, left to right, right to left, left to right? (Argh!!! Stop with the pans, Tony! For the love of the movie gods, can't you just hold one shot for three seconds?! Two seconds?! ONE SECOND?! Please?!)

And, this is just a hunch, what if Kevin Corrigan played the part of the Safety Inspector of the Federal Railroad Administration?

Ah, now we've got our movie. Scott takes that real life idea and turns the speakers up to 11 while, stunningly, refraining from turning the whole thing into a traditional Tony Scott Film Stock Free For All and shaking the camera so much one in three patrons has to excuse him or herself to hurl. I don't want to call it classical but this is definitely solid filmmaking, an enjoyable, tightly paced B movie. For two hours you're diverted and entertained without being bored. Which I guess in some strange fashion makes this film a really minor triumph.

Return

Face-acting? Is that a term? If not can we officially enter it into the Movie Lexicon and can we do it on account of Linda Cardellini’s fine, quietly demonstrative work in her coming home saga “Return” (just released on DVD)? Essentially, and nearly improbably, writer/director Liza Johnson is asking Cardellini to convey the narrative of an entire film within her face. She is Kelli, a National Guard Reservist, and as the film opens she has just returned from duty overseas. She greets her husband Mike (Michael Shannon) and her two daughters, and in these early scenes – a party in her honor, returning to work, going out with the girls – her face is bright with relief and elation at being back in her old Ohio home and eager, maybe, to fall back into a less volatile routine. Slowly, though Cardellini strips away the glow to reveal, in order, confusion, depression, anger, desperation, and then, finally, nothing.

 
Events happen, sure, of course they do, because they must. Kelli suddenly, perhaps irrationally, becomes fed up with her old job at a factory and walks out. Mike seems not distant but coy, as if hiding something. Indeed, he is, in the form of an affair apparently started while Kelli was in Iraq. Kelli becomes disconsolate, gets too drunk, gets a DUI. Yet despite having her license confiscated she still drives her car, except she forgets to pick up her oldest daughter after school and leaves her alone in a possibly not so good place. Mike moves to his mother’s and takes the kids. Kelli meets another vet in her DUI class who understands her experiences but has not necessarily learned how to deal properly with his own.

In order and on paper these events come across apt for melodrama, but Johnson’s film – severely indie but still classical – is almost entirely devoid of the Shouting From The Mountain Tops that typically populates “when I got back from the war” (do veterans really say that? I’m curious) films. Johnson takes one of the oldest tropes in the book – The Unplanned Pregnancy – and niftily turns it around. There is nary a flashback to the horrors of war. In fact, the horrors of war are hardly addressed. What did she do over there? Something with supplies. What did she see over there? A few dead bodies, but other people had it worse. She always offers that disclaimer: other people had it worse. People try to get her to talk but she declines and bottles it up and yet, simultaneously, it’s there – it’s all there, scene to scene and moment to moment on Cardellini’s face. Please don’t assume her face becomes over-expressive puddy like Jim Carrey, no, it’s so much more delicate but it is entirely unmistakable.

Because she never talks about it we are conditioned to expect some sort of third act revelation that will explain it all away, summarizing and assigning context. It never arrives. Johnson does resort to a crisis at the climax, however, that suspiciously evokes the crisis at the climax in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s 2006 “Sherrybaby” almost to the letter. Was this intentional? Unintentional? Hard to say and probably unimportant. It demonstrates that even if Kelli’s life has sunk into upheaval that maybe she hasn’t completely lost touch. At least, not yet.

The film closes, as it should, with a plaintive close-up of Cardellini’s face. In a way its conclusion is the counterpoint to “Hurt Locker.” She is not a thrill-seeker. She is bound. And the life that awaited her last time during deployment will not be waiting for her this time. She is looking into the abyss and nothing is looking back at her.

Kylie: 44 Is The New 27

Cinema Romantico has made its affection well known (too well known?) over the years for Kylie Minogue but we would be remiss in failing to point out that today is her birthday. And while we could take this time to lambast those fools at Cannes for failing to pronounce her "Holy Motors" as recipient of the coveted Palme d'Or (or take a moment to point out that the same Madonna who is always bitching about how Lady Gaga rips her off ripped off Kylie's Aphrodite Les Folies tour for her Super Bowl show), well, this is a day for celebration, not anger.

So instead let's pause to point out that Kylie is the only person in cinematic history who could ably pull off both Shooting A Bazooka and Being An Absinthe Fairy.

Moonrise Kingdom

One of the phrases most utilized by adults when pre-teens complain about their lot in life is the following: You don’t know how good you have it. This phrase is both legitimate and idiotic. It is legitimate because too often adulthood devolves into the sort of weary drudgery and pre-occupation with occupation that seems to afflict the majority of adults on New Penzance, the mystical island off the coast of New England in a vibrant 1965 where Wes Anderson’s "Moonrise Kingdom" is set. These adults no longer seem to have it that good and probably haven’t for awhile. It is idiotic because, hey, adults seem to forget that when they were 12 year olds they too ceaselessly complained about their lot in life. It’s a right of passage.

This eternal conundrum is addressed in a wondrous scene in the camper home of Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis), the man tasked with tracking down runaway boy scout Sam (Jared Gilman), where he serves that same runaway boy scout half a sandwich and a brat. Sharp seems confused why this disobedient boy is in such a hurry to grow up. But then Sharp wonders if Sam might like a sip of his beer and in a whimsically symbolic moment Sam dumps his milk into an ash tray to make room for a few drops of the adult beverage. Adults want to protect children from the rigors of adulthood as long as they can, but there comes a point where resistance is futile.

Every Wes Anderson movie in one way or another is about the rivalry between make-believe and the real world and the opening shot of Moonrise Kingdom illuminates this in the way it focuses on a painting of a modest red home before the camera – in typical Wes-ish style – gracefully pans to the right and then the pans pick up the pace as we realize we are IN the very house represented in the painting. It belongs to the family of our heroine Suzy (Kara Hayward), the rebel with the blue eye shadow and propensity for stealing library books. She concerns her litigating parents Walt and Laura (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand) so much they have purchased a book titled Coping With A Very Troubled Child.

Suzy, as we see in flashback, has fallen head-over-heels (in her own stern way) with Sam, a no-nonsense romantic Khaki Scout who has tendered his “resignation” and fled the camp run with an innocent fist by golly willickers Scout Master Ward (Edward Norton). Ward summons Sharp – forever adorned in uniform complete with the requisite high water pants – who is mired in an affair with Laura which seems less about passion than the lack of alternatives on the tiny island. A search party is configured and give chase as Sam and Suzy, armed with a hunting rifle, binoculars and a record player, stay one step ahead, though their destination may be known to the Narrator (Bob Balaban) who turns up now and again to allude to the historic storm set to descend in a few days time and allow for a nifty backdrop to the third act climax.

