Well, the great journalist, author and gadfly David Halberstam just arrived about 10 years too soon and to celebrate my gain and your loss, I’ll break custom. I’ll take a request.
Dave would like me to look at his favorite movie about Vietnam, “Apocalypse Now.” No Martini’s for this one. Mai Tai’s all the way, baby. I’m on my forth as we speak.
Is Apocalypse the perfect movie? Absolutely not. Brando almost single handedly took care of that. But you just have to sit back and appreciate a director who wants it this bad. This may be the single most ambitious movie ever made. You’re talking big time when even Orson Welles has to give up on a project. And God Bless Him, Coppola nearly pulled it off.
If you want to know why I complain about guys like James Cameron and soulless movies like Titanic, check this one out. If you’re going to shoot the moon and try to make the greatest movie ever, this is how you do it, sacrificing your bankroll and sanity at the same time.
Coppola’s made better movies (The Godfather) and worse movies (One from the Heart), but nothing is as explosive and enthralling as this. Even the bad moments are thrilling.
The best way to describe Francis Ford Coppola here is to take a young Orson Welles and inject him with the DNA of Che Guevera, Pablo Picasso and Joseph Stalin.
Let me get the weak points out of the way early because I don’t want to dwell on them. First, the screenplay is all over the place. Coppola is a fine writer when he has a steadying influence with him like he did in the first two Godfathers and Patton. John Milius is many things in the world, but a steadying influence is not one of them.
Second, he used a lot of young actors and their inexperience shows in their inconsistency.
Third, Brando. What the hell. The character from Heart of Darkness is a lean hungry type. Brando got the hungry part down. He’s about the size of a Ford Caravan here and despite the fact that’s he’s about the only one not to get malaria from the cast, he’s sweating like he has the illness. On top of all that, there is a difference between adlibbing and not knowing your damn lines.
Aside of that, it’s just amazing.
The basic story, if I can try to sum it up (not an easy task here), is that Coppola wanted to try and do what many (including Welles) have failed to accomplish – make a film version of Joseph Conrad’s epic novel “Heart of Darkness.” Coppola’s take here is to transport the setting from the Congo to the jungles of Vietnam. Aside of that the story is basically the same, a soldier sent to take out this maniac hiding in the jungle, trying to start his own tribe, placing himself as a god.
Take that starting point and add the jungle, people going insane, natives, sea creatures, nude playmates, a great soundtrack, guerrilla war, exploding sets and anything else you could possible want for a Saturday night.
Plus, and this is the beautiful part, the film has a point. Through the insanity, Coppola tries and damn near succeeds in capturing the madness of Vietnam – the war that broke all conventions. I asked Dave about it’s accuracy in theme and he said it wasn’t far off.
If you’re up for a double feature, check out the documentary about the making of the movie. It’s almost better than the movie itself. How Coppola let his wife conduct all these interviews and shoot all this inside film is beyond me?
Overall, the film is not as muscular and faultless as, say, Lawrence of Arabia, but after finishing this, I don’t think you’ll care. Another Mai Tai?
Friday, April 27, 2007
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
The Moon Is Blue -***
There is nothing more insignificant than a revolutionary bad film. It’s like if a hermit up in the Himalayas sets himself on fire to protest world hunger. The goat smelling your demise might care, but aside of that what point did you make?
You can make a movie containing the cure for cancer and if it was starring Steve Guttenberg it wouldn’t matter because no one would see it.
I understand that guys like Otto Preminger and Stanley Kramer like to buck convention and stick it to Hollywood’s self-appointed Naughty Police (The Breen Office), but if you want to make a farce about how stupid the NPs are, than why not make a good movie at the same time.
For example, a popular misconception is that the shower scene in Psycho is one of the most violent in film history and many were at the time surprised it got past the censors. Well, it got past the censors because the blood was actually chocolate syrup and the knife never made contact with the skin. The power of that scene is in the editing and the music. Period. Hitchcock made his point in a witty and powerful way.
