Film Babble Blog’s Top 5 Oscar Best Picture Beefs

Just like every year, in anticipation for the latest Academy Awards ceremony (this year's, the 88th, airing tonight on ABC), film buffs/blowhards like me can't help bitching about the great movies that didn't win Best Picture in previous years while some incredibly undeserving film took home the gold. 

I've had these conversations many times, especially when I worked at a video store (remember those?), about how a favorite movie, like, say PULP FICTION, got passed over for some forgettable piece of fluff, like, say, FORREST GUMP, that was nowhere as influential and hasn't held up in the long run.

So these Top 5 picks are pretty f-in' obvious, and predictable if you know me (2 Scorsese films are on the list), but they stand as the five instances where I most thought the Oscars got it dead wrong.

Counting down:

5. Robert Benton's (who?) KRAMER VS. KRAMER winning over Francis Ford Coppola's APOCALYPSE NOW. (1979) 

That's right, this:

won over this:

Crazy, huh?

4. THE ENGLISH PATIENT winning instead of the Coen brothers' crime comedy drama masterpiece FARGO! (1996) Yeah, I mean who even mentions Anthony Minghella's weepy war rom drama THE ENGLISH PATIENT now? It's probably better remembered as a reference point on a episode of Seinfeld than as an actual film that people saw and liked. At least Frances McDormand won Best Actress for her peppy portrayal of police woman Marge Gunderson, one of the greatest movie characters of all time.

3. Robert Redford's ORDINARY PEOPLE winning instead of Martin Scorsese's RAGING BULL. (1980) This is just silly. However, I did appreciate ORDINARY PEOPLE, but just thought it came nowhere near the majesty that was Scorsese's fourth film with Robert De Niro.

2. John Ford's HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY won over Orson Welles' CITIZEN KANE! (1941)

Now I obviously wasn't around when this happened, but I can sure feel the 7 decades plus ripple effect from what many consider the greatest film of all time losing out to a movie that has been pretty much left in the dust bin of history. Actually, HGWMV isn't a bad film - I watched it a few years back and found it be a well made drama. And it's much better than the next film for sure:

1. Kevin f-in' Costner's DANCES WITH WOLVES winning over Martin Scorsese's mangum opus mob epic GOODFELLAS. (1990). This one still kills me. Scorsese makes two of his greatest movies and they both lose to pretty boy actor's directorial debuts. I'd like to think that Marty and co.'s reaction to the announcement looked like the picture above. At least Joe Pesci won the Best Supporting Actor award, and Scorsese went on to grab the gold with 2005's THE DEPARTED. That one was one of the biggest example's of payback in the entire history of Oscar.

#5 on this list also has to do with my biggest Best Actor beef ever, that Peter Sellers' brilliant work in Hal Ashby's BEING THERE, one of my all time favorite films, was passed over.

Sellers could walk on water, but he still lost to Dustin Hoffman in that damn divorce drama.

Anyway, let's see what beefs tonight's Oscars show will give me. You'll know immediately as I'll be live tweeting the event (follow @filmbabble).

More later...

The Raleigh-Cary Area Finally Gets Around To Celebrating Orson Welles’ 100th Birthday

The 100th anniversary of the birth of legendary film-maker Orson Welles was half a year ago (May 6th to be exact), but here in N.C. it’s better late than never to celebrate as special showings of some of the man’s best work are hitting local screens this month.

Earlier this month The Cary Theater in downtown Cary hosted a Cinema Studies Screening of Orson Welles’ 1957 thriller TOUCH OF EVIL, presented by the Modern School of Film, and kicked off a Sunday afternoon series of November Welles screenings with the director’s 1942 adaptation of Booth Tarkington’s 1918 novel THE MAGNIFICIENT AMBERSONS.

The Sunday series continues at The Cary with Welles’ most acclaimed film, 1941’s CITIZEN KANE on the 15th at 2 pm. I previously wrote about seeing KANE at the theater last year (my first visit to the newly refurbished venue).

The following Sunday, the 22nd, the lesser known, but still essential, THE STRANGER (1946) will be featured, and the series wraps up on the 29th with Welles’ final completed film F FOR FAKE (1973).

On Friday, November 13th, the Colony Theater in North Raleigh is opening the new 4k digital restoration of Carol Reed’s 1949 film-noir masterpiece THE THIRD MAN for a week long run. While Welles didn’t direct, many film buffs feel that his film-making fingerprints such as use of deep focus, long takes, and abstract angles are all over the sublime post-WW II thriller. There’s no doubt to his contribution in his writing of his own dialogue as the iconic Harry Lime character, especially when it comes to the famous “Cuckoo Clock” speech.

As the Colony Theater is sadly closing next month, it’s great that they’re showing such a classic piece of cinema as THE THIRD MAN before shutting down (The Colony will also be showing such notable films as THE PRINCESS BRIDE, THE WIZARD OF OZ, and DARK STAR in the weeks ahead, click here for more info).

I have to work this Sunday so I’ll be missing The Cary’s screening of CITIZEN KANE, but I will be attending The North Carolina Museum of Art’s showing of the film on Friday, November 20th. It’ll be my first visit to the redesigned SECU Auditorium, and I’m taking my 17-year old nephew Linus, who’s never seen it or much in black and white for that matter.

Last summer, I was talking to Linus about the Netflix superhero series Daredevil and how good Vincent D’Onofrio is as the villain Wilson Fisk, and I mentioned that D’Onofrio had played Orson Welles more than once (in Tim Burton’s ED WOOD, and in his own short film FIVE MINUTES, MR. WELLES, which you can watch here).

“Who’s Orson Welles?” Linus asked, and, well, I was a bit taken back. Still, as this happens a lot when I babbling about some old thing to kids who are completely disconnected to it, I dropped the subject.