As the film progresses, it takes neat detours in the story that never dull the momentum and it is revealed – to us and Scout Master Ward – that Sam is an orphan whose foster parents have given up on him. Dreaded Social Services (represented by Tilda Swinton) awaits. (There is a dog here named Snoopy and that reference elicits thoughts of Social Services as a Daisy Hill Puppy Farm For People.) And Suzy, we learn, has a serious mean streak, deeply troubling to the very parents who seem unaware of how their own fingerprints may have more than aided in creating that mean streak.

There is no love as forceful as young love, a truth Shakespeare knew best and which is why "Romeo and Juliet" will still be performed by the kids of the kids of the kids of your kids and mine. And yet so rarely is young love taken seriously by the old, as evidenced by the scene-stealing Jason Schwartzman as a crooked camp master who assists our star cross’d lovers of "Moonrise Kingdom" and agrees to marry them so long as they take a real pause to consider just what the union of marriage truly means.

Anderson casts the brief shot of this consideration with Sam and Suzy in the left of the frame and a young camp-goer bouncing on a trampoline in the right. At first, you think “Oh, there goes that quirky Wes again.” But upon reflection it’s the most loaded shot of a film loaded with loaded shots. Carefree innocence ceding to the taking of vows. Sam and Suzy know what it means.

And Sam and Suzy know just how good they have it. They don’t need a reminder. Which is why they just yearn for everyone to leave them alone so they can be together.

Friday Old's Fashioned: Government Girl

In war torn America in 1943 Dudley Nichols decided to make a film about the effort on the home front and how the simple but crucial desire to assist those men overseas risking their lives was so unavoidably tied to the bickering and backstabbing and "red tape" of the bureaucrats back in Washington D.C. Of course, to make this film in the midst of war torn America in 1943, with everyone on edge about that wackadoo with the mustache and his merry band of idiots, to make this film shining at least a moderately harsh light, would not necessarily lift the spirits of anyone. Thus, he injected a little romance into the proceedings to ensure the presence of the grand, often meddlesome, Hollywood notion that there should be something for everyone. Unfortunately so often in that case everyone goes home wishing for something else.

Lucky for Nichols he had Dame Olivia de Havilland* in the lead role, elicting the sensation of a resistant woman standing in front of a faltering dam and plugging each new leak as it springs up. She is Elizabeth "Smokey" Allard (why "Smokey? probably because it was easier to say than "Elizabeth") and as the film opens she becomes incensed when the hotel suite set aside for the honeymoon of her war secretary and best pal (Anne Shirley) is appropriated by Ed Browne (Sonny Tufts) - who appears to be "a mild, easygoing, good natured sap" but is really a "determined, shrewd, domineering, fast-thinking, pigh-headed jackass" - an engineer in from Detroit who has been called upon by Washington to assist in manufacturing bombers for the European theater. This helpfully gets Smokey and Ed off on the wrong foot and that foot just gets wronger when it turns out the secretary set aside to specially assist Ed in all matters is......wait for it......Smokey!

Despite this requisite roadblock, "Smokey" can't bring herself to sabotage the man in charge and instead helps him hack through the red tape he despises so much with a whimsical machete all while teaching him the finer points of circumventing glad-handing politicians who oddly seem less concerned with hastily and properly winning the war than with initiating Senate inquiries to take down those who have done them wrong. And as she does so, the love flame mutually flickers and then grows warmer as "Smokey's" current boyfriend, the lecherous but smooth Dana McGuire (Jess Barker), clearly not the right man for our leading lady, leads the charge to discredit this Ed Browne. And, as we all know, burning incriminating papers and giving passionate speeches on the senate floor is always a harbinger of True Love.

Only after seeing the movie did I learn that Dame Olivia did not want to make "Government Girl" - like, at all. Alas, her contract with Warner Bros. stipulated her involvement and this was what set in motion the legendary De Havilland Decision in which she fought back against the studios and won the right to work with whomever she wanted on whatever she wanted for whatever fee she negotiated. And you are forced to wonder if her dissatisfaction with his particular project centered around the romance. There was likely a very interesting project to be made around a Government Girl.

Remember Debi Mazar in "The Insider"? Any time Al Pacino needed something, any time he needed anything, he just asked Debi and she would nod and maybe jot down a note and it was as good as done. She was his right-hand woman and a great deal of what was accomplished in that film was on account of her significant abilities. Of course, because this was based on a true story and because Pacino's Lowell Bergman was a real person they were not required to fall in love, not like Ed Browne and "Smokey." And there was more than a little Debi Mazar in "Smokey." Ed Browne not only gets nowhere without her, he's probably rotting in jail.

The one killer shot in "Government Girl" features Dame Olivia in Ed Browne's office alone, sitting at his desk with her feet up, reading a book, smoking a cigarette and, man, does she look in charge. You are left wondering if we would have liberated Paris a lot sooner if "Smokey" had been made to do just her job rather than get involved in lovey-dovey shenanigans with her boss.

*While Britain has not officially bestowed the title of Dame on Olivia de Havilland, Cinema Romantico has.

Queen of Cannes

You might have heard a fairly significant film festival stationed on the French Riviera is currently taking place. And writing in his daily Cannes diary for The Guardian Xan Brooks said: “'Holy Motors' is preposterous, unstable, audacious and brilliant; the festival firework we've all been waiting for. Some love it, some loathe it. No one, it seems, can quite explain it.”

That description perks you up, doesn’t it? Like a shot of espresso dropped into a Starbucks latte.

But wait. It gets better. Trust me. Because in regards to the same film The Washington Post crowed: “Bizarre ‘Holy Motors’ sets Cannes abuzz with talk of surreal cinema and Kylie Minogue.”

To repeat: “Bizarre ‘Holy Motors’ sets Cannes abuzz with talk of surreal cinema and Kylie Minogue.”

Kylie. Pop Star. Knight. Cancer Survivor. One time official Coolest Person On Earth. Now, Queen of Cannes.

Step aside, Wes Anderson. Park it, Q.T. Go peck what-have-ya with the chickens, movie based on some book by that one dude. Kylie Minogue just set Cannes abuzz, see.

In his daily diary Xan Brooks continued: “At one stage Kylie Minogue crops up inside the derelict Samaritaine department store and starts singing a show tune – a moment that prompted the woman next to me to erupt from her seat and start clawing her way frantically towards the exit. As I say, it's not for everyone.”

NOT FOR EVERYONE?! How could Kylie (Effing) Minogue cropping up inside a derelict Samaritaine department store to sing a show tune not be for everyone?! That’s the last thing in the world that would make me erupt from my seat and start crawling frantically towards the exit. This isn’t “Varsity Blues”, this is Kylie, Badass of Badasses. If anything, it makes me want to buy a plane ticket to Cannes RIGHT NOW and force the festival to show it again so I can see her cropping up inside a derelict Samaritaine department store to sing a show tune.

So let’s just go ahead and say out loud what you were all thinking anyway……the road to Best Supporting Actress starts with Kylie Minogue.

Hey! Look! It's Kylie and Harvey at Cannes! Can an Oscar campaign be far behind?

