Three More Recent Viewings

Tropic Thunder (2008). Directed by Ben Stiller. If for no other reason, watch this rollicking send-up of Hollywood big-budget malarkey to see Robert Downey, Jr. play an Australian method actor playing an African-American soldier in Viet Nam. When I first heard about this role, I, like everyone else, just shook my head, grimaced, and sung softly under my breath, "Oh when will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?" But then reports started coming my way of how RD, Jr. took what could have been the most offensive role in modern American cinema and owned it. So I had to see it for myself. You should too. Oh, and Tom Cruise is in there too, somewhere, wearing a fat suit.

The Magus (1969). Directed by Guy Green (whose name sounds a bit like a Terry Southern character). One of those legendary “bad films” that everyone talks about (Woody Allen famously carped that if he’d have his life to live over again he’d change only one thing—he wouldn’t see The Magus again), and, yes, I too found it bad. But I’m not sorry I watched it. I mean, after all, it’s got Michael Caine, Anthony Quinn, Anna Karina, Candace Bergin, Mallorcan scenery (doubling as Greece), mystery, mayhem, mindfrigging, a groovy soundtrack, a script by John Fowles based on his own wonderful novel, and brief nudity. I mean, it's kind of like a mediocre Mexican meal--it may be a plate of unrecognizable goop, but if there's cheese, beans, shredded beef, corn tortillas, and chiles, it can't be all bad, can it? Here's a cool DVD review of the film with great pics of the actors: http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/24562/magus-the/

The Naked City (1948). Directed by Jules Dassin. Another legendary film that has slipped by me over the years. A classic noir/police procedural starring Irish actor Barry Fitzgerald as an NYC detective working on the case of a murdered model. The film's unusual voice-over narration (by producer Mark Hellinger, who died before the film was released), location filming throughout the New York City streets, and striking photography make it a must-see, though the plot's a little unexciting and the acting often feels a bit forced. This is another one of those productions that serves as a fascinating nexus of various movie-culture currents (geek alert): The director, Jules Dassin, would later be blacklisted but find work in Europe directing the French noir classic "Rififi" and the Greek romance "Never on Sunday" (now try getting that tune out of your head!); the star, Barry Fitzgerald, acted at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin and roomed with Sean O'Casey for a while--and in Hollywood was nominated for both Best Supporting Actor and Best Actor for the same role--Father Fitzgibbon in "Going My Way" (a feat unsurpassed in Oscar history); Fitzgerald's protege, Detective Halloran, is played by Don Taylor, husband of Corman lovely Hazel Court and director of "Escape from the Planet of the Apes"; and murder suspect Howard Duff is the grandfather of actress/singer Hilary Duff, she of "Lizzie McGuire" fame; even the title and concept for the film has an interesting pedigree: it gets its name from a book of photojournalism, "The Naked City" (1945), by Weegee, a pseudonym for Arthur Fellig, a Ukrainian born American photographer whose pictures of crime scenes, car accidents, and street life influenced not only the movie but a TV series of the same name (his own name, Weegee, echoes "ouija", and he was so nicknamed because his portable police radio gave him the "uncanny" ability to appear at fresh disaster scenes!). Finally, it's worth noting that Weegee's connections to Stanley Kubrick (presumably from the latter's photojournalism phase) brought him to the set of "Dr. Strangelove" to do still photography and to offer Peter Sellers a voice model for the titular character. Mein fuhrer, I can valk!

Whew!

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Well, my second favorite show on TV came to an end Friday night. Of course, I'm talking about "Battlestar Gallactica" on the SciFi Channel. I had mixed feelings about this final season, generally, and I'm not surprised that I also had mixed feelings about the series finale. I believe the show got tangled up in its own plot lines in season four and got bogged down in excessive exposition, parallel story arcs that collided and conflated, and characters whose emotional rollercoastering grew tiresome. Yet, for all that the show was still a breath of air, often incredibly innovative, thought provoking, and (best of all) genre-busting. I can't say it any better than Laura Miller at Salon.com, so here, read her and enjoy:

http://www.salon.com/ent/tv/feature/2009/03/21/battlestar_galactica/

Farewell, BSG. It's been a whole lotta frakkin' fun.