More recently, Linus told me that he may want to study film in college – he’s not sure where he’ll go to college, mind you – and I said that he really ought to see CITIZEN KANE – it’s Film 101.

My first experience with Welles was seeing THE MUPPET MOVIE with my grandmother when I was 9, something I’ve written about before. Welles had a cameo in the film as the powerful head of a movie studio who signs up Kermit and gang to be stars (“prepare the standard ‘Rich and Famous’ contract for Kermit the Frog and Company”). 

My grandmother, who is still alive, told me who Welles was – KANE, the “War of the Worlds” radio show, etc. – and the seed was planted, but it was years before I actually watched any of his work.

So now I’m attempting to pass on my Orson obsession, or, better yet, the movie-loving gene to my nephew – we’ll see how that goes.

For those of you out there that are new to Welles, there is a great documentary that came out last year, Chuck Workman’s MAGICIAN: THE ASTONISHING LIFE AND WORK OF ORSON WELLES, available now on Blu ray and DVD. It gives a fairly thorough overview of Welles career in 91 minutes, and despite its overly tidy summing up of some messy material, it makes for a good introduction to the man.

Scores of vivid vintage photographs, generous samplings of archival footage, and sound-bites from insightful interviews from the likes of Norman Lloyd, biographer Simon Callow, Steven Spielberg, Buck Henry, and Peter Bogdonavich help tell Welles’ tale, and it’s cool to see clips of Welles being portrayed by the aforementioned D’Onofrio, Christian McKay in Richard Linklater’s ME AND ORSON WELLES, Liev Schreiber in Benjamin Ross's 1999 HBO telefilm RKO 281, and Jean Guerin in Peter Jackson's 1994 crime drama HEAVENLY CREATURES in the mix. *

Of course, it’s the words from Welles himself that are the most notable. Some choice quotes: “I’m ashamed of Rosebud, it’s a rather tawdry device - it doesn’t stand up very well, ” “You know, I always liked Hollywood very much – it just wasn’t reciprocated,” and “I would’ve sold my soul to play THE GODFATHER, but I never get those parts offered to me.”

Well, that’s enough Welles for now. Hope to see a lot of folks coming out to see these classics on the big screen in Cary and Raleigh. And, by the way, this post is part of my new “Drag a kid to KANE” initiative. Yeah, that’s right – I’m really trying to start that as “a thing.”

* I posted about actors who've played Welles back in 2008 as well: A Birthday Tribute To Orson Welles With 10 Welles Wannabes (5/5/08)

More later...

Seeing CITIZEN KANE At The Cary

Last weekend I attended a 2 pm Sunday afternoon showing of Orson Welles’ immortal 1941 classic CITIZEN KANE at the newly restored venue, The Cary Theater in Cary, N.C.

I’ve been meaning to check out the theater since it re-opened earlier this year, especially since I’ve written a bunch of blurbs about their special screenings for the Raleigh N & O (like this one).

I was very impressed. Originally built in 1946, The Cary, which was an auto parts store most recently, has been beautifully renovated into a cozy 180 seat theater with shiny wood finish paneling, modern lighting, and state of the art sound system. The 6 million the town of Cary put into the place sure shows.

Now, I’ve seen CITIZEN KANE many times over the years on screens both big and small – I’m in the camp that considers it one of the greatest movies ever and all that. Unfortunately just like the last time I saw the film, at the Varsity Theater in Chapel Hill several years ago, it was in the wrong aspect ratio.

This isn’t the theater’s fault – from what I gather, the version of KANE that’s available for digital presentation is cropped for the image to fit the entire screen instead of its original “Academy Ratio.”

In the last few weeks, many bitched that the bulk of The Simpsons “every episode” marathon that FXX aired from August 21st to September 1st. was in the wrong aspect ratio but that didn’t really get in the way of my enjoyment of the large chunks of it that I took in.

Same with KANE as I enjoy the film so much, but the film purist inside of me was a bit pissed off.

Anyway, most of the people at the very well attended screening were seniors so I was one of the youngest people there, but not the youngest as I saw a few college aged folks, and maybe a couple of teens.

This was notable because I keep hearing that younger generations dislike KANE, mainly because they feel that it’s been overhyped as “the greatest movie ever.” Joel Frady, a local film critic friend, told me that he thought the film was “boring!” and I heard the same opinion (the same word with the same exclamation point) expressed by a 20-year old co-worker not long ago.

This baffles me because Welles' film, via dazzling visual techniques, sharp acting (by Welles and his Mercury Theater Players), and delicious dialogue, (written by Welles with Herman J. Mankiewicz who won a Best Screenplay Oscar) so swiftly tells its intriguing tall tale that I can’t understand how someone could be bored by it. Where in the midst of this rich vivid masterpiece is there time to yawn?

Dissolve critic Nathan Rabin recently posted this on Facebook:

“Calling something ‘boring’ or ‘dull’ has to be among the weakest, laziest criticisms. This is especially true when used to argue that something is overrated. Writing, ‘A lot of people claim Citizen Kane or The Miseducation of Lauryn Hall are great, well guess what: they’re actually boring’ says nothing about the art they’re ostensibly supposed to critique and a lot about the writer’s need to pass their own subjective judgements off as bold universal truths people are afraid to embrace.”

Amen. But there are dissenters who when they elaborate can make some valid points. I just haven’t heard any lately about KANE that didn’t seem like reactionary “I don’t see what all the fuss is about” blather.

If you have a anti-KANE stance though, let me hear about it in the comments section below. Just remember this Marc Maron quote before posting:

“If you find yourself dismissing universally acclaimed landmark achievements, saying, for example, ‘The Godfather is an okay movie,’ you might be bitter.”

More later...