How To Win An Oscar In One Easy Step

Two time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis would appear the early odds on Oscar favorite for Best Actor for his upcoming role as one Abraham Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's forthcoming biopic. But Oscar-less Bill Murray has staked pole position as his challenger by playing one Franklin Roosevelt in the forthcoming Hyde Park On Hudson, when FDR and his wife Eleanor went on a retreat with King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.

Upon seeing the trailer, the Oscar-less Tom Cruise immediately announced his intention to play one James Madison, centered around Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay writing The Federalist Papers.

Upon hearing the Oscar-less Cruise's announcement, the Oscar-less Leonardo DiCaprio immediately announced his intention to play one Theodore Roosevelt in a film centered around the formation of the Rough Riders.

Upon hearing the Oscar-less DiCaprio's announcement upon hearing the Oscar-less's Cruise announcement, the Oscar-less Johnny Depp immediately announced plans to star in a Presidential biopic called Old Rough and Ready. "Zachary Taylor," Depp told the Palm Springs Examiner, "is sort of the Hunter S. Thompson of the Oval Office."

Upon hearing the Oscar-less Depp's announcement upon hearing the Oscar-less DiCaprio's announcement upon hearing the Oscar-less Cruise's announcement, the Oscar-less Edward Norton immediately announced plans to star, produce and direct a biopic about President Rutherford B. Hayes. "Depp wants to get obscure?" he told the Palm Springs Examiner. "I see his obscure and RAISE him!" 

Upon hearing the Oscar-less Norton's announcement upon hearing the Oscar-less Depp's announcement upon hearing the Oscar-less DiCaprio's announcement upon hearing the Oscar-less Cruise's announcement, the Oscar-less Harrison Ford immediately announced plans to star in a very subpar thriller.

The Definition Of Dapper

Haywire

Uber-super agent Mallory Kane (Gina Carano) – Sydney Bristow without the elaborate disguises – has come to Dublin to masquerade with MI6 agent Paul (Michael Fassbender) as a lovey-dovey couple at a luxurious party where Paul plans to meet with a contact. Or something. Who knows? The plot isn’t the point of the film. It’s the excuse. Anyway, Mallory and Paul meet at the train station. They go to a hotel. He takes a shower. As he does, she tracks down his laptop and hacks into it. Then she takes a shower. As she does, he tracks down her purse and rifles through it. Such is the life of a secret agent. If you take a shower with someone else in the room, you have to expect that someone else to do a little reconnaissance work, right? So shouldn’t Paul have expected Mallory to hack into his laptop? Well, sure. I suppose so. In real life, maybe, but “Haywire” is quite openly a movie, like a less overtly jokey, yet more intensified thrilling “Cabin in the Woods.” It's grade A awesome sauce.

Make no mistake, Steven Soderbergh, genre hop-scotcher, and his writer Lem Dobbs know just what they are up to every step of the way. From the shower scene to the old standby Put On A Hoodie And You’ll Slip Right By A Police Blockade to the taking of a hostage purely as a means to deliver exposition to the character who inexplicably takes a walk at the most inexplicable moment along the beach solely to set up the climactic duel in a spectacular location, the film repeatedly employs every cliché in the manual as a means to both toy with and subvert them.

Mallory is part of a private firm run by the not-as-dapper-as-he-thinks Kenneth (Ewan McGregor), her ex in order to inject the requisite romance without, cleverly, injecting it at all, and she and her team are hired to extract journalist hostage Jiang (Anthony Brandon Wong) from Barcelona. (In the pictures tacked to the wall as they hatch their plan one potential adversary is identified as “Bad Guy #1.” TELL ME Soderbergh and Dobbs didn’t know what they were doing! You can’t!) Once the mission is completed Mallory reveals this will be……wait for it……her last job. She’s out. But, of course, she’s not out. Because Kenneth ropes her back in to go to Dublin. Which is where, as it happens, the obligatory set-up is revealed and Paul tries to eliminate her. He fails. And now she’s on the lam and intent on clearing her soiled name by way of getting revenge against the ex-boyfriend who’s done her rather wrong. Call it “The Bourne Supremacy” with a sprinkling of “Salt.” (Boo yah!)

Of course, for all its sly asides and wondrous riffs on the form, “Haywire” would have merely been an elongated inside joke if the action scenes failed – and Soderbergh ensures they do not. Consider the opening – which, as it turns out, is actually the middle of the movie – at the roadside diner where Mallory is supposed to meet someone only to meet someone she doesn’t expect to meet. As she sits there sipping coffee and waiting the soundtrack bops along, quoting – not unintentionally – that James Bond Theme guitar riff. But the instant the kung-fu/karate/hand-to-hand/whatever the heck it is erupts, the soundtrack cuts out. This happens every single time for the duration of the 90 minutes. Every fight is set to silence, save for the sounds of punches, kicks and grunts. This is refreshing like a mint julep on a scorching summer’s day sans central air. Also consider the majestic Being Followed Sequence in which Mallory stalks the streets in a sassy hat as she realizes some dude in a coat across the way is eyeing her every move. The camera moves, fluently, but it never shakes and, again, with no music our emotions are not cued and so when, say, a car pulls out behind her we can’t be certain if that car is coming for her or if it’s just some innocent daytripper. It’s nothing but shoes on cement but it titillates with an exotic force.

And the authenticity of these fisticuffs is heightened by the presence of Carano, resembling a Carla Gugino from Gold’s Gym with a Linda Fiorentino voice, a real life MMA fighter. Then again, there is a reason why I’m so often disinterested in the kvetching about someone like the rail thin Angelina Jolie playing badass and that is because Angelina is, you know, an actress. Gina is not. It shows, often blatantly, in inexpressive line readings and in an even more inexpressive face. Re-enter Soderbergh. He deftly masks her weaknesses by playing them up. Her Mallory seems not so much hell-bent on revenge as mildly annoyed that she has to tromp around cleaning up all these loose ends. At one point when spinning her story in the car to her hostage (Michael Angarano) she is forced to do a bit of off-roading and the poor hostage exclaims “I just bought this car last week.” That’s the expected line in this situation. Mallory’s response is not. She says: “Yeah. Well.”

Yeah. Well. That’s all. No pithy one-liner, no comedic putdown. You’ve seen this story before. Yeah. Well. Soderbergh has got the action thriller playbook and he’s running it step by step to show how even if that’s what you choose to do a little bit of craft can still render an antiquated scenario wholly original.

My Heart Hurts (Again)

I love Bruce Springsteen & Lady Gaga. This confuses many people because Bruce relies on good old fashioned rock ‘n’ roll and Gaga relies on new fangly synthesized electronica. These two styles can’t POSSIBLY co-exist! Heavens, no! Dan Boeckner & Alexei Perry, husband & wife, however, decided that was bullshit. They formed the Handsome Furs and combined a guitar and a synthesizer and made pure, straight, true, unbelievably magnificent electronica-infused rock ‘n’ roll. And for the last year of my life they have been my favorite band in the whole world.

