PROFESSOR BRAINERD'S CHRISTMAS QUIZ: THE ANSWERS (PART THREE: HOLIDAYS, HAMS, CRUSHES, WISHES AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN

Okay, this is it— Part Three, the concluding chapter of the roundup of answers to Professor Brainerd’s mind-boggling Christmas Quiz. If you’re looking for a quick (well, not so quick, really) update on the previous two installments, here’s the buttons to push for part one and part two. I’m only throwing in an answer derived from my on list of answers every once in a while, but if you so choose to revisit that logorrheic document, you can do so by clicking here.

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12) YOUR FAVORITE HOLIDAY MOVIE (doesn’t have to be Christmas-oriented)

Of course, when one thinks of holiday movies, it’s almost inevitable that Christmas films come to mind. Murray, Machine Gun McCain, the Mysterious Adrian Betamax and Mr. Middlebrow all cited It’s a Wonderful Life, as did I.

Racking up almost as many mentions was Bob Clark’s A Christmas Story, a favorite of Roscoe, Snake Plissken and Nilblogette, who listed, as did Brian and Sal, Die Hard as well (that’s always been one I like to warm my chestnuts by during the Christmas season too).

Thom McGregor voted for Groundhog Day, Beege gave up some love for National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Sal points us toward April Love and One Magic Christmas, Dave Robidenza prefers Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Roscoe loves The Nightmare Before Christmas, Mr. Middlebrow cites the original animated version of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, and he joins Sharon in recommending The Ref (another wonderful monkey wrench in your stocking!), Peter Nellhaus recommends George Cukor’s Holiday, and both Robert and Virgil Hilts think highly of Alastair Sim’s portrayal of Scrooge in the 1951 version of A Christmas Carol directed by Brian Desmond-Hurst. On to some commentary:

Blaaagh: “I'd sure like to see Magoo's Christmas Carol again...my dad could never watch it without crying at the end! But barring that, I'll go with It's a Wonderful Life, which came on some dreary 70s day after Christmas in the midst of my teenage years and acted on me like some sort of tonic. I don't watch it often, so as not to wear it out even more than it has been already, but I still love it.”

Brian: “Let’s try one for each of five holidays: Halloween: Halloween; Dia de los Muertos: Macario; Christmas: The Shop Around the Corner; Groundhog Day: Groundhog Day; Easter: Monty Python’s Life of Brian”
The Mysterious Adrian Betamax: “Only It's a Wonderful Life springs to mind, and it is a really excellent movie on all levels, so it's okay to pick it. Bonus response: Best SHORT holiday movie-- Laurel and Hardy's Big Business, the one where they go selling Christmas trees door-to-door.”

psaga: “Every Halloween, I force anybody within reach to watch The Frighteners with me. This Christmas, my mum, in a fit of cine-filial pride and enthusiasm, purchased and distributed every copy of Danny Boyle’s Millions found in the Greater Michiana area and forced everyone within reach to watch it, plus the English subtitles I cocreated, with her. (“Forget Jimmy Stewart and that kid with the tongue to the flagpole! This is the new Christmas movie. And my daughter worked on the DVD.”) My favorite explicitly “holiday” movie would have to be the Holly Hunter-starring Home for the Holidays. I’m a sucker for all that alliteration. (How’s that for a rambling stoner non-answer?)”


13) WORST HOLIDAY MOVIE (doesn’t have to be Christmas-oriented)

The hammer seems to have come down hardest on Ron Howard’s live-action How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Mr. Middlebrow, Dave Robidenza), but, entertainingly enough, there were plenty of offenders to go around.

Peet is perplexed by The Polar Express; Virgil Hilts says Surviving Christmas is dreck, although seeing Ben Affleck getting slammed on the head with a shovel has some value; Robert thinks Santa Claus The Motion Picture may have had fatal consequences; Peter Nellhaus holds up Adam Sandler’s Eight Crazy Nights for some hot-buttered scorn; Brian thinks Independence Day stunk loudest; Murray was offended by Kelsey Grammer’s interpretation of Scrooge in the recent TV movie version of A Christmas Carol; Roscoe thinks any holiday movie with Ben Affleck in it is to be avoided (Reindeer Games, anyone?); and Machine Gun McCain would like a tarp dropped on any Christmas TV movie of the last few years.

Nilblogette: “Once Upon A Christmas starring Kathy Ireland as Santa's daughter is dreck, but I've got to go with The Polar Express. I have never been so simultaneously angry and bored during a movie.”

The Mysterious Adrian Betamax: “So many. What was that one with that guy Sinbad?”

Dave Robidenza: “I'd pick the Jim Carrey Grinch on general principles, though I've avoided seeing it.”

Blaaagh: “I love Murray's choice of that terrible, terrible new musical last year with Kelsey Grammer as Scrooge--Jane Krakowski (sp?) as the Ghost of Christmas So-and-So in a slinky dress, singing in a faux English accent, "Do you remembah? Do you remembah?"--but my own choice is National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Ugh.”


14) YOUR ALL-TIME FAVORITE HAMMY ACTOR

Machine Gun McCain: DAVID PATRICK KELLY
Peter Mellhaus: ORSON WELLES
Roscoe: AL PACINO
Murray: HUGH GRANT
Nilblogette: MICHAEL MORIARTY, specifically Troll and Island of the Alive (It’s Alive III)
Beege: STEVE MARTIN
Blaaagh: CHARLTON HESTON

Brian: TOSHIRO MIFUNE
Robert: WILLIAM SHATNER
Virgil Hilts: ROBERT ARMSTRONG and BASIL RATHBONE
Thom McG: MALCOLM McDOWELL
Psaga: VITTORIO GASSMAN
Dave Robidenza: CHARLES S. DUTTON and HARRISON FORD
Sal: JAMES WOODS


Snake Plissken: WILLIAM SHATNER (“Khaaaaaaaaaaan!”)

Peet: GEORGE C. SCOTT (“Boy, I love it when this guy gets angry!”)

The Mysterious Adrian Betamax: “SHELDON LEONARD, perhaps (if that's fair to him), especially in the film noir Decoy. But he's quite amusingly hammy also in Somewhere in the Night.”

Mr. Middlebrow: “Gary Cooper. Man, what a scene-chewer! Kidding! First blush: William Shatner. Upon consideration: William Shatner."