DVD Review: CITIZEN HEARST

CITIZEN HEARST
(Dir. Leslie Iwerks, 2012) 

It should be no surprise that the large shadow of Orson Welles’ iconic classic CITIZEN KANE looms over this new documentary, out now on DVD about the media empire that William Randolph Hearst built. 

It’s something that can’t be ignored when viewing the old newsreel footage, hearing tales of Hearst’s political life and lavish San Simeon palace, with even the packaging for the DVD looking like it was designed for it to be shelved next to KANE in one’s home video collection.

But a half hour into Iwerk’s engrossing film, impeccably narrated by William H. Macy, Hearst, described here as “one of the world’s most powerful and controversial figures,” passes away (at age 88), the narrative shakes free of Welles' cinematic clutches as it takes us through the ups and downs of the Hearst Corporation in the post-World War II era.

In the age of flourishing consumerism and ultra specialization, magazines like Good Housekeeping, Harper’s Bazaar and Cosmopolitan revitalized themselves through the leadership of Ellen Levine, Diana Vreeland, and Helen Gurley Brown, who Hearst Corporation CEO Frank A. Bennack, Jr. says is “one of the most important figures in the history of this 125 year old company.”

Levine, now Hearst Magazines Editorial Director, the first woman to edit Good Housekeeping (90% of women’s magazines were run by men at the time) tells us that Good Housekeeping still thrives because its “the only magazine that I’m aware of that will refuse an ad if its claims cannot be proven.”

The late Vreeland, who not long ago was the subject of her own individual biodoc, DIANA VREELAND: THE EYE HAS TO TRAVEL (2011), is given a graceful segment in which we see examples of her experimental influence, via many magazine covers and double page spreads.

But while the Hearst Corp. was having success with these magazines, there was trouble in their newspaper divisions. San Francisco Herald Examiner employees held a strike in 1968 that resulted in injuries and one death, and ended with the paper being engulfed by the non-union Chronicle. Anybody who has been following the current struggle of print media to stay alive will be way into this material.

Iwerk’s film gets less interesting when it gets to the Hearst Corps acquisitions in the more familiar world of cable television, but maybe that’s because I don’t care as much about the history and inner workings of ESPN.

This doc makes a strong case for the modern media television landscape made up of 24 hour news channels (not to mention the yellow journalism of Fox News), reality shows, and self help gurus (Oprah is here to testify about her magazine O, a Hearst publication), is one largely of William Randolph Hearst’s devising. As in: it’s still his world we just live in it. It’s hard to imagine that Hearst’s fictional doppelganger Charles Foster Kane’s empire would still be a major power, which might be the real testament to the man.

Interview excerpts (much more of which can be found in the Bonus Features) from film critic Leonard Maltin, journalist/newscaster Dan Rather, NY Times Cultural reporter Robin Pogrebin, Hearst Magazines President David Carey, Fashion Designer Ralph Lauren and a few Hearst family members provide a lot of insightful anecdotes, but the lesser known Bennack Jr., who Houston Chronicle VP Jeff Cohen calls Hearst’s “spiritual heir,” may be the most engaging of the talking heads here.

The film concludes with a sequence about the building of the Hearst Tower (with some cool time lapse photography on hand), which was the first skyscraper planned in New York after the tragic events of September 11, 2001.

It may be seen as an ass-kissing tribute to the legacy of an overblown titan that glosses over a lot of darkness, but CITIZEN HEARST is a zippy informative overview of an American dream like none other.

Bonus Features: The “Hearst Castle” episode from the A & E television series America’s Castles, and over 30 minutes of deleted footage broken into 3 segments: “Growing Up Hearst,” “Hearst Tower Art Collection Tour By Gil Maurer,” and “State of News.”

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Quentin Tarantino To Direct And Star In CITIZEN KANE Remake

Even in a world with so many remakes, reboots, and re-imaginings, Orson Welles’s 1941 classic CITIZEN KANE seemed to be safe as a sacred cow that nobody would even think of touching…until now.

Wunderkind writer, director, and sometime actor Quentin Tarantino has just announced that his next project will be a remake of Welles’ masterpiece, considered by many to be one of the greatest motion pictures ever, and that it will be his final film.

“I want to make one last epic statement as a film maker and then retire, and what better way to go out with a bang than to prove that I can make a better movie out of what people think is the best movie ever?” Tarantino told Empire magazine. “My version will blow Welles’ out of the water, and it’ll be in IMAX 3D. Imagine the shards of the snow globe coming right at you! It’ll be awesome.”

The casting of himself in the iconic Charles Foster Kane part will surely be controversial, but his selection of Christoph Waltz to play Jedediah Leland, a role previously inhabited by Joseph Cotton, means that the Academy should just go ahead and engrave his name on another Oscar.

Further shocking film fans, Tarantino claims, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, that he’s never seen the original film in full. “I’ve seen parts of it on the monitor at Video Archives, the video store I used to work at before hitting the big-time, but I always had to go help customers and missed parts of it.”

Tarantino says he will view the movie once, but then never refer to it again. “I want my own vision to take over; I don’t want to make a shot-by-shot remake like Gus Van Zant did with PSYCHO. Man, that really sucked!”

So crazy that it just might work, Tarantino’s CITIZEN KANE is slated for a Christmas 2014 release.

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A Birthday Tribute To Orson Welles With 10 Welles Wannabes

“I’m not very fond of movies. I don’t go to them much.”

- Orson Welles

Tomorrow is Orson Welles’ birthday (May 6th, 1915). Since he died of a heart attack hunched over his typewriter in Los Angeles in 1985 his legend has grown immensely. The accolade “cinematic genius” as well as sayings like “larger than life” feel like they were coined for him. 