Majestic like the Canadian Rockies, as raw as sushi in Chinatown, their recordings cleansed you, their live shows throttled you (they are the only act I have ever seen not named Bruce Springsteen to do a SECOND encore), and their last album, "Sound Kapital", was note for note, song for song perfect (even if you include the bonus track!).

I say last album because they announced their break-up two days ago. Why? No one knows the specific reason. And that’s fine. It’s their business. Not ours. It’s sad, but no one should be mad. Every one of their songs I love is a blessing, each of their shows I got to see was a miracle. They owe me nothing, they gave me everything, and I will be eternally grateful. I wish them both the absolute best.

The Handsome Furs are dead. Long live The Handsome Furs.

 

Friday's Old Fashioned: Klute

The title of this film, as it turns out, is a misnomer. Sure, sure, John Klute (Donald Sutherland) figures prominently. He’s a detective from small town Pennsylvania with a cordial air as demonstrated at the dinner table scene opening the film at the home of the respected Grunemans, Tom (Robert Milli) and Holly (Betty Murray). Alas, soon after Tom turns up missing. Well, maybe not missing. Maybe he flew the coop. Maybe he was leading a double life because as it turns out he had sent several, uh, shall we say, obscene letters to a prostitute in New York City.

That prostitute is Bree Daniels (Jane Fonda) who is the first person Klute tracks down when, in the wake of the police’s ineptness, he lights out for the bright lights to try and track down Tom. Initially she resists Klute’s intrusions. Eventually she will aid him. Obligatorily she will fall for him. Really, “Klute” is much more about Bree, in so much as this is a refreshing – even if it is rather sordid – mystery-oriented film where just as much as care is taken to create the most crucial character. We first meet her on the job with a “john.” Then we see her chatting up a therapist, evoking Sera in “Leaving Las Vegas.” (Wait, I meant to say that Sera in “Leaving Las Vegas” was evoking Bree in “Klute.”) She is irate at her therapist for not talking her out of turning tricks but, as the conversation progresses, she reveals that, in reality, she isn’t upset about it at all. She likes what she does - not the sex, mind you, which is unfulfilling and mostly less than average, but the control she wields over the variety men of she encounters. She digs control.

Which is why she is so uneasy when in the wake of receiving these obscene letters from Tom she also begins receiving phone calls where the mystery person on the other end of the line remains eerily silent. She is gripped by the sensation that she is being followed everywhere she goes. She is, in short, losing control. She loses even more of it when Klute reveals he has been tapping her phone to use as leverage to gain her assistance. Eventually she feels a flicker of attraction for him, and he for her, even as they descend deeper into the mystery.

Oh. Right. The mystery. Despite being billed as a Mystery/Thriller (per IMDB) the least interesting and most poorly executed part of "Klute" is, in fact, the mystery. Bree recalls being beaten a couple years back by a john but doesn’t remember if it was Gruneman because she doesn’t remember Gruneman himself which leads to a meeting with her, uh, pimp (Roy Scheider) which leads to Arlyn Page who also serviced this supposedly abusive john who reveals this supposedly abusive john wasn't Grunneman but someone else. And eventually, of course, Klute connects the dots but what a bunch of tedious dots. Heck, the whole thing wraps up with a Talking Killer Scene (coinage: Roger Ebert) which drives things to a standstill rather than to ultimate suspense.

Director Alan J. Pakula does his best to elicit mood and tension - and shows why he was such a splendid to choice to helm "All the President's Men" a few years later - by drenching seemingly the whole film in shadows (no one uses overhead lights - only lamps) and offering suitably sinister POV shots of the someone who is stalking Bree. But storywise it’s as if writers Andy Lewis & David P. Lewis started out with designs of this being a top notch detective flick centered around John Klute – hence the title – got a good ways into it and suddenly realized that Bree was taking a stranglehold on the whole story.

There is a bit too much of Bree conveniently expositing background information via her therapist (kind of like the reverse mirror of the Talking Killer Scene) and yet Fonda, who won an Acadmey Award for her work, sells it all so urgently you never quite notice. She is not the requisite Cinematic Hooker who is only doing to get by or because she was forced into this way of life, etc. She makes it apparent that while she is fully aware she should be ashamed of what she does, she isn't. In fact, she kinda gets off on it, and that guilt weighs heavily. And that makes us wonder about the end.

Once all that routine nonsense involving the whodunit is resolved, Our Gal Bree decides to high tail outta town and back to Pennsylvania to be with Klute. I'm suspicious. How long do you think she lasted in the Keystone State? Six months? Three months? Two weeks? If there'd been a "Klute 2" she would have been back in Manhattan turning tricks.

The Iron Lady vs. Cinema Romantico

It sits beside my DVD player morning, noon and night. It teases, taunts and haunts me. Every time I glance at it I can feel its harsh gaze, its judgment, its inexorable demand to stop just letting it lay there and suck it up and pick it up and watch it.

When “The Iron Lady” hit theaters in Chicago back near the beginning of the year, I ignored it. I had biopic burnout, baby, I had it so bad every time I would see a trailer for “The Iron Lady” or “J. Edgar” I’d feel like I had bugs crawling on my skin. I turned a cold shoulder to Leo as Hoover and I just said no to Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher.

Then acclaim started rolling in for The Streep-ster. Award talk whistled in the wind. And before long an Oscar campaign was afoot. But the buzz was for the performance, not the movie, and, thus, I resisted. Besides, Viola Davis seemed the front runner for “The Help” (which I’d seen) on the strength of her wins at SAG and GG. And even more crucially I was the Chairman of The Rooney Mara Bandwagon! What would the tabloids say if I was spotted at a showing of “The Iron Lady”?! ("Head Of The Rooney Mara Bandwagon Seen At Late Showing Of 'The Iron Lady!' Supporters Are Aghast!")

Then, of course, The Streep-ster took home the Academy Award. And now I was officially a hypocrite. I was someone telling everyone Rooney deserved that statue when I had not even SEEN the performance that had actually earned it! I was THAT guy! I didn’t want to be THAT guy! I had to go see it. It was the conscientious thing to do. Yet even then I could not conjure the necessary cinematic fortitude.

I decided to wait for DVD and upon its release I moved it to the top spot in my Netflix queue. A few days later it arrived, I parked it next to the ol’ DVD player in anticipation of the long awaited watch, and there it has remained………for over a month. It’s become unbearable, a Mexican Standoff between Meryl’s Margaret and I. To watch means I will no doubt subjugate myself to another boring biopic. But to make that claim makes me a fraud because how can I dare condemn it without having seen it?!

And so, this dance of destiny goes on. A living room loaded every moment with drama. A red envelope that more and more appears as if its red is the theoretical blood shed in this utterly asinine battle. “The Iron Lady” vs. Nick. Who will win? Maybe her. Maybe me. But even if I do win I can’t help but fear I will really lose.