Dennis: “Some years ago a friend of mine and I put together a patchily-edited (on a VCR) montage of some of Rod Steiger’s wildest moments from movies as diverse as Oklahoma!, In the Heat of the Night, The Loved One, No Way to Treat a Lady and many others (including a scene with Kevin Kline from The January Man where the actor goes so far over the top that it seems the only way out is a full-on aneurysm), and it was an absolute delight to see all that bizarre energy pop off like honey-cured firecrackers, one straight after the other. The cherry on top: I was at a screening of The Passion of Joan of Arc at the John Anson Ford Theater here in Los Angeles several years ago, waiting in line to use the men’s room. A guy emerged from the facility and walked passed me, and the guy waiting behind me made a comment to me along the lines of, ‘Did you see the look on that guy’s face when he came out? I wonder what the hell went on in there?’ I chuckled and turned around to acknowledge the stranger’s vaguely scatological good humor. It was Rod Steiger.”


15) FAVORITE FEDERICO FELLINI MOVIE

8½ (Peter Nellhaus, Snake Plissken, Nilblogette, The Mysterious Adrian Betamax)




NIGHTS OF CABIRIA (Thom McGregor, Blaaagh, Dennis)
I VITTELONI (Machine Gun McCain)
THE WHITE SHEIK (Brian)
JULIET OF THE SPIRITS (Virgil Hilts)

Peet: “Clowns and fat ladies scare me.”

Dave Robidenza: “The only one I ever saw was Satyricon, and I'm still working through it in therapy.”

Psaga: “Hooray! LE NOTTI DI CABIRIA ties with GIULIETTA DEGLI SPIRITI for yin. (Fantasy: Giulietta Masina takes out Mastroianni’s Guido from 8 ½.) ROMA (riveting images of the metro tunnels and of Anna Magnani) makes yang.”


16) YOUR FAVORITE FILM CRITIC
(I’ll probably get scoffed right off the information superhighway for this, but it was not my intention to use this question to go fishing for a bunch of shout-outs. That said, thanks to those silly folk who mentioned my name here. Your copies of Reeling are in the mail.)

Peter Nellhaus: LISA SCHWARTZBAUM, Entertainment Weekly
Machine Gun McCain: ANDREW SARRIS (but not the Sarris of today)
Nilblogette: All-time: PAULINE KAEL/Current: DAVE KEHR
Blaaagh: PAULINE KAEL
Brian: Tie between RUDOLF ARNHEIM and VERN
Sal: DAVID SPADE
Robert: Likes Kael and Kehr, but his favorite movie critic is HIMSELF
Peet: DANA LINSSEN (though he would now add Matt Zoller Seitz to his short list).
Dave Robidenza: THE THREE BLACK CHICKS
Mr. Middlebrow: ANTHONY LANE

Roscoe: “I’m too much of a cynic and a masochist, I only read bad reviews.”

Snake Plissken: “Dennis Cozzalio, although I don't agree with him a lot of the time. His fawning appreciation of JM J. Bullock is just too far out for me. (Was I supposed to tell anyone, Dennis?)”

Virgil Hilts: “R.D. Cozzalio. Second place is a tie between Kevin Thomas and Linda Gross of the late '70s/early '80s L.A. Times.”

Peet: “I would have said Dennis Cozzalio if he hadn’t faced me with yet another pointless, irresistable movie quiz to waste my precious holiday time. ;-)”

Beege: “Dennis. ;) Actually...that's not so much of a joke.” (Depends on yor perspective—Ed.)

Thom McG: “Fishing for compliments?” (You get TWO copies of Reeling!—Ed.)

The Mysterious Adrian Betamax: “Hans Lucas.”

Psaga: “If I weren’t such a slacker, I’d have been the first to submit Dennis Cozzalio as my favorite critic. Ooh, I just read Thom McGregor’s answers though, and several chortles and exclamations of ‘Man, why didn’t I think of that?’ later, I’m thinking she’s my current favorite. All right, I try to remember to read SALON’s ‘Beyond the Multiplex,’ because Andrew O’Hehir can usually get me all excited by writing something like ‘Cache: Joseph Conrad meets David Lynch in a neighborhood not unlike yours and mine.’ I also try to remember to be amused by the ONION’s AV Clubbers.”


18) BEST USE OF A NATURAL LOCATION SETTING IN A MOVIE












Sal: THE HILLS HAVE EYES (Wes Craven original)
Robert: WALKABOUT, PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK
Thom McGregor: NAKED, MANHATTAN
Nilblogette: FITZCARRALDO
Murray: BEND OF THE RIVER, THE WAY WEST
Peter Mellhaus: John Ford in Monument Valley
Machine Gun McCain: Any of Don Siegel’s San Francisco films

Sharon: “As much as I didn’t care for the movies, I’d have to say that Peter Jackson did right by the glorious New Zealand scenery in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.”

Peet: “Picnic at Hanging Rock You beat me to it, Robert!”

Brian: “Having recently seen Zabriskie Point for the first time, I have to say that Antonioni’s use of Death Valley obliterates the memory of all other comers in my mind right now. And this is only a couple weeks after concluding that he was resting on Antonio Gaudi’s laurels for certain stretches of The Passenger.”

Snake Plissken: “Preston, Idaho, in Napoleon Dynamite. Folks, I've been there, and I'm telling you, that movie was a freaking DOCUMENTARY. Stay far, far away.”

Beege: “Hard to beat Cannon Beach's gigantic rock in The Goonies.”

Blaaagh: “New Zealand in the Lord of the Rings movies...runner-up, the coast of Ireland in Ryan's Daughter (I got to see it at the Paramount in Portland as a kid in 70mm and 6-track stereo).”

Dennis: “I’m obviously not thinking on a very Lean-esque scale here, but I think it’s pretty wonderful what the filmmakers responsible for National Lampoon’s Animal House were able to do to make the campus of the University of Oregon pass for a splendidly atmospheric Eastern college… The location adds a priceless richness and authenticity to the movie, just another element that makes Animal House stand apart from its endless imitators.”

Virgil Hilts: “Alberta, Canada, subbing for the Texas Panhandle in Days of Heaven; the French countryside in The Duellists; and the river in Deliverance. And Robert's choice of "Picnic at Hanging Rock is a real good one.”

Psaga: “Mt. Potts Station as Edoras speaks to my inner lady of Rohan. Matamata as Hobbiton speaks to, well, my inner hobbit. Now please excuse me while I go curl up and cry a puddle over all that beauty.”

Dave Robidenza: “Various North Carolina locations (standing in for colonial-era New York) in Michael Mann's Last of the Mohicans.”

Mr. Middlebrow: “The Last of the Mohicans (four years living in Asheville, NC, near Chimney Rock, where the final showdown with Magua takes place, will do that to you.)”