CITIZEN KANE still tops critics' lists, including mine, of the greatest movies ever and the rest of his fascinating filmography (what's available, that is) is both passionately studied by scholars and enjoyed by movie-lovers by the millions. Along with his birthday there are also a few notable anniversaries this year to pay tribute to - the classic thriller TOUCH OF EVIL turned 50 a few weeks back (it was released on April 23rd, 1958), his magnificent MACBETH hits 60 (Oct 1st, 1948), and this Halloween will be the 70th anniversary of the famous War Of The Worlds broadcast (Oct. 31st, 1938) that put Welles's name on the media map.

Since, as the saying goes, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery I thought it would be fun to look at Orson Welles as played by others. Many films and television shows - both live action and animated, have had actors portray the mighty moviemaker. IMDb even lists a separate page: Orson Welles (Character). Some of course pull off the impression better than others but they are all amusing attempts to capture the offbeat charm of one of the most well known figures of the 20th Century. So let's take a look at the men who would be KANE:

10 Orson Welles Wannabes

1. & 2. Maurice LaMarche & Vincent D'Onofrio - Why am I listing 1 & 2 together? Because LaMarche and D'Onofrio have both played Welles more than once and one time they played him together!

LaMarche, a gifted mimic, has provided his pitch perfect approximation of Welles' voice to The Simpsons, The Critic, and his character of the Brain on the cult favorite cartoon Pinky And The Brain is heavily based on Welles.

D'Onofrio who has a striking resemblence to Welles also played him in the short film FIVE MINUTES, MR. WELLES but in Tim Burton's 1994 tribute to the twisted filmmaker ED WOOD, D'Onofrio appears with LaMarche's voice dubbed in - that's right it took two people to play Orson Welles.

Tempting to make a fat joke here but I'll let it go. Ed Wood (Johnny Depp) spies Welles sitting at a table in a bar nursing a cocktail, smoking a cigar, and working on pages of a screenplay. Wood introduces himself to Welles and shares his movie production frustrations with Welles who sympathizes offering: “I'm supposed to do a thriller at Universal, but they want Charlton Heston to play a Mexican.” It's a good line but highly inaccurate - Heston insisted on Welles directing the project which was TOUCH OF EVIL but this doesn't marr the scene.

Wood's meeting with Welles is relevatory to the aspiring director - the light of inspiration that glows in his face when Welles tells him: “Ed, visions are worth fighting for, why spend your life making somebody else's dreams?” is a nice touching effect. 

Burton pulls off a bit of movie magic - for a brief instance we have Welles back and it's the young robust Welles not the bloated wine swigging caricature that most people think of when his name is dropped. Watch the scene on YouTube.

3. Angus Macfadyen in CRADLE WILL ROCK (1999)

Far from as convincing as D'Onofrio & LaMarche, MacFadyen does have plenty of Welles's theatrical flair as he moves like a storm through Tim Robbins' romantised re-creation of the world of the theater in 1930's New York.

Based on the true story of a troubled production for the Federal Theater Project, Welles with the aid of John Houseman (more accurately portrayed by Cary Elwes) he fights to get the play of the title staged. 

Macfadyen does at key moments have the right Wellesian swagger though as Roger Ebert, a huge Welles scholar himself, wrote “Welles comes across as an obnoxious and often drunken genius in a performance by Macfadyen that doesn't look or sound much like the familiar original.” 

Very true and also Macfadyen is too Scottish for the part too. Still though in the context of Robbins' fine film he somehow makes his Welles work.

4. Liev Schreiber in RKO 281 (1991). 

This a bit of stretch but a tasty one. This telefilm made for HBO tells the story of the making and aftermath of CITIZEN KANE. Schreiber is in way over his head for the role and the facts are fumbled with ferociously. Still, the talented Schrieber does a fair impression of Welles speaking voice though only when imitating his soft spoken tones. RKO 281 (named after KANE's studio issued working title) is so littered with annoying inaccuracies and cheesy cliches that Welles expert (and longtime friend) Peter Bogdanovich said that it "was poorly acted by just about everybody" and that “It had about as much connection to the Orson Welles I knew as the man in the moon.” Ouch! Okay, let's move on...

  5. John Candy on Second City TV (1976-1979) - Of course the obvious reason that Candy was cast as the later day Welles in many SCTV sketches is his ginormous girth. He didn't really look like him facially and his voice doesn't quite sound like him but the material was funny and Candy could definitely bring the battered bombast. Check out this clip of Candy as Welles in a bit based on a tape of Welles recording a British frozen-peas audio advertisement (which you can listen to here). 

6. Eric Purcell in MALICE IN WONDERLAND - I haven't seen this TV movie from 1985 about the gossip columnists Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper played respectively by Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Alexander. Obviously I can't judge Purcell's performance - nor can I find any info about it online but I'm including it here because the film has Tim Robbins as Joseph Cotten! Maybe it's just me but that sounds like pretty juicy casting. Anybody out there seen it?

7. Danny Huston in FADE TO BLACK (2006)

Another I haven't seen but did locate the trailer. Judging from the preview Huston doesn't really seem to have the Welles vibe going. That's only based on 1 minute 46 seconds of footage mind you. From one of only a few reviews that are online of this British production set in Rome, Xan Brooks of the Guardian U.K. writes:

“The role of one great director falls to Danny Huston, the son of another, who comes weaving through the action with his theatrical bearing and disreputable air, a cigar between his teeth and his pockets rattling with slimming pills; every inch the faded Hollywood idol.”

Sounds like it may be worth a viewing - that is if it were available on NetFlix.

8. Paul Shenar in THE NIGHT THAT PANICKED AMERICA (1975) I saw this TV movie years ago and I do recall that Shenar did a pretty decent job of mimicing the master. He should also get props for being the first actor on film to play Welles. Dramatising the historic War Of The Worlds broadcast inside and out this sadly isn't available on DVD but I hear that it pops up on TV from time to time. That's good 'cause I'd love to see it again. 