I had this argument with Otto around 1950 something-or-other while shoveling down drinks at the Copacabana in New York. Otto said he had a great idea to tweak the code by adapting the hit Broadway play A Moon Is Blue with Bill Holden and David Niven. See, the Moon Is Blue used words like “Virgin” and “Pregnant” and other such thing that lead to the end of Western Civilization as we know it.
Intrigued by this I decided to take in the play, and Otto was right. The actors did say those words. After watching the play, my discussion with Otto went something like:
“Were you offended?” Otto said grinning.
“Yes,” I responded.
“Really? You never seemed like the squeamish type on issues like this. Which words bothered you?”
“Everything between Act 1 and The End. You’re seriously going to waste Niven and Holden on that piece of garbage?”
The whole production was on the cusp of horrible. Screw the words; the whole play was offensively bad.
It wasn’t just the writing, the acting, the directing, the set design, the music, but the concept as a whole. Here’s the pitch – a girl meets an architect on the Empire State Building and turns his live upside down eventually involving him in a love triangle. It’s basically a weaker episode of “That Girl” expanded to two painful hours. I mean I’d go into more detail, but that’s about it and if you can’t figure out the ending on your own please close this web page and don’t come back.
At least Otto had the decency to shorten the movie to 90 minutes, but the film was just as bad despite having Holden and Niven in it. I refused to watch the talented Maggie McNamara for years because I always associated her with this. You’d wish you were that hermit in the Himalayas by the time this film’s over.
To this day and I don’t know why, but I’m just absolutely positive that the movie had a laugh track. I’m not saying it actually had one, but I just seem to remember it. Not a normal laugh track either, but like the one that DeNiro had on in the background while he was doing his bits in his mother’s basement during the “King of Comedy.”
I told Otto at the time that he might take some grief for it for a little while, but don’t worry about it. In 20 years everyone would forget this movie had ever been made. I was wrong. It was forgotten
If you want to make a statement or you want to change the world, you better be good and articulate, because if you can’t keep Sam Goldwyn’s ass from itching for two hours, then it doesn’t matter what you say. You’ll be forgotten.
You can make a movie containing the cure for cancer and if it was starring Steve Guttenberg it wouldn’t matter because no one would see it.
I understand that guys like Otto Preminger and Stanley Kramer like to buck convention and stick it to Hollywood’s self-appointed Naughty Police (The Breen Office), but if you want to make a farce about how stupid the NPs are, than why not make a good movie at the same time.
For example, a popular misconception is that the shower scene in Psycho is one of the most violent in film history and many were at the time surprised it got past the censors. Well, it got past the censors because the blood was actually chocolate syrup and the knife never made contact with the skin. The power of that scene is in the editing and the music. Period. Hitchcock made his point in a witty and powerful way.
I had this argument with Otto around 1950 something-or-other while shoveling down drinks at the Copacabana in New York. Otto said he had a great idea to tweak the code by adapting the hit Broadway play A Moon Is Blue with Bill Holden and David Niven. See, the Moon Is Blue used words like “Virgin” and “Pregnant” and other such thing that lead to the end of Western Civilization as we know it.
Intrigued by this I decided to take in the play, and Otto was right. The actors did say those words. After watching the play, my discussion with Otto went something like:
“Were you offended?” Otto said grinning.
“Yes,” I responded.
“Really? You never seemed like the squeamish type on issues like this. Which words bothered you?”
“Everything between Act 1 and The End. You’re seriously going to waste Niven and Holden on that piece of garbage?”
The whole production was on the cusp of horrible. Screw the words; the whole play was offensively bad.
It wasn’t just the writing, the acting, the directing, the set design, the music, but the concept as a whole. Here’s the pitch – a girl meets an architect on the Empire State Building and turns his live upside down eventually involving him in a love triangle. It’s basically a weaker episode of “That Girl” expanded to two painful hours. I mean I’d go into more detail, but that’s about it and if you can’t figure out the ending on your own please close this web page and don’t come back.