Official Cinematic Crush Update

“The Smart One”, an ABC comedy pilot starring my official Cinematic Crush Malin Akerman and Portia de Rossi, has apparently gone the way of “Fox Force Five” – as in, it was not picked up for the network’s fall schedule.

Publicly, Cinema Romantico is unpleased. Make that, deliriously unpleased. No, we have not been afforded an opportunity to actually see the pilot – primarily because ABC rejected all our requests for a screener by saying “Wait, aren’t you that crazy blogger who thinks Malin Akerman is exactly like her character in ‘The Romantics?’” – but this is of little consequence. We are rock solid in our faith Ms. Akerman’s turn as a weathergirl turned mayor possessed comedic timing of the highest order and a unique yet genuine empathy. We are several tentpoles past certain that Ms. de Rossi made even her brilliant work as Lindsay Bluth in "Arrested Development" look like amateur hour. We are rooted in our belief that David Arquette stepped up to the plate and hit, well, maybe not a homerun or a triple or even a double but a blooper single that got the runner home, dammit. We have no reservations in declaring Jean Smart was going to be Emmy worthy. We might not have any idea who Nestor Carbonell is but we feel vaguely safe in saying he was probably pretty darn above average. We are without a shred of a doubt positive this show could have been a keeper if given the time to prove its worth. We are shocked, and chagrined – mortified and stupefied. This is simply another example of TV Exec Idiocy. We ask, will it never end?

Privately? Uh……

Privately………we are THRILLED we don’t have to watch another TV show we don’t want to watch and blog about it! MORE MOVIES!!! MORE MOVIES!!! MORE MOVIES!!!

Besides, now Malin can focus on making her run at Oscar glory in the Linda Lovelace biopic.

Hold it. I've just been handed an urgent news story. It seems Ms. Akerman just went on record as saying the Linda Lovelace biopic probably isn’t going to happen.

I really need to learn how to be more tactful.

Five Points of Carnage

I recently re-indulged in Roman Polanski's seemingly somewhat overlooked "Carnage" - a film about two New York couples who congregate in the wake of one of their sons "disfiguring" the other in a schoolyard fight - for the third time. My original review that appeared on AM can be found here but today I would like to offer up an additional 5 points.

1.) "Carnage", to me, and I hope this makes sense, is like Tom Petty's Greatest Hits. I'm not saying "Carnage" is the greatest movie I have ever seen but I feel as if it's the sort of movie that I can always turn to and that every time I turn to it I will be thoroughly entertained, never disappointed.

2.) "Carnage" is the funniest movie with an official release date of 2011 that I have seen. In fact, at the risk of sounding like an effete cineaste snob (so be it!), "Carnage" made me laugh far more frequently and far harder than "Bridesmaids" and "Horrible Bosses" put together. It's the truth so I must speak it.

3.) In the spirit of the number, my three favorite lines (delivered, respectively, by Christoph Waltz, John C. Reilly and Waltz again) in this particular viewing...

a.) "What did you expect? Some revelation about universal values?" (Pause.) "This scotch is unbelievable."

b.) "A couple of urns jabbering away on the shores of Lake Sebago."

c.) "The truth is no one here cares. Except for Penelope. One must acknowledge her integrity."

4.) I read and heard chatter afterwards that in the case of Kate Winslet you could, as they say, see her acting, which is another way of saying her acting might have been fake. And I don't dispute that assessment because, as Foster's character says, the character herself is fake! She spends the majority of the film with this anxious veneer - always on edge that her husband (Christoph Waltz) is doing something or is about to do (or say) something stupid - in her best effort (which is fairly lousy) to be diplomatic while her husband fields cellphone calls and routinely insults their hosts with and/or without realizing he is doing so. And then in the third act, once the scotch kicks in, it comes undone and she unleashes mind vomit (as opposed to the real vomit she unleashes earlier). She's acting fake because she's supposed to be fake which is just so......real.

5.) "Carnage" is based on a play by Yasmina Reza and any time a play becomes a movie questions and theories emerge regarding the "stagy" nature of the direction, but I tend to think Polanski avoided this plague. He moved the camera with showing off but, more crucially, found many moments that took advantage of their cinematic nature.

There is a moment maybe 25 minutes in when Waltz has fielded his third or fourth or fifth, whatever, phone call and he finishes and Reilly starts pressing him with thinly veiled insults on the ethics of his line of work. Polanski and his editor Herve de Luze cut between a close-up of Reilly leaning against a door frame with a cup of coffee and a mischievous grin and a long shot of Waltz leaning against a bookcase. Reilly says Waltz has "a funny line of work." Waltz is finally, truly drawn in. He asks "What do you do?" and as he does so he assumes his own smile - less mischievous than wicked - and walks toward Reilly and the camera and into his own close-up.

Reilly: "I sell pots and pans."
Waltz: "And door handles."
Reilly: "And flush mechanisms, and lots of other stuff."
Waltz: "Flush mechanisms. I like that. That's interesting."

Then it switches to a shot with Winslet on the couch in the foreground to the right of the frame with Waltz and Reilly facing off to the right in the background. "Alan?!" she scolds. "I find that interesting," he replies, as if insulted. "Flush toilets are interesting." Now it switches between close-ups of the two men as Reilly explains the finer points of flush mechanisms.

Then the camera finds Jodie Foster, the wife of Reilly's character, on the other couch in the foreground to the left of the frame with Waltz and Reilly facing to the left in the background. She interjects, trying to turn the talk back toward the subject of the original talk, which was of the son of Waltz & Winslet seriously injuring the son of Reilly & Foster. But as she speaks the camera returns to one close-up each of Waltz & Reilly, smiling, asking, as they say, who's are the biggest?, almost as if, ahem, they have for a moment morphed into their own two sons facing off on the playground.

Could you GET that moment on a stage? I don't think so. Which is why I'm so freaking glad they made a movie out of it. Now I can buy the DVD and re-visit it whenever I want to. (Also, can I retroactively place this in my 2011 Top 10? I can?! Yay!!!)

The Avengers

At a certain moment in Joss Whedon's bold, ballyhooed, box office bone crushing organization of several noted, beloved heroes of Marvel Comics, Robert Downey Jr.'s billionaire philanthropist playboy rockets into the picture in his sturdy high-tech Iron Man suit to the sounds of the rock group AC/DC. The irony was not lost on me. "The Avengers", as stated, are technically comic book characters. But really they're a colorful, costumed, high-powered rock group.

Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johannson) is the coquettish, Gwen Stefani-like, ass-kicking front woman. Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans) is the bland rhythm guitarist. Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is the long-haired, plays-by-his-own-rules drummer. Bruce Hanner/The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) is the bassist, always teetering on the edge of crazy. Tony Stark/Iron Man is the lead guitarist and, by extension, the most charismatic of the lot and the one who's really driving the outfit. Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) is the guy who left for awhile and just returned. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) is the Manager trying to get them all whipped into shape for opening night in New York City. (Their first album, by the way, was called Glow Stick of Destiny.)