9. Christian McKay in the upcoming ME AND ORSON WELLES - Richard Linklater's next film (set for 2009) like CRADLE WILL ROCK depicts the theatrics both onstage and off of Orson's literally go-for-broke 1930's lifestyle.

McKay has portrayed Welles on stage and the word is that he has got the delusion of grandeur goods. Of McKay's performance in the Broadway production of “Rosebud: The Lives Of Orson Welles” 

The Daily Telegraph wrote: “Christian McKay plays this celluloid colossus to perfection… anticipating the many facets of Welles’ personality that then sparkle through the show… The stories are so fantastical and various that Rosebud would mesmerise someone unacquainted with his work as much as a film buff. The arc of his career, from overachieving wunderkind to an overweight clown who endorsed frozen peas in television commercials, has the simplicity of classical tragedy and makes for compelling theatre.” Since Linklater is one of my favorite current directors and Orson is a ongoing obsession for me I'll be really looking forward to this one. 

10. Jean Guérin in HEAVENLY CREATURES (1994) - It's been a while since I've seen this movie and to be honest I don't remember Guérin as Welles in it. He makes the list because he also played Welles in LA VENGEANCE DE LA FEMME EN NOIR (1997) - another film I haven't seen and can find very little info on. Sigh. 

There you go - 10 Orson Welles impersonators. It should be noted that Linklater's film isn't the only Orson related activity on the horizon. Reportedly Peter Bogdanovich is looking to finish work on one of Welles last films - THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND. The excellent site Wellesnet has this insightful article about the project. 

That's all for now - Happy Birthday Welles wherever you are! 

Such a great if compromised career - from Martians to the Muppets! Hope you're grandly laughing it up at the great moviehouse in the sky. 

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Catching Up With The Classics

A young filmmaker recently put this forth to Roger Ebert's Answer Man column:

Q: "As an aspiring young filmmaker, I watch and rewatch as many films as possible, around seven to 14 a week (which is tough with college and work). A lot of the time I feel like because I haven't seen every classic or obscure film, I'm less of a director because I never gleaned that knowledge.

I'm young, but I love film and I hate when that love is questioned because I haven't gotten to a certain film. What are your thoughts on this whole neurotic mess of mine? Can someone of this generation, so far removed from the birth of film, still make something as good as "Citizen Kane," even if they haven't seen it? (And yes, I've seen it several times. And no, I do not think I could match Welles' genius.)" Roy Hatts, Warwick, N.Y.

Ebert's Answer: "Join the club. I feel the same way you do. Friends of mine like Jonathan Rosenbaum and Dave Kehr seem to have seen every film ever made -- and David Bordwell, Bertrand Tavernier and Pierre Rissient probably have. There is a suspicion in Chicago that members of the University of Chicago's Doc Films, the first campus film society in the nation, are born having seen every film. But keep on watching good movies. And don't feel insecure when you make them. After all, Orson Welles watched John Ford's "Stagecoach" 100 times before making 'Citizen Kane.'"

This Q & A hits upon a point I've been noticing a lot lately - we, that is film buff folk, are just as obsessed with what we haven't seen as we are with what we have. This is, of course, silly - there will always be movies we've never seen - many of which will be essential classics to uh, somebody out there so fretting over it will get you nowhere. Better to enjoy the process and keep on watching like Ebert says. I usually mostly write about new movies, whether they are at the theater or new release DVDs but I thought I'd catch up a few older films in the spirit of trying to round out my film education.

First off, a film I caught last week on TCM: BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK (Dir. John Sturges, 1955)



The opening has powerful modern (for the mid '50s that is) steam engine storming down the tracks shown from every conceivable angle. The vivid urgency of each shot immediately pulls us in to this undoubtable classic. There is one incredible full-on "how the Hell did they do that?" shot in the train opening montage that I won't reveal because even though it's a film well documented from over 50 years ago I still promise no Spoilers.

The train, we're told for the first time in 4 years, stops in a tiny town literally out on the middle of nowhere and Spencer Tracy gets off. He is a well dressed one-armed man with a stern determined nature and immediately is noticed by the townfolk. An ominous group of cowboys led by Robert Ryan attempt to intimidate him.

When you roll with a posse that includes such heavies as Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine you can be sure that intimidation of a high order comes pretty easily. Tracy ignores any obstacles and checks into a hotel. We don't know what his deal is - is he a cop? A detective? An insurance salesman? What? We just know he is trying to find somebody - a Japanese farmer named Komoko. We know from the reaction to his arrival that his inquiries threaten to shine a blinding light on a dark secret and will place his life in danger.

What we don't know is how much of a badass Tracy is under his calm demeanor - but again I won't give anymore away. The town isn't all scary hoodlum types; Tracy does makes a few friends - Walter Brennan as the jaded town doc, Dean Jagger as the alcoholic town sheriff, and Anne Francis as well, the only woman in town it seems.

Howard Breslin's screenplay, adapted from the Don McGuire short story "Bad Day At Hondu" is excellent with great lines like: "Tim, you've got the body of a hippo but the brain of a rabbit; now don't overtax it" and "You're not only wrong. You're wrong at the top of your voice."

Building on a brilliant beginning the second half of BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK is a scorcher with no wrong turns. If you see this coming up on TCM's schedule make a note of it. It's definitely more that worth a rental too - I may put it in my Netflix queue to watch again especially since I heard director Paul Thomas Anderson praise the DVD commentary by film historian Dana Polan.

Sturge's film looks great for its age (it was the first MGM production in Cinemascope) and in these days of likewise lawless desert epics (NO COUNTRY, THERE WILL BE BLOOD et al) it holds up incredibly well. 