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A Further Note on Cobbe

A further note on the recent Cobbe Portrait of Shakespeare:

It ain't Shakespeare.

It's Sir Thomas Overbury.

Read about it here:

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article5931174.ece

And if you ain't convinced, look at this comparison between Cobbe and a portrait of T.O. This comes from an anti-Stratfordian. And even though he's mistaken about W.S. being someone other than W.S., he's probably right about this:

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy-1kPZeUHZVHyboN9GVyNJvWj0EF5qBr0ZAGOLPE4RQ8Xi9rqcZ7yMi5eY6EP35KTPmccOAeWSwhozvpekItG0b7vgMrKXD5mt6NYdcPn2GHM2m4_OHE4HAqZAjyLSEIGwbbFQ1JWO_I/s1600-h/Cobbe-v-Overbury2.jpg

Cobbe is Sir Thomas Overbury.

for now...

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Candyman

I'm a fan of Terry Southern's work and thus I was surprised and delighted to read this appreciation in the online mag Dissident Voice: http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2009/01/strange-loves-magic-christians-and-so-much-more-an-appreciation-of-terry-southern/

Here's my favorite excerpt:

While some may think the U.S. has become a more open, more culturally sophisticated society since Terry Southern’s time, I have my doubts. Rather we often seem to me like weird masochists choosing to keep ourselves in cultural lockdown, breathlessly mouthing the words “individual freedom” and “creative potential” and “no limits” and what-not, while our corporatist system, looking metaphorically like the gruesome self-caricature of the late-period Mae West dressed in red-white-and-blue burlesque house lamé, gleefully and unstintingly whacks us with its Naugahyde cat-o-nine tails. Oh, Freedom™.

I couldn't agree more.

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The Play is the Thing...

I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay away from this. Here goes:

Is the so-called “Cobbe Portrait”—the painting that has surfaced in Ireland recently—an actual life portrait of William Shakespeare?

Yes.

No.

Maybe.

I don’t know.

Ummm…

Okay, Why not? It seems to have as many claims to authenticity as about any other of the Bard’s portraits—more, perhaps. Its points of similarity with the folio engraving (Droeshout’s) are many, but I’m not so expert in Elizabethan/Jacobean era portraiture to know whether or not those points aren’t common to thousands of portraits that have survived into our time. I do find it fascinating that the apparent copy of the Cobbe Portrait owned by the Folger Library was once doctored to make it look more like Shakesepeare—especially ironic if the portrait it was based on turns out to be one of Shakespeare (what an oroboros that would be!).

In any case, what fascinates me most about the whole affair is that the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust wants so desperately for the portrait to be him. And I understand it: the man in the picture is handsome, suave, dressed to the nines (seriously), and, dare I say (at the risk of emasculating myself) hot! What an ambassador for all things Bardish. Compare it to the Chandos portrait and decide for yourself. Chandos, with its dumpy face, buggy eyes, receding hairline, and prominent schnoz is Will Shaxper of Stratford as played by Paul Giamatti—a glover’s son, a country bumpkin of modest background and pedestrian interests who grubs for money, probably drinks too much, and leaves his wife his second best bed. Cobbe, however, is William Shakespeare as played by Joseph Fiennes--a dashing man about town, cosmopolitan, witty, perceptive, and sexy: women want him and men want to do him. What publisher would put Chandos on the cover over Cobbe:

But aye, there’s the rub…for me anyway.

I like my Bard mixed. I like the balding country bumpkin. I like the man with a common education. I like the loose collar and the ear-ring and the gloomy look. I like that Shakespeare grubbed after money (like me), and spent too much time in the tavern, chased wenches, and probably plagiarized. I like that he had a bad marriage (probably), that he was a capitalist, that he was probably a chubbo at the end of his life. I like my Bard to be a juxtaposing, conflicted genius who bedazzles, confounds, overwhelms, and reduces to tears his audiences performance after performance, season after season, century after century. And I especially like it that this shlub wrote these words:

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits, and

Are melted into air, into thin air:

And like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on; and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.