The Mysterious Adrian Betamax: “Ah, whatever. I don't have to answer your stupid questions. Ask Anthony Mann. How about The Far Country. Yeah, go with that.”


19) WORST SQUANDERING OF A NATURAL LOCATION SETTING IN A MOVIE

Robert, Machine Gun McCain: THE LAST SAMURAI
Thom McGregor: Lawrence Kasdan's GRAND CANYON
Psaga: FAR AND AWAY
Peter Nellhaus: ISHTAR

Nilblogette: “There was no reason for Troy to shoot on location when nothing in that movie looked, or was, real.”

Mr. Middlebrow: “Oregon City, Oregon, in Bandits. (No falls? No elevator? The hell?)
Also the worst squandering of Cate Blanchett.”

Blaaagh: “Er...I dunno. Probably all the locations in Sidney Sheldon's Bloodline. I don't remember whether any of them were "natural" locations, but I remember how terrible it was and that they traveled to different countries around the world to make this trash.”

Dave Robidenza: “Mount Etna for Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, both for providing the background for the great big letdown that was the Anakin/Obi-Wan duel and for once again putting the lie to George Luca$$'s assertion that digital effects can replace practical locations.”

Dennis: “The screenwriter and/or director of The Ring 2 decided to set the movie in one of the most picturesque and haunting locales in the Northwest-- Astoria, Oregon-- and then pissed away any and all opportunity to put that natural beauty to any narrative use to conjure dread or even a strong sense of local geography. The location is relegated to a series of picture postcard establishing shots, each one making obvious the inarguable grandeur and natural beauty of the area… The most frightening thing about The Ring 2 is the film’s blindness to its own setting… The best thing about The Ring 2: those establishing shots.”

Brian: “The shooting of The Beach literally squandered the actual beauty of Ko Phi Phi in real life, so it has to win this contest.”

Sharon: “The splendor of Hawaii was wasted on Waterworld.”

Robert: “Once Upon a Time in the West-- I know I’ll get brickbats for this, but I do feel that better use could’ve been made of iconic locations through the whole movie, not just Jill’s wagon ride.”

Peet: “With pain in my heart, I say: Full Metal Jacket. Not that Kubrick did a poor job of making London and Essex look like Parris Island, mind you, but I still believe he should have gotten over his fear of flying for this one.”

The Mysterious Adrian Betamax: “Was there a natural location in Chain Reaction? 'Cause I'm sure that was probably a bad movie.”


20) FAVORITE SONG FROM A MOVIE

Roscoe: Gary Jules’ cover of Tears for Fears’ “Mad World,” from DONNIE DARKO
Murray: “The Circle of Life” from THE LION KING
Peter Nellhaus: “Beautiful Stranger” by Madonna, from AUSTIN POWERS: THE SPY WHO SHAGGED MESnake Plissken: “All Over the World” by Electric Light Orchestra, from XANADU
Machine Gun McCain: “He Needs Me” sung by Julie Andrews, from 10
Nilblogette: “Memo from Turner,” from PERFORMANCE
Beege: “I’ll Cover You,” from RENT
Blaaagh: “Edelweiss,” from THE SOUND OF MUSIC
Brian: The title track from THE HARDER THEY COME by Jimmy Cliff
Sal: “Skid Row” from LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS and the title track from THAT THING YOU DO!
Robert: “Love Power” (Dick Shawn’s audition) from THE PRODUCERS; also, “Porpoise Song” and “Daddy’ Song”,” from HEAD.
Peet: “When She Loved Me” by Randy Newman (sung by Sarah MacLachlan), from TOY STORY 2
Dennis: Original to film-- "Until the End of the World," written by Bono and the Edge, from Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World (1991) Non-original to film-- “Move On Up,” written by Curtis Mayfield, as heard in Ken Shapiro's The Groove Tube (1973).
Psaga: “Moving Right Along” by Kermit and Fozzie Bear
Thom McGregor: “Singin’ in the Rain,” from Singin’ in the Rain and Clockwork Orange
Dave Robidenza: “I’m a Neat Kind of Guy” from Todd Solondz’s Fear, Anxiety and Depression
Virgil Hilts: "Singing In The Rain" sung by Gene Kelly; "Town Without Pity" sung by Gene Pitney; Shirley Bassey singing "Goldfinger"; and Jimmy Cliff singing "Many Rivers To Cross," "You Can Get It If You Really Want" and "The Harder They Come."

Mr. Middlebrow: “‘Me Ol’ Bamboo’ from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Ah, the ribald subtext of Ian Fleming...”

The Mysterious Adrian Betamax: “????? You are insane if you think I'm going to answer a question this broad.”


22) FAVORITE ROGER CORMAN MOVIE













Machine Gun McCain, Snake Plissken: X- THE MAN WITH X-RAY EYES
Nilblogette: HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP (Any idea what ever happened to Barbara Peeters?—Ed.)
Blaaagh, Peet: THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM
Brian: SUBURBIA (directed by Penelope Spheeris)
Sal: ROCK AND ROLL HIGH SCHOOL
Dennis: THE PREMATURE BURIAL, THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH, HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD
Robert: THE INTRUDER
The Mysterious Adrian Betamax: THE HAUNTED PALACE

Beege: “Too bad M has gone to bed. I bet he'd have one.”

Thom McGregor: “The Silence of the Lambs, where he played, to perfection, FBI Director Hayden Burke. Okay, this was a weird question…”

Dave Robidenza: “The Skateboard Kid (executive producer), but only for the kick-ass opening credits song.”


23) YOUR BIGGEST MOVIE STAR CRUSH

Mr. Middlebrow: FAYE DUNAWAY as Bonnie and MYRNA LOY in The Thin Man
Sharon:GEORGE CLOONEY
Thom McGregor: Current: EWAN McGREGOR Firsts: RICHARD DREYFUSS, ROBERT REDFORD, AL PACINO, DIANA RIGG (Gentlemen, all questions about this last one can be referred directly to powser2@earthlink.net for a discreet reply in a brown wrapper. –Ed.)


Sal: LINDA BLAIR, SHAWNEE SMITH
Brian: KATE WINSLET
Nilblogette: DONALD SUTHERLAND
DENNIS: CLAUDIA CARDINALE, MICHELLE YEOH
Machine Gun McCain: ISABELLE HUPPERT
Snake Plissken: RAQUEL WELCH
Murray: LINDA PURL, VALERIE BERTINELLI
Roscoe: KEIRA KNIGHTLEY

Peter Nellhaus: SANDRA MAJANI. She was only in one film, but God, is she hot!”