THE NAKED PREY (Dir. Cornell Wilde, 1966)

 

This film just got a fancy schmancy Criterion collection special edition with a newly restored high-definition digital transfer, commentary by film historian Stephen Prince, soundtrack cues, original theatrical trailer, and the icing on the cake - the original 1913 written "John Colter's Escape"- a document of the trapper's flight from Blackfoot Indians which was the inspiration for the film read by Paul Giamatti.

These bells and whistles decorate what is a pretty dated exercise - the opening credits tells us "The music in this motion picture is African Music, played by Africans on African instruments." I can't imagine seeing that notation in a film today.

The plot has a '50s B-movie thing goin' on but fleshed out with real locations rarely seen before on the big screen. In Africa, called "the land of aboriginal tortures", an ivory hunter (Wilde), who is only identified in the credits as "The Man" gets captured by a large tribe and after watching his fellow men tortured (one is covered in mud and baked alive) is stripped down except for his tied hands and given a running head start before the tribal warriors catch and kill him.

He outwits them one by one and fares equally well against the harsh jungle animals and terrain. Colorful and creative in it's use of the before mentioned African music - THE NAKED PREY is ultimately a contrived conceit, I mean there's no way this guy would escape alive in this world better known by his pursuers. Still it's a fine ride through what would soon be action movie clichés and the Criterion treatment yet again works it's magic on its claim to classic status.

It is impressive that Cornell Wilde was 50 years old when he made it. His lean killing machine of a body almost adds plausibility to this star vehicle vanity piece. Almost. Post Note: According to Wikipedia "As teenagers, Joel and Ethan Coen shot their own version of THE NAKED PREY on a Super-8 camera. They called it Zeimers in Zambia and cast a neighbor, Mark Zimering, in the lead role." Man! I'd Sure like to see that!

OTHELLO * (Dir. Orson Welles, 1952)



I've been on an Orson Welles kick for the last several months. I've been plowing through Simon Callow's lengthy bio "The Road To Xanadu" (which at 578 pages is only Volume 1!) and ordering up DVDs from his canon that I hadn't seen before including essential classics as THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI and THE TRIAL, as well as lesser known treasures like THE STRANGER and F FOR FAKE.

The crucial thing one learns over and over in reading Welles's story is that his filmography has been horribly mishandled and few of his films were truly finished. They were either taken away from him and retooled (mostly mangled more accurately) by the studio (best example - MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS ** which isn't available on DVD in any version) or he ran out of money during production and had to scrounge around to complete the project most likely not to his satisfaction.

Put this epic Shakespeare adaptation in the latter category. It was filmed over 3 years during which Welles took acting work in other's films to pay for the project.

The DVD I got from Netflix (from Image Entertainment) had only a photo gallery as a bonus feature and an awful transfer. The picture is often blurry and the sound is so bad that a lot of the dialogue is indecipherable. Much of it was latter dubbed and redubbed by Welles and the synch is often way off. If you can get past that, and that is quite a task, this is a grand albeit hammily acted production with much of the picturesque style of CITIZEN KANE in its wide shots and deep focus (murky as it is in this edition).

Welles stalks through the shadows and chews scenery with a cagey charisma that only a trained Shakespearean stage actor could possess. His sweaty wide-eyed performance is far from flawless, mind you - in some cringe worthy moments he appears to be wrong at the top of his voice (as Spencer Tracy in BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK would say) as if he's trying to reach the patrons in the cheap seats. His fellow cast members Micheál MacLiammóir as Lagos and Robert Coote as Roderigo also overact but this material calls for it, actually it broadcasts for it like on a megaphone.

As the object of Othello's obsession Desdemona, Susan Cloutier pretty much just lies there but she's a victum of the Bard's weak writing when it came to strong female characters as much as she is a victum of the plot conventions. This particular edition of the film has the feel of a work print rough cut - reportedely Welles's much criticized business mogul daughter Beatrice Welles had her paws all over this reissue.

Well, there's a great movie in there somewhere so when it comes to a proper restoration I hope next time out somebody will take a better stab at it - pun intended. Paging Bogdonavich...

* Full Title: THE TRAGEDY OF OTHELLO: THE MOOR OF VENICE

** MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS is on TCM on February 26th at 8:00 AM. Pencil that in! Okay! Next time out I'll cover some movies actually made this decade.

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There Better Be Blood!

Been waiting for this one for what feels like forever! I'm a huge Paul Thomas Anderson fan - I loved HARD EIGHT(which he would prefer to be called SYDNEY), BOOGIE NIGHTS, MAGNOLIA, and PUNCH DRUNK LOVE and consider them masterpieces, ignoring that most critics add the word "flawed" to that accolade.

The press has been tremendous (it seems to have opened everywhere but here in the last few months) but I've worked hard to ignore the banter and bickering from the film world blogosphere about this film by not reading reviews, interviews, or articles about said film until I could see it for myself. I succeeded and feel better for it - so here's my review: 

THERE WILL BE BLOOD (Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007)

The very definition of an Epic with a capital E, Paul Thomas Anderson’s long awaited loose adaptation of Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel "Oil!" is yet another 2007 release that lives up to its hype, and redefines the current cinematic landscape.

And when it comes to landscapes, the vistas that fill the frames of THERE WILL BE BLOOD engulf from the first shot – a Texas valley in 1898 aided by a jarring wall of cacophonous strings (courtesy of Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead) to the last shot of...oh wait no Spoliers! 

As oil magnate Daniel Plainview, Daniel Day Lewis owns the film – he’s in nearly every scene and though he seems to be doing an imitation of John Huston, has a sculpted manner that, as just about every critic is exclaiming, has Oscar written all over it. Plainview’s methods in the art of wheeling and dealing are mesmerizing as is his way with words (on acquisition of oil obviously) - “If you have a milkshake and I have a milkshake and I have a straw and my straw reaches across the room and starts to drink your milkshake. I drink your milkshake! I drink it up!” 