At least Otto had the decency to shorten the movie to 90 minutes, but the film was just as bad despite having Holden and Niven in it. I refused to watch the talented Maggie McNamara for years because I always associated her with this. You’d wish you were that hermit in the Himalayas by the time this film’s over.
To this day and I don’t know why, but I’m just absolutely positive that the movie had a laugh track. I’m not saying it actually had one, but I just seem to remember it. Not a normal laugh track either, but like the one that DeNiro had on in the background while he was doing his bits in his mother’s basement during the “King of Comedy.”
I told Otto at the time that he might take some grief for it for a little while, but don’t worry about it. In 20 years everyone would forget this movie had ever been made. I was wrong. It was forgotten
If you want to make a statement or you want to change the world, you better be good and articulate, because if you can’t keep Sam Goldwyn’s ass from itching for two hours, then it doesn’t matter what you say. You’ll be forgotten.
Monday, April 23, 2007
To Be or Not to Be ****
I was never a big television fan, especially after the shows went to tapes, but a couple of decades after my demise, I discovered the Dean Martin roasts.
Considering my undying love of Dino, I decided to mix myself a very dry martini in his honor and check them out. Within minutes, I felt ancient because there on stage are my contemporaries Red Skelton, Bob Hope and Milton Berle looking like they all just got back from the taxidermists.
In the middle of the show, the marvelous Don Rickles starts to get heckled and he snaps back at the crowd that “one more outburst and he’s going to let Bob come up and do his jokes.” Of course, everyone laughed. It was a funny line. I didn’t laugh. I just thought, “I didn’t heckle you, Don. Why do I deserve this?”
It was depressing enough seeing these guys looking one step from the grave (with that one step being on a banana peel), but it’s even worse thinking that those three clowns would be joining me soon. When I died, I didn’t see too many benefits to it, but, in time, I noticed the bright spots – my hangovers weren’t that bad and I never had to watch those above referenced jackasses again.
Well, now they’re here, and headlining all the hot spots. Huzza. Before I got to change the channel in a fit of rage and sadness, I saw a light at the end of the tunnel. At the end of the stage sat the man, the king, the funniest man of all time – Jack Benny.
This is proof positive that I only love old movies or performers because they’re old. I just love the one’s that are good. My opinion on drama is more set in stone because making a dramatic movie can be taught. No one can teach comedy. You’re either funny or you’re not, and Jack, Red and Uncle Miltie, aren’t.
Do you’re eyes need some exercising? Maybe you can roll them here with some of Miltie’s bon mots.
“The company accountant is shy and retiring. He's shy a quarter of a million dollars. That's why he's retiring.”
“We owe a lot to Thomas Edison - if it wasn't for him, we'd be watching television by candlelight.”
How about a couple from Bob Hope?
“Middle age is when your age starts to show around your middle.”
“You know you are getting old when the candles cost more than the cake.”
Those all got big laughs during Reconstruction. I can’t even be bothered to deal with Skelton. Just his face will give me another heart attack.
The lines are bad enough, but the brilliance of Jack is the fact that he could probably say the same lines and they’d be hysterical. The quality of the line didn’t matter to Jack because his timing was so perfect.
One of his most famous gags was during his show when he was the victim of a hold up. The robber stuck a gun in his face and said, “Your money or your life.” Jack paused for what seemed like forever until the robber said, “So what’ll it be?”
“I’m thinking it over,” Benny said.
The line doesn’t look funny in print, but it was Jack’s expression and timing that sold it.
To prove my point about comic timing being a natural instinct I could either review one of Hope or Skelton’s movies, but I’m not where near drunk enough for that or I could watch Benny’s classic, “To Be or Not to Be.”
It was a strange idea. Benny and the wonderful Carole Lombard were members of a theatre group in Poland at the time of the Nazi occupation. Benny disguised himself as a Nazi officer to filter information to the underground. Not exactly what you would call prime comic material and there were more than anyone’s share of tasteless jokes. (“We do the concentrating and the Poles do the camping,” the pseudo-Nazi Benny said.) But Benny made them work.