"The Avengers" has been a long time in the making, a product of four other film franchises whose characters have converged into this mammoth two-and-a-half hour extravaganza. (Save for Edward Norton who was replaced by Ruffalo.) Whedon, ever clever, has in a way picked up the style employed by Jon Favreau in the two individual "Iron Man" movies wherein character and dialogue are just as crucial as the action. His movie is as much about five disparate personalities converging and then adapting on the fly as it is about the flamboyantly sinister Loki (Tom Hiddleston), Thor's adopted brother, who is hell bent, as he must be, on Earthly domination via the Tesseract, an exotic movie contraption that opens a portal to his universe from which he can unleash standard summer movie CGI-enhanced monsters on innocent extras.

Thus, Nick Fury, who runs SHIELD, whose operations are based out of a sort of futuristic Spruce Goose that can travel by air, water and underwater, and his second-in-command (Clark Gregg, getting to play a nice guy for once) gather The Avengers, much to the apparent chagrin of government higher-ups, to battle back against Loki and re-gain possession of the Tesseract.

Downey Jr. merely re-affirms the fact he was born to play this part, smirking and insulting the whole way through, teasing poor Bruce Banner in the hopes of upsetting the guy so he can get a much desired glimpse of the green monster within. And while Norton's performance remains unseen by me, Ruffalo uses his patented neurotic energy to great effect, crafting someone in very real anguish by his beyond-belief alter ego. Johannson settles comfortably into somehow simultaneously being a femme fatale and a mother hen while Hemsworth struts about with decent authority. Evans, on the other hand, comes across like a saluting extra in a 1940's WWII movie, although even he is practically brimming with zest compared to Renner. He makes shooting a bow and arrow look as fun as multiplication tables.  

When the characters share the screen, squabbling away like superheroes in a support group, aided strongly by Whedon's razor sharp wit, is when "The Avengers" transcends its box office bloat nature. But, of course, at its core it is still box office bloat and because it is still box office bloat this must mean that, as tradition stipulates, the third act must center around an invasion of the Big Apple complete with explosions and people running for their lives. Sigh.

"Really, Joss? This is the best you've got? I think we're a little better than this, don't you?"

No doubt Whedon meant this third act to poke fun at the genre. The problem: because its inherent goal was to be a smash at the box office (which it is) he could not follow through with the big-budget screwball spirit contained within the best parts of his screenplay.

It's not that this has "been done before", but that's it's not being done again with vitality. Whedon's wheelhouse is usurping the typical - and occasionally he does this even in the final act, such as the wondrous moment when a Big Speech is cut short - and too much of this movie is him just being typical. He could have opted for a "Ghostbusters"-esque End of the World Scenario centered around verbiage and rousing wit. Sure, there was the Marshmallow Man too, but that was as much about the idea as the effect. What does "The Avengers" offer? Aliens riding around on alien motor scooters? Bah humbug!

Tony Stark, like in his own movies, rises to the top, standing head and shoulders above the fray and looking down on it in sardonic disbelief, ribbing it and everyone else. If he had seen this rough edit he would have zinged Joss to hell and back. In fact, could Tony Stark be creative consultant on "The Avengers 2"? Because remember, as lead guitarist of this band he's no shill for Top 40. He's punk rock.

Extraterrestrial Blogathon

Sam Fragoso of the incomparable Duke & The Movies is hosting a brilliant blogathon today. He writes: "Extraterrestrial forces land on Earth. Unknowing of our planet and society, you can pick five films from the history of cinema that represent humanity. What titles would you choose and why?"

My list, contrary to the typical melodramatic and elongated spirit of Cinema Romantico, will be brief but I think in the style of this briefness the point will still be very well made. So, what five films would I show from the whole history of cinema to accurately represent humanity? And in just what way would they represent it?

Sex: In The Mood For Love.

Drugs: Leaving Las Vegas.

Rock 'n' Roll: Almost Famous.

Everything Else: Bonnie and Clyde & Casablanca.

In other words, our world is kinda messed up. But it's still sorta beautiful.

The Lammys: For Your Consideration

I have been a member of the LAMB (Large Association of Movie Blogs) since the earliest days of 2010 and yet each year when the Lammys – our colossal gang’s version of the Academy Awards – rolled around I pretty much kept out of its way (though I always make sure to vote). I’d like to claim this is because I’m the George C. Scott of the blogosphere but really it’s because even on the faceless internet I’m an introvert who goes out of his way to avoid networking.

But in the wake of a number of blogging confessionals by a few of my most spectacular peers, I got to thinking. And analyzing. And I realized that since the time the infinitely awesome Castor asked me to join his Anomalous Material one year ago which occurred at the same time I hit my 1000th post, I have – between AM and Cinema Romantico – made over 400 posts in one year.

That's, like, insane. Shouldn’t I be burned out? I should probably be burned out. But I’m not burned out. I’m not even close. Heck, I’ve authored a number of posts I haven’t and probably won’t publish if only because you all don’t want to read another 17 times how brilliant I think “The Descendants” is. (Wait, didn’t I just publish another “Descendants” post yesterday? Whoops.) And I don't mean to toot my own horn (read: I mean to toot my own horn) but I do my absolute damndest to refrain from any bargain basement posts. That’s my vow to you and myself. I strive hardcore to avoid filler and blogging fast food. If I don't think it's inspired, I won’t put it up. Cinema Romantico don't slough, yo.

Therefore I’m throwing my hat into the ring for one Lammy and one Lammy only – Most Prolific.

So vote for me.

Because I write a lot of posts.

Or don’t vote for me.

Who cares?!

Don’t vote at all!!!

Okay. That’s harsh. I apologize. I was just quoting Tammy Metzler in “Election.” Which I’ve always wanted to do. And this is probably my only chance.

So yeah, vote for me. Or don’t. Either/or. But if you don’t, I’ll probably be so depressed I’ll have to write 730 posts next year. At which point my entire body will get carpal tunnel syndrome.

Or I’ll publish all those extra “Descendants” posts you don’t want to read.

Wait, did I just threaten you?

Is this the worst For Your Consideration ad in history? Probably.

What was I talking about? I can’t remember. I have to go write some more posts. Most likely about "The Descendants."

 ---Check out the whole Lammy event here, peruse the many, many other fine blogs in our community and nominate away to your heart's content.

The Descendants: Dissecting A Scene Through Dialogue

Matt King (George Clooney), his daughter Alex (Shailene Woodley) and her “friend” Syd (Nick Krause) have just left the home of the parents of Matt’s wife, Elizabeth, who is currently in a coma, the same wife he has just learned had been cheating on him with local real estate agent Brian Speer. Syd, sort of like a 2 watt bulb, had mostly unintentionally insulted the dementia-addled wife of Elizabeth’s father. This resulted in her husband (Robert Forster) punching Syd in the face. Syd rides in the backseat of Matt’s car, an icebag pressed to his bruised eye, with Alex.