“Greed versus religion” is what I gather was the driving issue behind Sinclair’s book (which I really should read) and it comes alive in the person of Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), a young preacher whose family's land becomes entangled in Plainview's conquest of the "ocean of oil" that he declares is his and more importantly - nobody else's. 

Dano practices a form of fire and brimstone evangelizing that Plainview, when first attending his church calls "one Goddamn Hell of a show." Dano plays twins - which can be confusing because it is the little-seen Paul who first appears and sells out the location of oil to Plainview. 

Plainview has a child (Dillon Freasier) who he more or less inherited as a son from a man who died in his employment. The boy, who Plainview names H.W., loses his hearing in yet another accident and Plainview admonishes Sunday for being unable to heal him. The clashing confrontations that mount as time moves on form the final acts; I must admit that in the 3rd act I felt that Anderson loses his way a bit but regains for a severely strong finish. 

The film is dedicated to Robert Altman, but it seems to my eyes to be heavily Kubrick-influenced. The opening sequence, a nearly 20 minute dialogue-free long-form montage in which we see Plainview starting from scratch, digging in fresh earth and slowly building his operation, has the operatic feel and flow from 2001, while the extended real-time pacing and gorgeous studied long shots throughout remind me of the fine tempered fabric of BARRY LYNDON. 

But Kubrick is only one of the masters in Anderson’s mosaic; I’ve seen comparisons to the grandeur of greed in CITIZEN KANE, the location (the West Texas town of Marfa) is the same as in the classic George Stevens/James Dean classic GIANT (also NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN was filmed mostly there too), and the essence of THE TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE* is largely felt.

THERE WILL BE BLOOD, even with all those obvious inherited influences (or because of them) stands as an amazing achievement for a premiere American film maker and a film to cherish forever. 

This Epic-scale period movie on a less-than-Epic budget will bubble like the oil in the well before it bursts through Plainview’s derrick in cineaste’s psyches for a long time - regardless of whether or not it takes home the gold come Oscar night. 

* Reportedly while making TWBB Anderson put on his copy of THE TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE every night as he was going to sleep. I wonder what wife Maya Rudolph (SNL) thought about that.

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5 Sensational Simpsons Cinema Satires

With just under 3 days until the premiere of David Silverman's THE SIMPSONS MOVIE it seems like every pop culture site on this whole world wide web has a Simpsons list or celebratory article these days.

The Onion A.V. Club has a Simpsons list promised for every day this week - so far we've got Monday's Inventory - "15 Simpsons Moments That Perfectly Captured Their Eras",Tuesday's un-numbered "The strangest Simpsons products", and Wednesday's The Simpsons Vs. Civilization - all well worth checking out. 

Vanity Fair recently presented their "survey of the 10 funniest top 10 Simpsons episodes ever", The London Times chimed in with their "The 33 funniest Simpsons cameos ever", and even AOL Television did a 25 "Best Episodes Ever list". Whew!

Being a huge Simpsons fan (and yes, I would defend the recent seasons to anyone) I couldn't resist making my own list. This being Film Babble it should be cinema-centric and that presented an obvious concept : the best most definitive extended satires of a particular film. 

Now there are thousands of film references through-out the entire 18 year run of the classic show. Many characters come from the movies like failed salesman Gil who is a Jack Lemmon GLENGARY GLEN ROSS (Dir. James Foley, 1992) archetype, Chief Wiggum's voice and mannerisms are based on Edward G. Robinson, Apu is named after Satyajit Ray's THE APU TRILOGY, action star Rainer Wolfcastle is obviously based on Arnold Swartzenegger and so on and so on. 

It's hard to think of a movie that hasn't been name-checked and of course many episodes borrow plots, angles, full screen set-ups and quote exact lines and but these are to me the most notable whether they were full episodes or extended sequences satirizing specific movie classics: 

1. “Rosebud” ('93) : A few months back CITIZEN KANE (1941) * made the AFI's Top 100 list and this episode named, of course, after Charles Foster Kane's (Orson Welles) last word is Film Babble's #1 Simpsons Cinema Satire. Not just because it's a parody/homage to that immense immortal masterpiece but because it's a phenomenally hilarious episode that has deservedly made many lists. 

Evil nuclear power plant millionaire C. Montgomery Burns (The C. is for Charles - another similarity to Kane), who keeps a box of Nev-R-Break snow globes at his bed-side longs after his childhood teddy bear Bobo, much like Kane longed after his beloved sled. In a flashback we see that after being abandoned by the pubescent Burns (his father - "Wait, you've forgot your bear! A symbol of your lost youth and innocence!") Bobo has a historical journey involving a plane trip with Charles Lindbergh, a stay in Hitler's bunker, a trip on the submarine Nautilus before finally ending up in a bag of ice in the present day. 

Bart purchases the ice at the Quickie Mart and gives the old ragged bear to Maggie. Burns learns of the Simpsons possession and he offers a huge reward but standing by his daughter Homer refuses. Burns's ineptly funny attempts to steal back Bobo may not recall KANE and a good chunk of the show is the usual Simpsons riffing but the KANE context of the Burns Bobo back-story really puts this one on top. 

A cameo by the Ramones is the icing on the cake. 

"Rosebud" wasn't the first or last Simpsons episode to reference CITIZEN KANE. In the 1990 episode "Two Cars In Every Garage and Three Eyes On Every Fish" Burns protests "You can't do this to me! I'm Charles! Montgomery! Burns!" which obviously comes from "You can't do this to me! I'm Charles! Foster! Kane!" and in that same episode Burns stands in front of a big poster of himself during his campaign speech. 