And these:

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

And, of course, these:

This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.

He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,

Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,

And rouse him at the name of Crispian.

He that shall live this day, and see old age,

Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,

And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'

Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,

And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'

Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,

But he'll remember, with advantages,

What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,

Familiar in his mouth as household words-

Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,

Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-

Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.

This story shall the good man teach his son;

And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,

From this day to the ending of the world,

But we in it shall be remembered-

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition;

And gentlemen in England now-a-bed

Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

And aren’t the words portrait enough? As Jonson said, "Reader, look Not on his portrait but his book."

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Recent Viewings

Ahhh, Netflix. I've been ordering in threes according to this principle: (1) Something new and (hopefully) worth seeing...and "new" can be 3 years old or more for me! (2) Something classic: classic Hollywood, classic indie, or foreign. (3) Something "outre". This weeks's line-up:

Trafic (1971). Directed by Jacques Tati. I love Tati and I'm overjoyed that Criterion has come out with this heretofore hard to find film. In this, his final outing as M. Hulot, Tati is an automotive engineer who accompanies a "camping car" recreational vehicle as it is transported in the back of a truck from Paris to Amsterdam, bound for an auto show. Along for the ride are a beautiful but tightly wound PR rep, who prefers to lead in her little sportscar, and the lackadaisical truck driver who seems indifferent as to whether they ever need to arrive in Amsterdam or not. There is, in abundance, the usual Tati gaggery, satire, and charm, but the great thing about any Tati film is always the photographic composition and the way that the visuals suggest subtext. Tati invites us to read his films visually (as Antonioni, Lynch, and Ridley Scott --at his best--do), a reminder that script and plot are often secondary to the visual environment. And isn't it fun to be able to watch a French film without having to refer to subtitles? ****

Iron Man (2008). Directed by Jon Favreau. It's been interesting (if a little sad) to follow the career of Favreau--indie darling auteur director of Swingers now an action picture mogul. Alas. But his indie chops have served him well as this comic-book film springs to life with wit and flair. Yes, it's the old formula, but as Raimi did with Spiderman, Favreau holds true to the tropes we like most in the super-hero story and takes full adavantage of the splendid Robert Downey, Jr. and stalwarts Jeff Bridges and Gwyneth Paltrow (acting against type). Best of all, the special effects support rather than dominate the story. ***

Space Amoeba (1970). Directed by Ishiro Honda. a.k.a. Yog: Monster from Space. A blast of rubber-suited monstrous fun from Toho Studios. A space capsule that has become possessed by an alien life form drifting through space as a sparkling blue mist (hence, the amoeba) parachutes into the ocean and infects various creatures (squid, crab, turtle) that, in turn, grow to monstrous proportions and attack folks on an island paradise. You know the drill. The DVD was a crack-up for a couple reasons beyond just the silliness of the movie itself: the subtitles and and dubbed dialogue (which we ran simultaneously) were often radically and comically mismatched, and the extras included a set of nature program segments on the real-life crabs, turtles, and squids which were possessed by the space creatures. Let's make learning fun! **1/2

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Pouvre petit enfant...

My idea of a good time would include a big thermos full of coffee, a vast library, a stack of rare documents, my reading glasses, a comfy chair, and a sturdy notebook to scribble in. That's all I want. That's it. Nothing more. Is that so wrong?

Imagine my jealousy when I read this account of Eric Jager's:

When I tell people that the five years I spent researching and writing my last book included about a month and a half of work in the French national archives, they often look skeptical or even laugh, saying, "Right, research in France. That sounds really tough." Sometimes they pantomime the copious drinking of wine. Or they ask why anyone needs to go to the archives at all, since everything is now on the Internet.

Actually there's a lot that isn't on the Internet. And once you fly across the ocean in a cramped economy seat, arrive in Paris with your luggage and research notes, locate your rented apartment, renew your pass at the archives, secure a numbered spot in the crowded manuscripts room, find your documents in the catalogs, carefully write the shelf marks (call numbers) on the neat little forms provided for that purpose, and stand in line to hand your requests to the harried or indifferent clerk at the call desk — your work has only begun.

