"Well, that was a depressing tour through American history," one moviegoer snarked as we exited the Quad Theater, the only place left in town still screening J. Edgar, a film which seemed to encounter a dismal reception.
It was incredibly moving to watch. I actually cried a couple times. Strangely, I think this was one of favorite films of the year. It got such pissant middling reviews I was skeptical to see it at all.
And yet it had disquieting echo, which maybe is also partly the source of the negative reactions. Hoover weeps on the floor in a fetal position. Oh poor J. Edgar! It seems to present it's subject far too flatteringly, far too sympathetically. Hoover played by Dicaprio is very likable, even as he's obliterating one enemy after another.
Wasn't this man an abhorrent individual? His tactics of paranoia and surveillance antithetical to the spirit of American principles he ferociously fought for... protecting America from the Communists/traitors/infidels among us?
I'm uncomfortable liking this man, can't resolve the dissonance between the lovable fictional character Hoover and Hoover the odious historical figure. Therein lies the puzzlement this movie provoked.
I may have liked the movie more if I liked the character less, if that makes any sense. I wanted him to be more of a villian. True villiany has an interest and esteem beyond these feeble attempts at reconcilating the myth and the man.
Beyond that, I thought it was dizzyingly good. It has a narrative that jumps from the 60's to the 30's and back again.
The love story involving his companion Clyde Tolson is understated, intense. It's interesting how this was likely reality for gay men of that era. They didn't acknowledge "we are a couple," like the gays do now, even if, for all intents and purposes, they were. It was unspoken but understood.
Some of the makeup (Judi Dench's wig and Armie Hammer's face) is rather horrific and distracting. It must be hard to believably age people in movies. Sometimes it works here, sometimes it doesn't.
I enjoyed how it's revealed that much of what Hoover mythologized about himself was self-aggrandizing pulp fiction. Still, he's an awe-inspiring figure. Can't help but wonder how accurate any of this is? Is it based on letters, a book? What sources, beyond the filmmaker's imaginations, was this derived from?
Also, the movie ends pretty much with Hoover's collapse, slumping over onto his bedroom floor. His secretary shredding the files. A blurb across the screen saying Tolson moved into Hoover's house and accepted the flag at his burial.
It's kinda a downer way to end a film. Even if it is reality. What was his legacy? Is this where the story really ends? What happened to Tolson and the secretary? Couldn't there be any more of an "up" to end the movie on?
Why did I love it? It's a gay love story, at least to me. I could see how straights could watch it and not necessarily recognize it as such. It's not a buddy movie, not a romance. Very understated, but potent and poignant. Beautifully acted and shot and told.
And... Armie Hammer is the most gorgeous man I have ever laid my eyes upon in my entire life. That alone is worth the price of admissions.
These are the reasons why I liked this commonly derided film.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
George Stevens, Second Tier Autuer
Stumbling into the theater, my bucket of popcorn bounces in my arms, spilling 1/4 of it's yellow contents onto the carpeted stairway. "Oh fuck!" I exclaim, the queens in the next row looking amused. Scott Foundas, the head honcho Lincoln Center guy, looking concernedly from the back of the theater.
Being the dutiful nurse I am, I crawl on my hands and knees, picking up most of the stray kernels, collecting them humbly. Depositing them in the trash. Borrowing the broom to finish the job. The barren audience amused at this pre-show show.
It was a rainy night. The occasion was "Second-Tier auteur" director George Stevens. Scott gives some introductory remarks about the double feature to come. And...onward to Ginger Rogers!
Except...footage of Dauchau airs, stark black and white WW2 imagery, with a sonorous male voiceover. Then color footage of concentration camps, no less. Hmmm. Did Ginger star in some grim super-realistic war drama I'm unaware of? Trying to make sense of this puzzling new development. Will I have to reassess my whole evaluation of the Ginger Rogers knowing this unheralded information?
Ah! Alas, no. Wrong movie. The projectionist fucked up and the audience sorta laughs at the buffoonery. And the lights dim again. And...Ginger and James Stewart.
A lightweight comedy called Vivacious Lady (1938). The brilliant Hattie McDaniel stealing the show with her one scene. She was so interesting, such an anomaly of Hollywood stardom. I cherish each glimpse, each time I stumble across one of her many performances.
Ginger is lovely. The script is kinda dumb. I go to the bathroom. In the two minutes I stepped out of the theater, James and Ginger have apparently married and are having a hard time breaking the news to his parents.
Ginger. Loveliness. Grace wit style. Watching her dance in the little bits she does is marvelous. You're rooting for their love.
But what will happen? Wil love prevail or the lecherous yet cute cousin sweep her away? Boarding that train leaving her man, tears are shed. Boo hoo.
Wait! James crashes his car onto the tracks stopping the train, boarding, declaring his devotion. In each other's arms, they embrace. Love is not lost.
Closing the door. The end.
(Jimmy was beautiful too.)