Blaaagh: “Crushes through the eons: 1. Julie Christie 2. Julie Newmar 3. Sarah Miles 4. Olivia Hussey (I saw Romeo and Juliet late) 5. Linda Blair (serious). Let's skip over some years, eh?
Currently: Rachel McAdams (I know, I know, she's a young-un, but it's just a movie-star crush).”

Beege: “Zach Braff. There’s just something about those Jewish men…” (Beege, I was coming out of a doctor appointment with my youngest daughter about a month ago, and traffic was stopped right at the street level of the exit to the parking lot. When we creeped up to the top, there was Zach Braff, in hospital blues, sitting in a shopping cart stuffed with garbage, being pushed across the street by an actor dressed as a homeless guy. We’d stumbled onto a location shoot for Scrubs. Life in Los Angeles… -- Ed.)

Psaga: “My heaviest imaginary relationship with a famous person involved a rock star, not a movie star (and you’d have to apply some serious torture—say, marathon screenings of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt and Billy Zane—to get me to say more.) With movie stars I guess I’m rather promiscuous. Seeing Capra’s You Can’t Take It With You a few years ago had me clipping photos of young James Stewart to hang in my office cubicle and swoon over. Watching Mathieu Kassovitz in Amelie of Montemartre has me omitting regular squeals. (Director Jeunet cheerfully points out at various times in the commentary and bonus features that they don’t have Leonardo DiCrapio in France, but they have Mathieu Kassovitz. And I ask myself again, “Self, when are we defecting?”) This year’s movie-star crush (all Karl-Urban-in-Doom rumors aside) is definitely Romain Duris in De Battre Mon Coeur S’est Arrete (Zut alors! Another French hottie), a scrumptious blend of Daniel Day-Lewis, Ewan McGregor, and Nick Cave.” (I think that’s “zoot alures,” Psaga—Ed.)

Peet: “Remember that mini-series The Thornbirds in the early ’80s? Well, little girl Meggie in the full-grown shape of English goddess Rachel Ward stole my young boy’s heart. The sight of Richard Chamberlain as Father Ralph struggling to hold on to his priest’s collar while this heavenly brunette was practically tearing off his robe with her teeth assured me that atheism was the path laid before me. Those longing brown eyes, that deep husky voice, those glistering beads of sweat dripping down the curves of her naturally tanned body... Damn, is this thing out on DVD?”
Virgil Hilts: “It wouldn't be right to say anyone other than Claudia Cardinale, but Claudia is more than just a crush. Hayley Mills. That's a crush.”

The Mysterious Adrian Betamax: “Ah, I don't know. I really don't obsess about them. (And I'm much healthier for it!)”

Dave Robidenza: “That's between me and a well-hidden folder on my hard drive.”


24) DIRECTOR YOU’VE ALWAYS FELT DESERVED MORE ATTENTION THAN HE/SHE EVER GOT OR HAS GOTTEN UP TO THIS POINT, AND A HIGHLIGHT FOR YOU FROM HIS/HER CAREER
Virgil Hilts: BILL FORSYTH, JOHN SAYLES, GILLIAN ARMSTRONG
Peet: JONATHAN GLAZER
Machine Gun McCain: JOHN LANDIS, especially Into The Night
Dave Robidenza: WHIT STILLMAN, especially Metropolitan
Sharon: JOHN LASSETER (check this out, Sharon… --Ed.)
Sal: TED DEMME
Nilblogette: DONALD CAMMELL




Snake Plissken: “Michael Mann. Manhunter is a far better movie than all that other Anthony Hopkins Lecter piffle, and it effectively bridged the gap between Miami Vice and CSI.”













Mr. Middlebrow: “What the hell happened to Paul Brickman? Risky Business is/was The Graduate of my generation, with the role of “plastics” being performed by “dermatology.”
Then Men Don’t Leave was a really worthwhile, if lower profile, sophomore effort. Then, poof. He’s gone from the radar. Also, I have to second Snake Plissken’s nomination of Michael Mann. You look over his filmography and you can’t help thinking, Wait, these were all done by the same guy? He’s got so much range; the only thing many of his films have in common is a journeyman’s attention to craft and detail. He’s one good romantic/screwball comedy away from being this generation’s Howard Hawks.”

(Speaking as another Michael Mann fan—and I know you have an opinion on this one, Snake—has anyone seen The Keep lately? –Ed.)

The Mysterious Adrian Betamax: “Depends what you mean by "attention" and where, but it seems to me that Bergman, Fellini, Antonioni, Godard et al. are alive and well in the bodies of Theo Angelopoulos, Abbas Kiarostami, Hou Hsiao-Hsien (and Godard is still going strong in his own body!-- Oh, wait, Bergman too!) and many others I can't think of right now. But unlike in the '60s, when people in America had often heard of these people, especially Bergman, these "equivalents" have nowhere near the same visibility at all, despite being equally vital and excellent artists. They do, however, have plenty of attention in the right film magazines and blogs, so it's not like they're unknown, they're just not as well-known as they ought to be in comparison to their '60s counterparts. Angelopoulos - Eternity and a Day, Kiarostami - Homework, Hou Hsiao-Hsien - Good Men/Good Women and The Puppetmaster, Godard the Latter - Soft and Hard and Sauve qui peut (la vie).”

Thom McGregor: “New Zealander Vincent Ward, who directed one of my all-time favorites, Map of the Human Heart, and also the interesting The Navigator. I believe that has been his hightlight so far. Didn't see River Queen from last year, but heard good things about it.”

Robert: “James Frawley should have had more attention as a comedy director – he’s mainly known for The Muppet Movie, but people forget that he started out directing The Monkees television show – looking at those episodes now, they hold up much better than even present day sitcoms. He did a little seen feature, Kid Blue, an adaptation of a Larry McMurtry novel (Leaving Cheyenne) with Blythe Danner, but his breakout SHOULD have been The Big Bus, a parody of disaster movies that didn’t come out at the right time… four years later in 1980, The Zuckers would hit pay dirt with Airplane! that was the same type of parody, but more frenetic and with smuttier humor. The Big Bus did pick up a cult following and was a staple of the CBS Evening Movie in the late 70’s – early 80’s.”

Peter Nellhaus: “The French director Cedric Klapisch should be better appreciated. I saw one of his films on DVD that did not get released in the U.S., a heist film titled Ni Pour, Ni Contre. Dark heist comedy where the young woman who accidentally becomes involved with a criminal gang escapes with the loot.”

