Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Category Archives: At the movies
Drunken Sunday reviews
Admittedly, it takes more than a couple fingers of Black Bush to get me drunk —
Is that as rude as it sounds, or is that enough whiskey to get me drunk?
I rented Stardust on Net Flix, and we watched it today. Entertaining enough, particularly since Charlie Cox and Claire Danes are so very very attractive and likable in the lead roles, and the gal who plays Charlie Cox’s mom, Kate Magowan, is so very very striking. WHAT BONE STRUCTURE! I’ll let all the young bucks drool over Claire Danes, provided Kate Magowan will share a cup o’ tea with me.
But, yes, I’ll grant that Claire Danes has that thrilling beauty some actresses have. Reminded me a bit of Cate Blanchett circa LOTR.
Good stuff: The goat guy. Michelle Pfeiffer finally looking her age, bwaahaahaaha. The ancient “wall guard” going ninja on Charlie Cox’s ass. Peter O’Toole. All those dead guys. Charlie & Claire. Bob DeNiro, even if it might not be entirely politically correct to laugh at this stuff.
Not so good stuff: the ending. How TOUGH would it have been to set up Yvaine’s Special Power, rather than drop it in our laps at the very end? Great example of deus ex machina, though, which was on our homeschooling agenda this last week. Thanks, screenwriters.
Speaking of Neil Gaiman (upon whose novel Stardust was based) . . .
Thirteen Valentines to Audrey Hepburn
Only number three on American Film Institute’s top 25 actresses? How dare they!
1. My Fair Lady. See, this is what I love about homeschooling. My explanation of iambic pentameter led to “The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain,” which led to a discussion of the myth of Pygmalion, George Bernard’s play based on Pygmalion, and finally, this video. Jake seemed to find it hilarious. And, truly, there is something very funny about an old-fashioned Hollywood musical. If you’re not used to seeing actors and actresses break out into song, the effect is electric. As in, What the hell . . . ?
2. Sabrina. Here’s Audrey singing “La Vie en Rose” to Humphrey Bogart. (Karen says she lip-synched the singing for My Fair Lady. I don’t know if this is really Audrey singing, or not.) One enduring testimony to Bogart’s greatness is the fact he looks so much older, so much more tired, so much more used than Audrey Hepburn here, and yet he still works as a romantic lead. That’s because Bogart is Bogart. People sometimes forget that about stars: they’ve become far more than their physical selves. Part of the star’s soul is up there on the screen for all to behold, for all to share.
It’s true of Bogart, and it’s true of Audrey Hepburn.
3. Funny Face. Fred Astaire, he’s another one. If you had never seen him dance, what would he be? Some goofy-looking guy, that’s what. None of Astaire’s dancing in this clip, but Audrey’s really singing here (“How Long Has This Been Going On.”)
4. Breakfast at Tiffany’s — the ending. I’ll ruin it for you. In what has to be one of cinema history’s crassest uses of symbolism, Holly Golightly sets her pussy free, then decides her pussy would be happier as a kept item.
And could George Peppard look any more GQ?
Escapist alligator brain candy
Being confused with the Son of God turned out to be the highlight of my day. What now? I could walk that fine line between (A) engaging my readers in an impassioned discussion of sensitive medical issues, and (B) violating patient confidentiality, or I could post this cool shot of Clive Owen from the movie, Shoot ‘Em Up.
I put Shoot ‘Em Up on my Netflix lineup when Darla raved about it and only got around to watching it Sunday night. Clive Owen plays Smith, Not His Real Name, which I suppose is a fine shading on the ol’ trope of the Man With No Name, because at least Smith HAS a Name, albeit a fake one. But it’s easy enough imagining Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson in this role, except for the lovemaking. Naw, forget it. He’s Smith.
Netflix Picks from John Waters
In case you missed NPR this morning, the man who brought us Pink Flamingos, Pecker, and Hairspray shared some of his favorite lesser-known movies, including Baadasssss! and Sins of the Fleshapoids. Read about it here. Of the listed films, the only one I’ve seen is David Cronenberg’s Crash — not one of my favorite Cronenberg films, but I understand why it’s one of Waters’s faves.
D.
Once Upon a Time on TCM
Walnut sez: Balls never goes halfway with things. Why buy 100% Kona coffee from Hawaii when you can buy it green and roast it yourself? And why grab pastries at the supermarket when you can make your own puff pastry?
Well. She doesn’t do that too often, but you get the idea. Lately, she’s been watching movies. The same movie. Over and over again.
Thank God it’s not Titanic.
Below the fold: Thirteen Things about Once Upon a Time in the West, by my beloved Balls.
(more…)
Coming soon (not)
Fans of Alan Moore’s graphic novel Watchmen have been waiting for the movie version. And waiting. And waiting. According to the official website, the release date is 3/6/09. What’s taking so long?
Moore’s graphic novels have led to other successful movies: V for Vendetta, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and From Hell. Seems obvious that Moore’s greatest work should at least have the potential of becoming a successful film adaptation.
According to this story at MTV.com, the production has had trouble — it “has already chewed up and spit out such esteemed directors as Terry Gilliam and Paul Greengrass.” Now, Zack Snyder, director of 300 (adapted from the Frank Miller graphic novel) and Dawn of the Dead, is at the helm.
Man, that MTV.com story is one long (and from what I can see, empty) article. I WANT MY WATCHMEN. Its message of the dangers of well-intentioned fascism is more important now than ever before; I wish we could see a release date before the ’08 elections.