As you wait for your documents to arrive at the desk, or to be delivered to your table from a metal cart rolled noisily through the room, you hope and pray that the precious records are available and that the curatorial staff can find them. If so, you have been liberated — or doomed — to spend days or even weeks copying faded, nearly illegible texts and deciphering them from medieval Latin, French, or the like. Many archives forbid photography, and you often have only ambient light, so a magnifying glass comes in handy. It's time-consuming, eye-straining detective work, punctuated by the occasional thrill of an unanticipated revelation.

Mr. Jager, I hate to inform you, but such an experience sounds positively heavenly to someone like me.

Here's his whole article. After me own heart, he is: http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=d485dj23z8vmzltmlxsrl7npgfyv5wwk

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There's a serpent in her smile...

Last Sunday, Ian and I enjoyed the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry's visiting exhibit "Da Vinci the Genius," (or rather, I enjoyed it, Ian slept in the stroller the entire time). It consisted of, mostly, semi-operational full-scale and small-scale models of the whirly-gigs and whatchamacallits from the notebooks (they range from the ingenious and practical to the fantastic and preposterous), a few of the notebooks themselves under glass, and a special exhibit focusing on the Mona Lisa--investigations into its creation and its history post-Leonardo. I especially enjoyed the latter, being an amateur painter myself, and marveled at the enormous blow-ups of the painting, the explorations of its layers through special photography, and the extremely detailed photographic facsimile of both sides of the painted panel sans frame. Truly magnificent. I was also intrigued by the attempt at recreating the Mona Lisa's original colors. Anyone who sees the painting today sees, largely, a smoggy yellow-green-brown composition, colors lacking in vibrancy. This exhibit theorizes that originally Mona Lisa's skin was creamier with faint blushing pinks and that the background landscape contained a subtle blend of richer colors--especially the lapis lazuli of the sky.

One oddity was the recreation of a bicycle from one of Da Vinci's notebooks. As I passed by the wooden structure--for all intents and purposes a modern, two-wheeled, pedal-chain affair--I scoffed. There's no way he invented the bicycle! And, as it turned out, I was right. The placard informed me of a hoaxical addition to one of the notebooks that continues, to this day, to sucker in the gullible.

Here are links to OMSI and the exhibit's own page. On the latter, click on the Secrets of the Mona Lisa gallery to get a good idea of what it contains and the impressive scale of the reproductions.

http://www.omsi.edu/featured-exhibit

http://www.davincithegenius.com/

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Recent Viewings

Recently Viewed: In Bruges. Directed by Martin McDonagh, 2008. An enjoyable gangster farce that riffs on Harold Pinter's one act play The Dumb Waiter: two Irish hitmen cool off in Bruge after a messy job only to find that one of them is to kill the other. Well acted (especially fine performance by Colin Farrell), graphically violent, and very funny. The farcical plot has all the tightness of a good Seinfeld episode and the rollicking energy of Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie at their best. Ralph Fiennes appears as a mob boss who elects to take matters into his own hands as he begins to lose control of his underlings. He seems to be channeling Ben Kingsley's performance in "Sexy Beast" but somehow his cockney accent seems fakier. ***

Belphegor: Phantom of the Louvre. Directed by Jean-Paul Salome, 2001. A fun (but silly) supernatural thriller about a mummy's spirit that takes over the body of Sophie Marceau (can you blame him?) who, in turn, prowls the Louvre in order to gather certain artefacts to use for some nefarious purpose (I forget what). It's based on the 1927 novel by Arthur Bernede, who had a colorful life as a writer and producer of pulp novels and adventure films. Apparently, he and his production company (which included Gaston Leroux) produced novels and films simultaneously for the excitable French public. Belphegor was also made into a French TV miniseries in the mid 1960s, clips of which are interwoven as flashbacks in this 2001 production. Like an amusement park haunted house, this film isn't very scary, but somehow still fun. **

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