Roscoe: “Darren Aronosky, because I'm a huge fan of the new innovated camera effects and he's the only director that seems to make it work to his advantage and not to his detriment (Tony Scott).”

Brian: “William Wellman doesn’t seem to get the respect he deserves from auteurists, who seem to regard him as unquestionably inferior to the likes of Ford, Hawks, Lang, Walsh, etc. while every film I see of his makes me more convinced he belongs near or among their ranks. Beau Geste is a personal fave.”

Blaaagh: “Phil Kaufman has gotten a good deal of attention and acclaim, but considering how great some of his movies are (The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Invasion of the Body Snatchers), I'd expect him to be much busier and more acclaimed...still, he seems a bit off his game these days (though I guess I didn't give Twisted a fair shot that night you and I started watching it after 480 tequila shots).”

Dennis: “Joe Dante. Run his name up the IMDb flagpole, take a look, then rent Gremlins 2, or other "bombs" like Looney Tunes: Back in Action, Explorers, The 'burbs, The Second Civil War, Small Soldiers, Innerspace, the third episode of the ill-fated Twilight Zone movie, Matinee, or earlier Corman-influenced pictures like Hollywood Boulevard, The Howling and Piranha, and see if you don't see a sliver of what I see: a renegade intelligence running wild and loose under the radar across the landscape of American pop culture, leaving a trail of singed ground, felled trees and exploded cultural assumptions behind.”

Beege: “I'll tell you what, Dennis. YOU tell ME what theologian you've always felt deserved more attention than he/she ever got or has gotten up to this point, and a highlight for you from his/her career, and then I'LL come up with an answer for this question. ;) I mean, come on: are directors REALLY so important? ;)” (I gave you my answer a little further down in the comments column of the original post, but you never came through on your end, Beege! Whazzupwit dat?:)—Ed.)


26) IF THE MOVIES WERE TO GIVE YOU A CHRISTMAS GIFT, OR A GIFT FOR 2006,WHAT WOULD IT BE? (I MEAN “THE MOVIES” IN THE MOST GENERAL SENSE—THE FILM INDUSTRY, THE ACTORS, A DIRECTOR MAKING A CERTAIN FILM, WHATEVER)

Blaaagh: “Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit.”

Sharon: “An Oscar for George Clooney.” (Your wish is my command!—Ed.)

Peter Nellhaus: “Regional coding on DVDs would be a thing of the past.”

Roscoe: “It would be Martin Scorsese recasting The Departed with Jim Carrey and Daniel Day Lewis as the two moles. They are older sure but they both are young enough to pull it off. Leo and Damon seem like the worst fit for that movie.”

Murray: “The best thing the movie industry could give me for Christmas is their continued efforts in making closed captions and subtitles available on as many movies as possible. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the movie industry could make closed captions available for all movies at the theaters? There are open captions available now on a select few movies, but they are seldom shown in my area. Besides, most movie watchers who are not hearing-impaired prefer no captions. But with today's technology it seems that there should be a way to encode captions to a movie that would be invisible to the naked eye, but could be seen by wearing special glasses, much like the 3D movies. That way only the people that want to watch the movie with captions could.”

Snake Plissken: “A two-hour version of the new King Kong. Terrific effects, truly emotional story, and an exciting tale with a fine cast of actors. But Great Gracious Lord, I could have cut at least 45 minutes out of that thing blindfolded. It's a good thing I got a new Timex INDIGLO(r) for Christmas (which I opened early; don't tell my mother-in-law), because I found myself checking it several times during the film.”

Machine Gun McCain: “A new film from Monte Hellman, which seems like it’ll happen, with the release of the anthology work Trapped Ashes (co-directed by Tobe Hooper and Joe Dante!)”

Nilblogette: “Lower ticket prices, lower budgets, fewer remakes and comic adaptations, actors who were never models, fewer awards shows, less CGI, no blue filters in shots also using shakey-cam, no comedies over 90 minutes long, and a better ratings system, but I think doing away with marketing departments would do the most good.”

Beege: “Better films and a free babysitter so I can actually go out and SEE them.”

Brian: “A travelling Friz Freleng retrospective for the 100th anniversary of his birth this year.”

Sal: “Well, I'm a big fan of the old movie studio lots and the magic they were able to make within those walls. It saddens me to no end when I think of film fans will never see the famous High Noon western set (bulldozed for a parking lot) or enourmous backlot of 20th Century Fox (sold off to create Century City) or the sin of all sins, the destruction of the treasured sets of the old MGM/RKO backlots of Culver City. So much of film today has relied on technology such as CGI to transport the audience that it has somehow made that trip less fantastical than it once was. The greatest gift I could receive would be to have some group of investors or directors or producers get together and find an area outside of L.A. and construct the next great studio lot that would recreate some of those lost sets and create new ones for the next several decades. God I would love to see that. I remember Debbie Reynolds talking about how she begged and pleaded with Kirk Kirkorian not to sell off and bulldoze the MGM lot. She even offered to stand in from of the main gates and sell tickets so people could see that beautiful place for themselves. It makes me weep!”

Robert: “An R1 release of Pretty Poison; a strapped-on, blown-out, extras to the max- release of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, with cast/crew commentaries and/or interviews, tons of stills, deleted scenes, and whatever else they can dredge up related to the production;
and for The Industry to regain the ability to do simple math: good writing + good actors + imaginative directors = Good Movies.”

Virgil Hilts: “Fewer remakes would be nice. Heck, an original idea for a movie would be really nice.”

Peet: “Lots of money to make one of my own. And if it isn’t too much to ask: bring Stanley Kubrick back from the dead, or successfully translate Neil Gaiman’s graphic novel epic The Sandman to the small or silver screen (not likely).”

Thom McGregor: “A great Christmas present from Hollywood to me would be to stop making trailers that reveal everything about the movie, stop reporting on the weekly box-office take as if it matters to anyone outside of Beverly Hills, Burbank and Encino, and to give Ewan McGregor and Kate Winslet really, really great roles, but not in Hollywood movies.”

The Mysterious Adrian Betamax: “There is already so much good stuff out there (more than anyone can watch), and it's just that it's unrecognized or unexplored (see response to #24!). So I'd say not a present for me, but that more people would discover these wonderful directors and actors and movies as a present to themselves! (And places like Netflix can help you do that even if you live in the boonies!) And not just those contemporary directors I was mentioning, but all the great classic/silent/classic foreign movies too!”

Psaga: “Man, I just want to hang out and finish this joint and watch blaaagh, Peet, and Thom open their presents. Well, I suppose I could get off my slacker behind and subscribe to Netflix. Do you think that would thaw a chunk of the MAB’s cold, shriveled heart?”