Syd: "How often do old people haul off and just fucking cold cock you?"
Matt: "He's hit me a few times over the years. And watch your language."

There is more than just a bit of swearing in “The Descendants.” The swearing, in fact, would be the singular reason why it was saddled with an “R” rating. But where the majority of swearing in American movies has no rhyme or reason and it just numbs the mind and leaves the audience de-sensitized, the frequent swearing in “The Descendants” has a clever and almost subtle higher purpose. To wit…

Alex: "Can I see it?” (She pulls the icebag off Syd’s eye to reveal the black and blue wound.) “Holy shit."

2.5 seconds after Matt has just decreed “Watch your language”, his daughter completely ignores her father’s decree and uses bad language.

Matt: "Can you two just cool it when you're around me? Stop touching each other?"
Syd: "Woah, man. Maybe that's why you're wife cheated on you, if you're so against touching."

- Matt brings his car to a furious halt, turns and wags his finger in Syd’s face.

Matt: "You little fuck. Do you get hit a lot?"

This happens again and again. Matt admonishing his children to watch their language only to utterly fail to heed his own admonishment. There is even an occasion when he employs bad language and one daughter or the other immediately afterwards employs bad language and then he admonishes them for employing bad language. What opens up wider and wider on repeated viewings is how carefully drawn “The Descendants” is to show how traits – whether for good or bad - have been passed down in this family.

Syd: "I've had my share."
Matt (to Alex): "Your friend is completely retarded."
Syd: "Hey, my little brother is retarded. Don't use that word in a derogatory fashion."
Matt: "Oh."

This is also a film about immaturity. Sure, Matt may be lawyer and a Hawaiian land baron but the film never hides how ill-equipped he is to be thrust into the position of caring for his daughters all on his own and never shies away from displaying his infantile rages. Like this one. Choosing to call his daughter’s friend “retarded” as a means to insult is the sort of choice a second-grader on the playground might make, and Syd immediately calling him out knocks him back. His “oh” seems to be one not just of shock but resignation to the sin he has just committed. Then again…

Syd: "Psyche. I don't have a retarded brother."
Alex: "Syd, you suck!"
Syd: "Speaking of retarded, do you ever wish that retarded people or old people would just hurry up? Sometimes I'm waiting for them to cross the street and I'm like, come on already."

So yeah, Syd is just as immature as Matt, but even as Syd carries on the camera focuses in on Matt, disheveled, breathing heavily, maybe coming to grips with his own weakness. It has all the markings of a possibly poignant moment, and even more so when Alex ignores Syd and leans forward toward her Dad as we expect a father/daughter talk full of hard-won platitudes. Instead…

Alex: "Dad, don't forget that I know where he lives."

As in, Brian Speer. She knows where the guy who was cheating on her dad’s wife lives. They can go find him. Stalk him. Have it out with him. But perhaps Matt will for once reject the infantile and accept the mature. Perhaps he will have a moment of enlightenment.

Matt: "Get in the front seat."

Or perhaps not.

What Is Iowa's Greatest Claim To Fame?

This past weekend I was back in my home state of Iowa for a friend’s wedding. And while I have come to adore Chicago so much that now whenever I return to Iowa I automatically get itchy for the Windy City after about 48 hours, well, I’m still proud of my Iowa heritage. I always will be. And one of the many random conversations I had this past weekend sparked my interest in regards to one particular topic – namely, what is Iowa’s greatest claim to fame?

Hmmmmmm. Is it Des Moines' unmistakable gold-domed capital that so often twinkles in the dusk like those cliched shots of cornfields everyone uses to establish the fact that "Hey, we're in Iowa now!" Is it the Travelers Insurance sign lighting up downtown at 5th & Grand which, every time I pass by it, briefly makes me believe I'm in a Model T on my way to the speakeasy to get blotto? Is it RAGBRAI (i.e. Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa) that draws people from every walk of life and corner of the world each summer to take to their bicycles to pedal from the Mississippi to the Missouri or vice-versa?

Nope. Sorry it's none of those things. I mean, Iowa's got a whole lot more going for it, don't you know?

Iowa's got the 31st President (i.e. Herbert Hoover) and the 33rd Vice President (i.e. Henry Wallace) and Capt. James T. Kirk (born, of course, in Riverside, Iowa). Iowa's got Glenn Miller and Frodo Baggins (i.e. Elijah Wood) and I suppose it's got Marion Morrison (i.e. John Wayne) but Cinema Romantico would prefer to have Montgomery Clift instead. Iowa's got Tom Arnold…..wait……withdrawn! Iowa's got Grant Wood and his American Gothic (okay, actually Chicago has American Gothic at its fancy-pants Art Institute, but still…). Iowa's got the Field of Dreams and those covered bridges down there in Madison County. Iowa's got the Writer’s Workshop and the Caucuses and The World’s Largest Truck Stop (shoot me in the face). Iowa's got Nile Kinnick’s Heisman Trophy and  Shawn Johnson’s Gold Medal and Shawn Johnson’s Dancing With The Stars Championship Belt (shoot me in the face again). Iowa's got six-on-six girls basketball. Iowa's got Raccoon River Vanilla Cream Ale and Zanzibar's Coffee. Iowa's got sweet corn and pork tenderloin so good it will make nations bow down.

Yeah, Iowa’s got all that, but you do know what else Iowa’s got? I’ll tell you what else Iowa’s got.

Iowa’s got Donna Reed’s Oscar.

And that just ain’t any ol’ Oscar, homey. That’s the Oscar Ms. Reed earned for playing Alma “Lorene” Burke in “From Here To” Freaking “Eternity.” Ya dig? If there are levels of worth of particular Oscars – and we all know there are – then Ms. Reed’s Oscar is as righteous as Mother Teresa.

Donna’s our girl and her Oscar’s our guy. Literally. The statuette itself was bequeathed at her request to her hometown of Denison, Iowa following her death in 1986 where it remains displayed at the W.A. McHenry House.

Thus, in my completely unofficial and totally subjective capacity, I hereby declare Donna Reed’s Oscar to be Iowa’s Greatest Claim To Fame. Word to the New Congress Club.

Contraband

The first rule of screenwriting is…never make life easy for your protagonist.

The second rule of screenwriting is…NEVER MAKE LIFE EASY FOR YOUR PROTAGONIST!

Rest assured, “Contraband”, just released to DVD, does not make life easy for its protagonist. Poor Chris Farraday (Mark Wahlberg, running uphill all the way against this role and still making good time). Guy just wants to enjoy his night out at a wedding with his ridiculously winsome wife (the ridiculously winsome Kate Beckinsale) who is named Kate which suggests Kate Beckinsale yearned to get a little Method. And while they are drinking tall boys and grooving to bad 80’s songs, Kate’s little brother Andy (Caleb Landry Jones) is smuggling cocaine aboard a cargo ship only to toss it overboard when U.S. Customs makes its obligatory appearance. This angers local bad guy Briggs (Giovanni Ribisi, speaking in some sort of psychotic Ribisi-ized version of - I think - a Cajun accent). He vows to not only kill Andy but Andy’s sister and nephews and nieces and, yes, brother in law if he doesn’t get paid for the cocaine he failed to receive.