Here’s the IMDB writeup on Watchmen. Recognize anyone on that cast? I don’t, except maybe Billy Crudup.
Here’s a short and sweet review, and here’s Watching the Detectives, a Watchmen wiki. Enjoy.
D.
Labyrinthine errors
I came to Pan’s Labyrinth ready to be entranced. Or, at the very least, entertained. Writer/director Guillermo del Toro is a favorite of mine, has been ever since his creepy 1993 vampire flick, Cronos. Cronos took vampirism to new places. Forget repressed and awakened sexuality; Cronos was all about obsession and addiction.
Del Toro followed Cronos with a string of successes, most notably Hellboy, but also Blade II and the less commercial ghost story, The Devil’s Backbone. The man consistently delivers cinematic eye candy, material so interesting, disturbing, and beautiful that you could ignore the story and still come away satisfied. Pan’s Labyrinth is no exception, and in fact, you might do well to do just that. This film falls down on story.
The time is 1944, the setting, the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. Franco’s Nationalists have control of the country, but they find themselves fighting Communist guerrillas. Our protagonist is an 11- or 12-year-old girl, Ofelia, the sensitive daughter of a tailor’s widow. The widow has remarried the cartoonishly evil Captain Vidal, commandant of a Nationalist base charged with rooting out the local Communists.
At the rep
Rialto Theater, South Pasadena, California
For the first 21 years of my life, I had a repertory theater close at hand. I grew up less than ten miles from the Rialto Theater, a lovely old place with neat architecture which I was about to call “art deco” until I read this:
Construction of the Rialto Theatre began in 1924 featuring the Spanish Baroque architectural style with Egyptian touches by noted Theatre designer L.A. Smith. Note the Batchelder tiles drinking fountain in the lobby, complete with picture tiles. The Auditorium features plaster ornaments, colorful stenciling, organ screens supported by harpies (half woman, half vulture) and a glaring mythological gargoyle with red eyes staring down from the proscenium arch.
You probably know the Rialto. Remember The Player? Tim Robbins kills that dude in the back of the Rialto. Remember Kentucky Fried Movie? The “Feel-A-Round” skit was filmed inside the Rialto.
At the Rialto, I saw Polanski’s Macbeth, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and the 1973 Christopher Lee version of The Wicker Man. Can’t remember what else I saw, sadly enough.
I went to college at 17. Berkeley had the UC Theater:
How sad — they’re not showing movies at the UC anymore.
At the UC Theater, I saw Pink Floyd’s two films, More and La Vallée (you younguns: yes, Pink Floyd made more movies than just The Wall), Lawrence of Arabia, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Paul Scofield’s King Lear (sublime), and Lawrence Olivier’s Hamlet (trash). My girlfriend & soon-to-be fiance accompanied me to Labor of Love, a hilarious documentary about the making of an X-rated movie.
I think we had a repertory theater when I was in med school, but they never had anything good. French films without subtitles, I’ll bet. So I guess I got out of the habit. But really, where better to watch an old Bogart and Bacall film? And what can be better than an all-day festival of Hammer horror films or Ray Harryhausen’s stop-action mythological beasties?
Yeah, I miss those theaters. Last 20 years of my life have been a spirit-sapping procession of multiplexes.
If I get rich, I’m opening a rep.
You may regale me with repertory theater memories now.
D.
Altered States
Ken Russell’s movie Altered States came out in 1980. I saw it the following year at the UC Theater, a repertory moviehouse a stone’s throw from the Berkeley campus. What must have been serious, sensitive stuff most anywhere else in the nation was, for us, high camp. Best part came soon after the protagonist (William Hurt playing a scientist and doing a laughably unconvincing job of it) has, in short order, dropped some hallucinogens, placed himself in a sensory deprivation chamber, and regressed to an ape man of Falwellian paleolithicness.
Hurt’s research associate (Charles Haid), upon discovering Hurt’s miraculous transformation from suave-witty martini-sipping academician to grunting zoo-sleeping feces-flinger, declares — paraphrasing here: “This is the breakthrough of the decade! We have to study this further. I know, we’ll advertise in the Student Union!”
Whereupon all us college kids burst out laughing. To this day, I wonder if the line was intended as comic relief. Kinda like that scene in Terminator II when Linda Hamilton dreams of the Los Angeles skyline dissolving behind a mushroom cloud. How come no one else in the theater was laughing?
The best 3 things about Spiderman 3
We don’t go to theaters much. Seems like one or all of us catches cold at those things, so the movie had damned well better be worth it.
The best looker in Spiderman 3: actress Mageina Tovah, who plays Ursula, the super’s daughter.
Kirsten Dunst? Meh. Sure, she’s conventionally pretty, but something’s missing. Stage presence, perhaps, which Miss Tovah has in spades. If I had my choice of dates, I’d pick Mageina over Kirsten and I’d never look back.
(Okay you doubters. Here she is in a YouTube compilation video.)
The best special effect in Spiderman 3: the Sandman.
Yeah, he’s so The Mummy, but we enjoyed the Sandman effects just the same.
The best laugh in Spiderman 3:
That ’70s Show‘s Topher Grace in a Catholic Church, praying to Jesus to please, please kill Peter Parker.
But why were Jake and I the only ones laughing at that scene? Wasn’t it supposed to be funny?
Anyway, it’s late. We got home at ten forty-something, so my brain is too fried to give you a more respectable review. Perhaps tomorrow.
D.