In one DVD commentary the Simpsons staff remark half-jokingly that they have referenced KANE so much that you could recreate the film completely from Simpsons scenes and shot steals. 

2. “Cape Feare” ('93) Just a few episodes before "Rosebud" both the original CAPE FEAR (Dir. J. Lee Thompson, 1962) and the '92 remake CAPE FEAR (Dir. Martin Scorsese) got their episode length roasting over a Simpsons fire. Substituting Sideshow Bob (voiced by Kelsey Grammer) for recently released revenge minded Max Cady (Robert Mitchum '62, Robert Deniro '92) we get essentially the same narrative - A family is stalked by a man he once helped put in jail. 

The Simpsons in place of the Bowden family leave town and assume new witness relocation identities as The Thompsons and take up residence at Terror Lake. The whole ends in a showdown (actually a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan's "H.M.S. Pinafore") on a houseboat. 

Also factor into the mix a slice of Hitchcock's classic 1960 thriller PSYCHO: Sideshow Bob stays at the Bate's Motel. A truly inspired episode but silly as can be - on the DVD commentary writer / producer Al Jean even says "when you look at Sideshow Bob and his master plan it really is just to stab this 10 year old boy! I mean when he gets to the boat it's not very subtle - 'I want to cut him until he dies!'"

There's that and this priceless Sideshow Bob line when defending his "Die Bart, Die" tattoo in court - "no, that's German for "The Bart, The!" 

3. “The Shinning” ('94) In this 8 min. segment of "Treehouse Of Horror V" THE SHINING (Dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1980) gets skewered. Burns has the Simpson family act as caretakers for his mansion in the mountains modeled meticulously on the Overlook Hotel in said Kubrick classic.

When told by Groundskeeper Willie that he has "the shin-ning", Bart replies "you mean "the shining!" Willie whispers "shh - you want to get sued?" When leaving for the winter Burns boasts about his cutting off the cable TV and the beer supply - Two things that Smithers argues may have been the reason the previous caretakers went insane and murdered their families.

Burns says "perhaps, if we come back and everyone is slaughtered - I owe you a Coke." Sure enough in almost no time Homer does go insane. The deconstruction of THE SHINING is a thing of genius here - Marge saying "What he's typed will be a window into his madness", the ghost of Moe prompting Homer to kill his family but having no real substantial reason for it - "uh, because they'd be much happier as ghosts." 

Then there's Homer's take on Jack Nicholson's over the top antics. When blowing his "Here's Johnny" intro because he chopped his axe into an empty room - he finally gets the right room and holding up a stopwatch yells "I'm Mike Wallace, I'm Morley Safer, and I'm Ed Bradley, all this and Andy Rooney too on 60 Minutes!"

4. “Cosmic Wars : The Gathering Shadow” from "Co-Dependent's Day" ('04)– This one is a little odd. I mean STAR WARS (1977-2005) has been directly referred to in many many episodes (go here for a Simpsons Archive List) so to have a likewise film series with a look-alike director (Randal Curtis standing in for George Lucas) seems a bit off. 

Apparently they didn't want to name names because it deals with ridiculing the anticipation killing THE PHANTOM MENACE so the Simpsons creators didn't want to alienate or insult Lucasfilm and 20th Century Fox according to Wikipedia. I included it because is has some great prequel parodying moments when breaking down the numbing exposition and specifically satirizing Jar-Jar (Jim-Jam). "Cosmic Wars" only exists for a few minutes so it's one of many films within the Simpsons and is never mentioned after the episode (they go back to STAR WARS references) so it is a perfect example of what Matt Groening has called "flexible reality" or a "rubber-band universe" - in which something lasts as long as the joke does then the next day it's gone.


5. “Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(annoyed grunt)cious” ('97) The answer to stress so strong it's making Marge's hair fall out is for the family to get a nanny but not just any nanny MARY POPPINS! - No wait, make that Shary Bobbins. Julie Andrews was set to play the part but the producers decided on Maggie Roswell to take on the vocal duties of the sweet singing flying umbrella traveling, and just all around neat freak.

The episode is a complete musical and uses several melodies from the original 1964 Disney film. It goes back and forth from the respectful tributes in the songs to the crude satire of the cheap animation and outdated morale. In the end crude satire wins - Bobbins dies by getting sucked up in a passing airplane's jet engine while the Simpsons' backs are turned.


This episode reportedly had to have the most padding out of any Simpsons episode - an “Itchy and Scratchy” Quentin Tarantino parody “Reservoir Cats"” (pictured on the right) was a late addition.

That's the Top Five but special mention should be given to: “Bart Simpson’s Dracula” ('93), from "Treehouse Of Horror IV," a dead on spoof of BRAM STROKER’S DRACULA (1992) right down to Burns' hair-do. Contains better acting than the Coppola version for sure.
“Marge On The Lam” ('93) lampoons THELMA & LOUISE (Dir. Ridley Scott, 1991) 

“Two Dozen and One Greyhounds” to the tune of 101 DALMATIONS (1961)

“Deep Space Homer” ('94) steals its ending from 2001 : A SPACE ODDYSEY (1968).

Al Jean once said it was a close tie between the large amounts of CITIZEN KANE and Kubrick references on The Simpsons.

Maybe when the show is over we can take a tally. I've been trying to only deal with more extended parodies because there have been too many snippet steals from movies in the series run but Homer as the space-baby is just too hard to pass up. 

“Twenty-Two Short Films About Springfield” ('96) - This magnificent episode's title and some of its inspiration comes from THIRTY TWO SHORT FILMS ABOUT GLENN GOULD but it's really more PULP FICTION as many have acknowledged before me and will again. And so on and so forth. The next time I post will be after I see THE SIMPSONS MOVIE and I will give you a full review. Until then may a noble spirit embiggen your soul. 

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