Dave Robidenza: “To understand that movies are at their base level entertainment and that whatever visions or pretensions the director, producer, writer, star, etc. have (to be shocking, to be outrageous, to be lyrical, to be cathartic, to throw in lots of inside jokes) the movie is being made for an audience that just wants to lose themselves in a story for two hours. I have enjoyed movies from nearly every genre but what makes a film truly enjoyable for me is that it feels like the filmmakers know exactly what their film is, know what I want it to be, and don't try to trick me with false sentiment or outlandish effects. It's kind of like a stage magician - now, I'm old enough and knowledgeable enough and cynical enough that I know the cards are marked, the box has a trapdoor, and that the coin was palmed when it looked like he was putting it under the cup. But someone who can overcome that "it's all a trick" cynicism and impress me with their banter, dexterity, and skill is someone whose act is going to leave an impression on me. Similarly, a team of filmmakers who recognize that I know the words are fake, the sets are painted muslin, the monsters are latex and the tears are glycerin but who can still put on a show that leaves me feel like I got my money's worth are always going to impress me more than someone who thinks a lot of fast cuts, digital stunts, and screamed dialogue can cover the fact that there's no real substance to their movie. Also, I want more Toblerone at the snack counter.”

Mr. Middlebrow: “Would mild electrocution to or near the genitals of the ass clowns who ruin a movie with their incessant jabbering and cell phone ringing be too much to ask? I went to, like, three movies last year and every one was, to some degree, marred by a basic lack of consideration. Things that used to be the irksome exception seem to have become the rule. I know it’s not really ‘The Movies’ to give, but if they could get the man-cub to sleep through the night and be able to be left with a competent sitter, that would be good, too. Yeah, that and the ‘nad-shockers and we can pretty much call it a day. God bless us, every one!”

Dennis: “I would love to see directors and editors rein in the incredible versatility and endless shuffling possibilities that editing digitally affords them. Back in the days of the Moviola, when editors actually had to touch film, to physically splice sequences together and make cuts with actual blades, assembling and disassembling a sequence was not only cost-prohibitive, it was time-prohibitive, and it was physically degenerative to the film stock on which the editor was working. This, I think, caused directors and editors to be judicious before the fact and actually plan how best to tell their story, through storyboarding or other means of preparation, rather than just leaving it all up to excessive digital improvisation and using 200 cuts when 20 will do, just because the Avid allows them to do so. My wish for 2006 is that The Movies would somehow rediscover the glories of longer takes, of the use of the camera to do something other than whipsaw back and forth and up and down while genuflecting at the altar of simulated documentary verisimilitude, and for modern film editors to go back and take a look at the work of Robert Wise, Albert Akst, Adrienne Fazan, Agnes Guillemot, Dede Allen, Verna Fields, Anne V. Coates, George Tomasini and so many others from the classical period of American and European cinema (many of whom, as you may have noticed from the above, utterly random list, were women). There's a better way to tell a story, one that doesn't shatter a viewer's perceptions into a thousand incoherent shards with every passing minute, and my hope is that more people who work as film editors in modern cinema, and those who aspire to do so, will look to these masters for inspiration and education in the coming year.”

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That’s it, everyone! Hope you enjoyed the Christmas Quiz as much as I did! And now, everybody go out for a drink of water, sharpen your pencils and return to your seats. The Spring Break Quiz is next…

BEHIND THE MASK: MORE ON V FOR VENDETTA

V for Vendetta-- I know, I know, that’s so two weeks ago. But the movie, less than flawless though it may be, has rib-sticking power, and I like the fact that it’s forcing itself to churn and burn around in my head to the degree it has so far. And I really liked the degree of debate that it inspired in my comments column—meager by the standard of some blogs, perhaps, but pretty juicy for the old SLIFR. A couple of points of view came to light in the last week or so, after my original piece had been bumped far enough down the page as to be relatively missable. I liked what I read in these pieces—two from posts on other blogs, the other from a private e-mail from a friend whose permission I have secured so I might reprint his comments here—enough to want to highlight them in their own post and ensure that they didn't get buried at the bottom of a two-week-old item.

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First up, David Lowery, proprietor of Drifting had this to say when he checked after reading my post:

”Wonderful review, Dennis, and one which I would have agreed with completely up until I saw the film again the other day. I think it's a fairly successful adaptation of a difficult work, and I admire it greatly for what it does right - but the filmmakers make one or two very crucial errors that essentially dumb everything down, that make the politics subversive on a very surface level (which, granted, is still more than one might expect from an action movie). I'll have a review of my own at my blog shortly in which I go into these issues more throroughly. For the meantime, I'll just say that I'm glad people are seeing it and that it's inspiring so much writing and eloquent, multi-sided discussion - that alone validates the film.”

I was definitely intrigued. I like the process of debating ideas about movies, especially one like this, and I like to think I can keep an open mind about thoughts that don’t fall in line with my own. And that last sentiment was certainly one I could get behind. So I kept my eyes open for David’s own post and, sure enough, a few days later David was ready to go. Here’s a taste:

”It's not the ideology that's problematic, necessarily, but that the Wachowskis and director James McTiegue don't have the courage of their convictions. The film, so revolutionary up to a point, is ultimately unable to commit to the concept of noble anarchy espoused by Alan Moore in the original graphic novel. The film wants to support this, and it makes steps in that direction; but at the crucial point, it sidesteps the issue and reduces a legitimately challenging thesis to something of more Orwellian proportions. Granted, Moore's novel was a polemic against Thatcherian fascism that owed much to 1984, and in preserving a great deal of his solution to Big Brother, the film is quite radical. At the last minute, though, the filmmakers take what it is a very gray area and make it distinctly black and white; after aspiring for intelligent provocation, the Wachowskis settle at the end for inspiration.”

What’s fascinating about Lowery’s approach is that for all of his exposition of what he sees as the film’s flaws, he still makes a reader want to see the film for their own experience with it. In fact, by the time he concludes his own comments, he’s ready to see the film again and enjoy it and admire it despite his own criticism. Check out David Lowery on V for Vendetta and enjoy a very good writer grappling with a very provocative film.