Chris, as you could likely guess, was once the Lionel Messi of smuggling and, thus, determines the best way to get square is to high-tail it down to scenic Panama City aboard a cargo ship and smuggle $10 million in fake bills back into the U.S. To quote Dr. Peter Venkman: “I love this plan! I’m excited to be a part of it!” So Chris takes Andy with him and leaves ridiculously winsome Kate and the kids in the charge of his closest friend Sebastian (Ben Foster) who might just have a Twist(!!!) up his sleeve. And at this point, Aaron Guzikowski begins adhering to The Rules Of Screenwriting judiciously. What, you thought Chris was gonna bop into Panama, bop right back out with his cold hard cash, and everything was gonna be hunky dory? Ha! Once the cargo ship captained by a gruff J.K. Simmons pulls into port Chris, Andy and in-on-the-scheme crewmember Danny (Lukas Haas) have an hour to get their contraband and get back on the boat. But…

1.) The $10 million in bills turns out not to be printed on starch-free paper. Useless.
2.) They go to see crazy man crime lord Gonzalo (Diego Luna) to get some worthwhile fake cash.
3.) Andy absconds with the real money needed to buy the fake money to buy cocaine at the secret behest of Briggs.
4.) With no real money to buy the fake money Chris and Danny are forced to participate in a Gonzalo-led armored car heist.

And that's just the tip of the Panamanian isthmus! I mean, this screenplay of this movie based on a 2008 Icelandic movie (which starred Baltasar Kormákur who directs this version) must have looked like El Dorado to eager producers, with Reversals caking the bright white pages like gold dust. Never mind that the ridiculously winsome Kate Beckinsale’s ridiculously winsome Kate is the personification of the underwritten female – used and abused and abused some more (and then some more), existing to ignite the plot and then cower helplessly on the homefront to elevate “dramatic tension.” Seriously, the screenplay can cultivate that intricate ruse to bust Briggs (spoiler alert!) but can’t figure out anything for Kate to do other than get the shit beat out of her? Even her onscreen job at a beauty salon exists solely so Briggs can heedlessly crash his SUV through the front window.

Unwittingly, “Contraband” might just prove the truthfulness of The Auteur Theory. Kids, you wanna win a screenplay contest? Here’s what you do. Drink a few Red Bulls, write something like “Contraband” in a night and every screenplay contest on the continent will be ALL.OVER.IT. Guaranteed. This is the sorta schlock they eat up. This is a Donald Kaufman-styled screenplay. Ah, but then some studio buys it, hires a passable director, puts it into production, attends the premiere and realizes instantly……something is missing. It hits all the beats, sure, but doesn’t hit them with any élan. The canvas held such promise but the painter didn’t know how to use the brush. They needed a Picasso.

Speaking of which, that bit about the Picasso painting……it turns out the Farrdays have no respect for art, right? That’s the movie’s biggest joke and it didn’t even realize it told it.

Friday's Old Fashioned: They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

Long before The Hunger Games, there was the La Monica Ballroom Dance Marathon of 1932, bringing together numerous disparate, desperate contestants in the midst of The Great Depression in the hope of claiming the $1500 prize and perhaps the start of a new and better life. But as the hours give way to days and the days give way to weeks that hope gives way to exhaustion and sleep deprived confusion and eventually the cash seems less vital than survival, just making it through to the end, retaining the ability to breathe oxygen, appearance and loyalty and sanity be damned. Come to think of it, their plight is more than a little symbolic of what so many were forced to endure during that most terrible chapter of our nation's history.

Our strident surrogate is Gloria (Jane Fonda, not taking s***) whose partner for the dance is disqualified at check-in by the medical staff on account of a scary sounding cough. This is a problem because dance marathon rules require everyone to have a partner. The quick thinking Master of Ceremonies Rocky (Gig Young) spies young Robert (Michael Sarrazin), fresh out of jail on account of a clouded event shown in snippets of flashback here and there, who has just cluelessly wandered in from the Santa Monica Beach and suggests Gloria take a chance on him. She does. This is helpful because they can chat about their respective pasts to bring both them and us up to speed.

Other contestants are introduced. Alice (Susannah York), in her dress that is just the cat's pajamas, fancies herself a Jean Harlow heir and has dragged Joel (Robert Fields), himself a wannabe actor, into the contest as much to get "noticed" as to win. James (Bruce Dern) squires his pregnant wife Ruby (Bonnie Bedelia). Navy man Harry Kline (Red Buttons) at first appears a salty rube only to gradually reveal a somewhat more charitable heart if also an actual heart that may be a bit iffy. But they are all at the whim of Rocky ("Wowza! Wowza! Wowza!") who knows the contest is not simply about the contestants but about the audience who are there to wager and be entertained. After all, this is a respite for them too. And so he will manipulate - thieving Alice's dress - and make up the rules as he goes - implementing a race between couples around the dance floor at varying intervals. Why he even decides orders one of the couples to tie the knot in the midst of competition ("after the marathon's over you can get divorced").

They are given breaks to bunk up, eat and drink, shower, be tended to by a team of nurses, and each break is broken up by a dance marathon equivalent of an air raid siren. Allegiances are formed, ripped asunder and re-formed. Director Sydney Pollack and his editor Frederic Steinkamp (both nominated for Oscars) do an incredible job of shortening the sequences on the actual dance floor as the film progresses, thereby underscoring that even as the stakes of the marathon itself increase, the result becomes less and less important. The finish line blurs. The viewer will come to dread the air raid siren as much as the contestants. Must go on.........can't go on.

The film makes no point to hide its allegory and one can easily see Gloria, a dust bowl survivor, escaped from Texas, feeling as if the dust bowl still goes on, even on the shores of the Pacific - which, in the brief moments it is seen, seems unwelcoming and not indicative of its name. The most startling sequence is also a show-stopper (in the best and worst way) with Rocky being summoned to a shower where Alice has quietly cracked up, peering at him through the rippling water, refusing to leave it as if it were a protective blanket, her body numb and her eyes......gone. Just gone. Those eyes will stay with you long after you have mailed the movie back to Netflix, evoking the uselessness of her Hollywood dreams. And if those dreams are useless, then what? Yeah. Might as well just stay the shower.

The end is inevitable when taken in the context of the film's title and the images from Robert's past we return to here and there, yet Fonda, ever rock-solid, rooted in pissed off principle, still somehow makes you suspect it might be avoidable. Alas, it is not. "The dance destiny of goes on," says Rocky, and that's how the movie ends. The dance of destiny going on and on and on and on and suggesting that for those most afflicted by the Depression, destiny, contrary to a well-peddled belief, is a matter of chance, not of choice.

Except in the case of Gloria. Harsh as it may be, it's a choice. Respect.