The second feature on the concentration camps was some of the only color footage of the horrors. Kent Jones (the editor of Film Comment) attempted to make the dubious link:
...the way George Stevens filmed Liz in A Place In The Sun, where she's ethereal staring off into the distance... Apparently, it had to do with Stevens' eye-opening times during WW2. Gazing into eternity. This is the theory, at least. A dubious connection... no?
Being the dutiful nurse I am, I crawl on my hands and knees, picking up most of the stray kernels, collecting them humbly. Depositing them in the trash. Borrowing the broom to finish the job. The barren audience amused at this pre-show show.
It was a rainy night. The occasion was "Second-Tier auteur" director George Stevens. Scott gives some introductory remarks about the double feature to come. And...onward to Ginger Rogers!
Except...footage of Dauchau airs, stark black and white WW2 imagery, with a sonorous male voiceover. Then color footage of concentration camps, no less. Hmmm. Did Ginger star in some grim super-realistic war drama I'm unaware of? Trying to make sense of this puzzling new development. Will I have to reassess my whole evaluation of the Ginger Rogers knowing this unheralded information?
Ah! Alas, no. Wrong movie. The projectionist fucked up and the audience sorta laughs at the buffoonery. And the lights dim again. And...Ginger and James Stewart.
A lightweight comedy called Vivacious Lady (1938). The brilliant Hattie McDaniel stealing the show with her one scene. She was so interesting, such an anomaly of Hollywood stardom. I cherish each glimpse, each time I stumble across one of her many performances.
Ginger is lovely. The script is kinda dumb. I go to the bathroom. In the two minutes I stepped out of the theater, James and Ginger have apparently married and are having a hard time breaking the news to his parents.
Ginger. Loveliness. Grace wit style. Watching her dance in the little bits she does is marvelous. You're rooting for their love.
But what will happen? Wil love prevail or the lecherous yet cute cousin sweep her away? Boarding that train leaving her man, tears are shed. Boo hoo.
Wait! James crashes his car onto the tracks stopping the train, boarding, declaring his devotion. In each other's arms, they embrace. Love is not lost.
Closing the door. The end.
(Jimmy was beautiful too.)
The second feature on the concentration camps was some of the only color footage of the horrors. Kent Jones (the editor of Film Comment) attempted to make the dubious link:
...the way George Stevens filmed Liz in A Place In The Sun, where she's ethereal staring off into the distance... Apparently, it had to do with Stevens' eye-opening times during WW2. Gazing into eternity. This is the theory, at least. A dubious connection... no?
POSSESSION (1981)
"Eh, she was a good actress, in her own way," was the tentative praise by a mildly-delirious audience member describing the ravaged performance of Isabelle Adjani in the 1981 film Possession.
Filmed in West Berlin, it starts out as a distraught drama on the disintegration of a marriage. Sam Neill and Adjani are parents to a young boy, and are having dramatic conflicts. She attempts to cut her throat with the electric knife in the kitchen. He overturns alot of chairs in a cafe screaming match.
She has a secret lover. He follows her to learn of her shenanigans. Lo and behold, it is a monster who is making love to her. Tracking her to a desolate apartment, he finds her bloody and being fucked by a tentacled octopus-like creature.
It is at this point one realizes they're watching a horror film disguised as a domestic drama.
And..? It's lurid! It presents anxieties of female sexuality. To be generous, one could call it a meditation upon the demonic-feminine. Woman as monster. Male insecurity, jealousy, some personification of disharmony and discord. Presented in writhing agony.
However, the movie feel stunted, stilted. Somehow neither an enthralling drama nor a sicko monster masterpiece. The character's talk in a bizarre humorous epithet style. As if someone wrote it composing deep philosophical musings, with an ESL-dictionary nearby.
It has gratuitous car crash explosions and 80's electronic tinkling throughout. It is hilarious to watch this actress freak out. She definitely earned her paycheck on the day she squatted down with ooze flowing from her crotch (miscarrying the monster baby?). Her performance is stunning, visceral. The film is some unholy mishmash between Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist and The Creature from the Black Lagoon (with a little of Kramer vs. Kramer thrown in).
It's sorta funny because you're embarassed for this actress. Googling later, one discovered she was awarded a prize at Cannes for her wrenching, monster-fucking performance.
It's a bit tiresome to watch. What is unintentionally endearing is Cold War West Berlin, before the wall fell. The apartments, the architecture, the scenic shots of the city, the panoramic vistas. The utterly brilliant and surprisingly 2011-esque fashion that sexy Sam Neill wears.
The divine Sam Neill in a lingering buttshot. And being a handsome father to his little boy. The odd strangeness. It's a wonderful movie. Unsettling, defying easy categorization.
"Eh, she was a good actress, in her own way," was the tentative praise by a mildly-delirious audience member describing the ravaged performance of Isabelle Adjani in the 1981 film Possession.
Filmed in West Berlin, it starts out as a distraught drama on the disintegration of a marriage. Sam Neill and Adjani are parents to a young boy, and are having dramatic conflicts. She attempts to cut her throat with the electric knife in the kitchen. He overturns alot of chairs in a cafe screaming match.