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The second piece, entitled “The Smallest of Killings: The Public Sacrifice of Alan Moore and V for Vendetta,” fooled me. Posted on Chris Stangl’s blog The Exploding Kinetoscope, I admit I was expecting another anti-Wachowski tirade from yet another angry fan of the graphic novel. Instead, the article serves up the perspective of a very levelheaded appreciator of the graphic novel who attempts to see what film adaptation does to the original work, how it filters and/or alters the original ideas, and what the film ends up doing apart from the original work. Here are a couple of choice excerpts, the first considering how the film compares to Moore’s storytelling strategy:

”There’s no way for a narrative film to get away with the kind of radical formal experimentation of Moore’s novel. This is a book in which a chapter is structured as sheet music, for random example. But retained are Moore’s trademark impossibly complex networks of visual motifs, echos and mirrors; in Vendetta, the flashiest is the letter V itself, showing up as graffiti, as crossed knives, as a massive row of dominos, as a smear of blood, as a Roman numeral on a prison cell, and in a crucial moment, in the linked arms of two young lovers. The film cannot best the novel’s exhaustive inventiveness, but when the parallel rebirth of Evey in a nighttime rain, and V’s origin story by fire are startlingly intercut, it demonstrates a respectful attempt to retain a sense of Moore’s craft.”

And then, on the film’s point of view:

”It seems to me that V for Vendetta is primarily about how fascism works, how it happens, and a warning that it is the complicity of a citizenry that will allow it to happen again. There are other important questions posed, about the tensions between individuality and nationalism, about media manipulation, about the fate of ill-mounted revolutions. But that’s the core idea. While the celebratory blowing-up of Parliament at the film’s finale, it must be admitted, is unequivocally “positive,” there is never the assumption that V’s means have justified his ends. He spends equal time carefully preserving works of banned art, but destroys beautiful historic architecture; he teaches Evey the power of personal spiritual freedom by torturing her; he cultivates extinct roses only to use them as calling cards for murder: V can only understand art and people as the ideas they symbolize. He can only love or do violence to them based on that relationship. It’s a shortcoming for a human being as much as it is a strength for an activist. And so Vendetta asks: IS this guy right?”

There’s much more in Stangl’s very well written and reasoned piece, and it’s worth checking out at his appropriately titled blog The Exploding Kinetoscope.

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The other notes I found well worth passing on came in a private e-mail to me last week. They specifically referred to some of the comments made in the wake of my own thoughts on the film. But the main reason I wanted to publish them is because they convincingly offered a response to one of my major complaints about the film. Here’s what I said:

”V For Vendetta is by no means perfect. When Evey's friend, a host of a national TV talk show, played by Stephen Fry, stages a brutal satire of dictatorial figurehead John Hurt (seen throughout the film mostly on video monitors invoking the spirit, if not the letter, of 1984's Big Brother), it seems a crucial misstep that he so arrogantly misjudges the dictatorship's willingness to come directly to his home and shut him down permanently. The incident is used to remind Evey of the abduction and execution of her own parents and lay the groundwork for her own imprisonment, but it's a narratively sloppy way to achieve those ends. Fry's character, who functions largely as a safe-and-sane harbor for the fugitive Evey, for all intents and purposes an above-ground mirror version of V, could have easily served as more than just a ill-thought-out plot device. (I'll be interested to see if the comic book makes the same mistake.)”

I haven’t made it far enough along into the book to know whether or not this development is taken whole hog from Moore, but even if it is I doubt I’ll still be thinking of it as a “mistake,” thanks to these thoughtful comments and their ability to open my eyes a little bit:

”One thing I wanted to say about Stephen Fry's character... The way I interpreted his staging of the satire of John Hurt's character is that Fry's character does what he does because he's simply tired of wearing the mask of the jolly funny man for the state-run network. He knows that he will be put out of his misery once they find his copy of the Koran, and he doesn't care because he's weary of lying about who he really is and lying to the viewing public by distracting them from the horror that exists all about them. His celebrity has given him comfort and the ability to collect things, but he has to put on a front because it is expected of him, and all those pretty things have to be kept locked behind closed doors. And given that the Wachowskis are such private guys, and that one of the brothers maintains an alternative lifestyle that most people would find peculiar, I think it's safe to say that Fry's character mirrors one or both of them more than he mirrors V.”

The reader went on to wonder whether it was the filmmakers or their corporate sponsors who were making the kinds of explicit links to the Bush administration that SLIFR regular That Little Round-Headed Boy was hearing some reviewers claim, links that he was not seeing in the film itself:

“That Little Round-Headed Boy put forth his take regarding links to the Bush administration, suggesting that the moviemakers themselves might have started that particular discussion. I think that it was Time-Warner, and not the Wachowskis, who started the whole thing. While they stopped short of featuring the movie on the cover of Time, they did devote two pages to the controversial nature of the film (and a sidebar review that was very favorable), and they didn't shy away from mentioning the current administration and 9/11. Odd, but the other day I was thinking how 9/11 has eclipsed so many things, like the Oklahoma City bombing, where a terrorist with an ax to grind with the government and explosives consisting of or derived from fertilizer leveled the federal building. Anyway, TLRHB said that he'd give credit to Spielberg for, I guess, being able to weave politics into his art, I'd have to disagree. The Wachowskis seem a whole lot braver than Spielberg, who really chickened out in Munich in my estimation, not that I expected him to do otherwise.”

Finally, the reader took issue with the Alan Moore quote cited by Benaiah at the end of his own negative assessment of the film in the comments section of my post.
Benaiah said:

“I keep meeting people who love this movie, and my only solace in my bitterness after seeing what they did to Moore's brilliant work is a quote from the author himself: Interviewer: ‘How do you feel about Hollywood ruining your work?’ Moore: ‘What are you talking about? They didn't ruin my work. It is right up there on the shelf.’”

I thought Moore’s quote was funny and, if somewhat maddeningly egocentric, then also a fairly clearheaded way of separating his own work from the adaptation without trying to make it seem like a successful adaptation was an impossible proposition. (Of course, this comment is taken out of context from the interview in which it originally appeared, and it is well known that Moore’s general attitude approaches just that level of artistic arrogance.) But the reader, in his e-mail, thought a whole lot less of Moore’s response than either I or Benaiah did and wasn't too shy about saying so:

”That quote by Alan Moore is just glib shit. It's what I would expect of a writer who sounds pretty talented as well as quite full of himself. If you're a fan of his and his books, a quote like that makes you say, "Yeah, way to zing 'em!" But what writer under the sun looks forward to having her/his work adapted? And, in the case of this particular work, to have one of the biggest communications conglomerates in world release the dang thing-- man, irony is just cold.”