How? I couldn’t tell you. To show the man’s brilliance, Mel Brooks remade the movie. I like some of Mel’s stuff, but to say he lacks Benny’s timing and understatement would be like saying – I don’t know – there’s nothing to compare.
I usually like to try and teach something in these little reviews, but the only lesson here is that a great comedian is like a great wife, cherish them, because they don’t come around too often.
Take Bob Hope – please.
Considering my undying love of Dino, I decided to mix myself a very dry martini in his honor and check them out. Within minutes, I felt ancient because there on stage are my contemporaries Red Skelton, Bob Hope and Milton Berle looking like they all just got back from the taxidermists.
In the middle of the show, the marvelous Don Rickles starts to get heckled and he snaps back at the crowd that “one more outburst and he’s going to let Bob come up and do his jokes.” Of course, everyone laughed. It was a funny line. I didn’t laugh. I just thought, “I didn’t heckle you, Don. Why do I deserve this?”
It was depressing enough seeing these guys looking one step from the grave (with that one step being on a banana peel), but it’s even worse thinking that those three clowns would be joining me soon. When I died, I didn’t see too many benefits to it, but, in time, I noticed the bright spots – my hangovers weren’t that bad and I never had to watch those above referenced jackasses again.
Well, now they’re here, and headlining all the hot spots. Huzza. Before I got to change the channel in a fit of rage and sadness, I saw a light at the end of the tunnel. At the end of the stage sat the man, the king, the funniest man of all time – Jack Benny.
This is proof positive that I only love old movies or performers because they’re old. I just love the one’s that are good. My opinion on drama is more set in stone because making a dramatic movie can be taught. No one can teach comedy. You’re either funny or you’re not, and Jack, Red and Uncle Miltie, aren’t.
Do you’re eyes need some exercising? Maybe you can roll them here with some of Miltie’s bon mots.
“The company accountant is shy and retiring. He's shy a quarter of a million dollars. That's why he's retiring.”
“We owe a lot to Thomas Edison - if it wasn't for him, we'd be watching television by candlelight.”
How about a couple from Bob Hope?
“Middle age is when your age starts to show around your middle.”
“You know you are getting old when the candles cost more than the cake.”
Those all got big laughs during Reconstruction. I can’t even be bothered to deal with Skelton. Just his face will give me another heart attack.
The lines are bad enough, but the brilliance of Jack is the fact that he could probably say the same lines and they’d be hysterical. The quality of the line didn’t matter to Jack because his timing was so perfect.
One of his most famous gags was during his show when he was the victim of a hold up. The robber stuck a gun in his face and said, “Your money or your life.” Jack paused for what seemed like forever until the robber said, “So what’ll it be?”
“I’m thinking it over,” Benny said.
The line doesn’t look funny in print, but it was Jack’s expression and timing that sold it.
To prove my point about comic timing being a natural instinct I could either review one of Hope or Skelton’s movies, but I’m not where near drunk enough for that or I could watch Benny’s classic, “To Be or Not to Be.”
It was a strange idea. Benny and the wonderful Carole Lombard were members of a theatre group in Poland at the time of the Nazi occupation. Benny disguised himself as a Nazi officer to filter information to the underground. Not exactly what you would call prime comic material and there were more than anyone’s share of tasteless jokes. (“We do the concentrating and the Poles do the camping,” the pseudo-Nazi Benny said.) But Benny made them work.
How? I couldn’t tell you. To show the man’s brilliance, Mel Brooks remade the movie. I like some of Mel’s stuff, but to say he lacks Benny’s timing and understatement would be like saying – I don’t know – there’s nothing to compare.
I usually like to try and teach something in these little reviews, but the only lesson here is that a great comedian is like a great wife, cherish them, because they don’t come around too often.
Take Bob Hope – please.
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