She has a secret lover. He follows her to learn of her shenanigans. Lo and behold, it is a monster who is making love to her. Tracking her to a desolate apartment, he finds her bloody and being fucked by a tentacled octopus-like creature.
It is at this point one realizes they're watching a horror film disguised as a domestic drama.
And..? It's lurid! It presents anxieties of female sexuality. To be generous, one could call it a meditation upon the demonic-feminine. Woman as monster. Male insecurity, jealousy, some personification of disharmony and discord. Presented in writhing agony.
However, the movie feel stunted, stilted. Somehow neither an enthralling drama nor a sicko monster masterpiece. The character's talk in a bizarre humorous epithet style. As if someone wrote it composing deep philosophical musings, with an ESL-dictionary nearby.
It has gratuitous car crash explosions and 80's electronic tinkling throughout. It is hilarious to watch this actress freak out. She definitely earned her paycheck on the day she squatted down with ooze flowing from her crotch (miscarrying the monster baby?). Her performance is stunning, visceral. The film is some unholy mishmash between Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist and The Creature from the Black Lagoon (with a little of Kramer vs. Kramer thrown in).
It's sorta funny because you're embarassed for this actress. Googling later, one discovered she was awarded a prize at Cannes for her wrenching, monster-fucking performance.
It's a bit tiresome to watch. What is unintentionally endearing is Cold War West Berlin, before the wall fell. The apartments, the architecture, the scenic shots of the city, the panoramic vistas. The utterly brilliant and surprisingly 2011-esque fashion that sexy Sam Neill wears.
The divine Sam Neill in a lingering buttshot. And being a handsome father to his little boy. The odd strangeness. It's a wonderful movie. Unsettling, defying easy categorization.
Location:Andrzej Zulawski's POSSESSION (1981)
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
an evening with jane powell
"I had a pretty lonely life, actually. Up until about 30 years ago," the 80-something film queen confessed, seated on the stage, being interviewed. Her legs demurely crossed, the same legs which had made her one of the preeminent musical stars of her era. The legs were shapely and elegant, somehow defying the passage of time.
The pompous blowhard Robert Osborne (he of the TCM marathons) chimes in: "And a big reason for that, for you're not being lonely...is... in the audience tonight! Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Dick Moore, little Dickie Moore, who was one of the Little Rascals and played Dietrich's son in Blonde Venus."
"He's still a Little Rascal," Jane said, under the applause.
I almost fainted at this point in the evening. An old man in the back of the theatre waved his hand to his beloved wife onstage. Often I'd watched Blonde Venus and wondered what happened to this little boy? To be sitting in the same theatre with him was some stunning only-in-New-York, heart-pulsating moment.
Jane spoke about how lonely it was growing up, beholden to MGM. She always felt invisible, despite being famous. "I didn't think anybody knew who I was because I didn't know who I was," she explains philosophically, from a clarity of great distance.
One day Clark Gable walked up behind her and clapped her on the shoulder and said, "Hey, Janie, ol' gal. How're ya doing?" And she, flabbergasted, couldn't recall his name, floored that anyone knew her name, let alone an icon like Gable.
"It's like it was happening to somebody else," she said. When she wrote to her friends back home, she never told them who she'd met because she didn't want to seem stuck up.
The occasion at the Lincoln Center was a screening of Two Weeks With Love (1950) a film also starring Debbie Reynolds and Ricardo Montalban. Jane selected the film for the night's screening, it being her favorite film that she starred it.
It's easy to see why she likes it. A kind of Walter Mitty-fantasy on the hilarious, hopeful neurosis of a lovesick teenage girl. A girl who longs to seduce the hunky Mr. Montalban. It's vivid color palette is striking. A scene in which her young brothers set off a fireworks calvacade within a hotel is notable for combining animation and live-action scenery, circa 1950-style.
It's a delightfully charming movie, one that seems it should be regarded more as a popular classic than it actually is. A family film, but with heart, wit, intelligence and a minimum of sappiness. It recalls Meet Me in St. Louis, in that it's gently nostalgic for a more innocent era but doesn't condescend to it's audience.
They played a clip of Jane dancing with Fred Astaire prior to her speaking at the evening's screening. She explained she rehearsed the dance with a stand-in and only did the routine once with Astaire, while the cameras were rolling.
It's astonishing her longevity. That anyone who lived through this golden glorious age of cinema is still vitally present to tell stories about it. She explained that MGM only allowed it's performers to be musical comedy types, or straight-dramatic types. They didn't permit crossovers.
The pompous blowhard Robert Osborne in the midst of interviewing Jane, bellowed out an introduction, "And ladies and gentlemen, another MGM girl is in the audience tonight, Marge Champion!" A cantankerous old lady in the row behind me temporarily put on a wide smiley face, rose precipitously from her comfy chair and blew air kisses at Jane, and they waved.
I googled Marge Champion later that night. Such a joy to discover forgotten goddesses! She, too, was something amazing in her day!
Monday, October 10, 2011
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