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V for Vendetta may have fallen off the average moviegoer’s radar in time it takes to say Ice Age: The Meltdown, but thoughtful comments like these, and writing like that found on David Lowery and Chris Stangl’s blogs, work to ensure that the tangled, complex responses inspired by the film, and the graphic novel, have a chance to get worked out, or at least massaged and further twisted around to encourage the squeezing out of as much intellectual juice as the film will allow. I still think it’s a terrific movie, and I look forward to wrestling with it again sometime soon.

THE ELEPHANT OF THE PUBLIC SOUL

Fun on Friday, directly from the DVD liner notes on the Taiwanese release of an Irwin Allen classic:

“The Swarm-- Monsters by the millions, and they are all for real! Excel to take the director of the disaster condition the text, once the successfully be responsible for the Neptunian number and skyscraper conflagration of a the action in the drama part, and have to feel the elephant of the public soul with result, have the authentic fact conduct and actions the basis, persons the details that match wits also there is certain science can’t he stunt of the letter, high also increased then that penetrate everywhere.”

All that and Olivia De Havilland too!

It’s a busy Friday, but all looks good for part three of Professor’s Brainerd’s Christmas Quiz Answers tonight, PLUS the unveiling of a brand-new quiz for spring break. Stay tuned, killer bees!

(Thanks to Thom McGregor for passing along the April 2, 2006 page from her “365 Stupidest Things Ever Said” desk calendar, from whence the overwhelming quote seen above was lifted.)

A NEW WORLD MASTERPIECE ON A BUDGET-- HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD

Roger Corman, master of the low-budget, independent exploitation picture, turns 80 years old today, and a bunch of us around the blogosphere have taken up Tim Lucas’s tight-turnaround request for a commemorative Roger Corman Blog-a-Thon in our teeth and will proceed to shake it for all it's worth today.

For many, mere mention of the name Roger Corman is to conjure images of Boris Karloff, Jack Nicholson and Dick Miller in tights, of Vincent Price quothing The Raven forevermore, of Peter Fonda and Bruce Dern and their boss hogs in The Wild Angels, of Robert Vaughn as the Teenage Caveman, of Ray Milland’s X-ray eyes, of man-eating plants and beatniks creating art out of artfully posed corpses.

For me, thinking of Corman is to think of all these things, all these people, all these films. But I usually gravitate toward the Corman of New World Pictures, probably because these were the pictures being made, and splashed all over the movie pages of the Portland Oregonian, when I was a movie-loving teenager in the ‘70s. I don’t think I ever saw one of them in a drive-in or anywhere else during that time, but the advertising was enough to fuel a thousand fantasies about the actors involved, the rough-and-tumble scenarios of the films themselves, and how exciting actually getting to see one would inevitably be. (For an excellent consideration of one great piece of ad art for a Corman classic, be sure to check out That Little Round-Headed Boy’s terrific analysis of the one-sheet for Big Bad Mama, his contribution to today’s blog-a-thon. TLRHB also provides a link to the poster’s artist, John Solie, who you will be delighted to find out created some of the most indelible images of movie advertising to come out of the era of ‘70s exploitation films.)

When I finally started catching up with the New World of Roger Corman in the 1970s during my college days, a period extending roughly from The Student Nurses (Stephanie Rothman, 1970) up through Humanoids from the Deep (Barbara Peeters, 1980), I can say I was rarely disappointed. However, Humanoids seems a good dividing line for Corman between the relatively innocent cynicism of the ‘70s films and a more self-conscious nihilism that seemed to take over New World films in the following decade, and the transition seems to have happened midway through the film itself. On the surface, Humanoids was a grotty sci-fi shocker in a very familiar mode, and the concept behind it is typically tasteless-- aquatic mutants go on a rampage of rape aimed at crossbreeding wit humans to create a new master race of dominant amphibious species. But Humanoids was a B-movie shot in the shadow of Alien, itself a B-movie with A-list trimmings, and the realization of Corman B-movie roots being subsumed by mainstream Hollywood seems to send strange shock waves through the filmmakers and their film. Humanoids ends up seeming like an angry attempt to reclaim the grotesqueries which used to be the sole province of the drive-in B-movie by mindlessly trumping Alien’s signature shock set pieces. By the time I witnessed the horrifically bloody forced Caesarean birth that caps Humanoids, I felt like I’d truly had enough of the recycling aesthetic of Roger Corman.

But there were so many delights that came in the decade before. The “Nurse” movies-- The Student Nurses, Private Duty Nurses (George Armitage, 1971), Night Call Nurses (Jonathan Kaplan, 1972) and Candy Stripe Nurses (Alan Holleb, 1974)—were unpretentious delights of exploitation mixed with social commentary that would provide a very profitable template for the producer in the coming years, as would the female prison series embodied by titles like The Big Doll House (Jack Hill, 1971), Women In Cages (Gerardo De Leon, 1971), The Hot Box (Joe Viola, 1972) and The Big Bird Cage (Jack Hill, 1972) and Caged Heat (Jonathan Demme, 1974). Corman turned director Steve Carver loose on the gangster picture, and he came up with two solid entries-- Capone (1975) starring Ben Gazarra, and Big Bad Mama (1974) starring, of course, Angie Dickinson. And the candy-colored anarchist satire of Paul Bartel’s Death Race 2000 (1975) and Allan Arkush’s Rock and Roll High School (1979) are close to irresistible.


"If it's a good picture, it's a Miracle!"

None of these, however, is as perfect in its nonexistent aesthetic, as endearing in its macro-budget sensibility, or as biting a love letter to the world of dirt-cheap exploitation pictures, simultaneously embracing and lampooning the conditions under which they are (or were) made, as is Hollywood Boulevard (1976), directed by Joe Dante and Allan Arkush. This casual, ragged, coarsely funny, sharply observant comedy is maybe the best movie the Roger Corman of the ‘70s ever put his name on, and nothing he’s done since has come close to its insouciance and crude charm. It was made on a bet, on a dare, by a couple of novices looking for a way into the directing business and stands as a monument to creativity borne of tension, lack of money and materials, and making films about what you know and love, not because anyone is likely to be impressed, but simply because you know and love the subject.

The mythology runs as follows (at least as it is related on the Hollywood Boulevard DVD commentary hosted by Dante, Arkush and the film's producer Jon Davison)—Davison was having lunch with Corman one day and made the boss a bet that he could turn in a theatrically releasable movie for less money than had ever been spent on a New World production up to that time. This was, of course, a concept the notoriously frugal Corman could really get behind, and his only insistence was that there be, as was his typical demand, regular infusions of nudity and violence into the film, for marketing purposes, of course. Davison recruited Dante and Arkush, who were cutting trailers for New World at the time, to direct, and soon they were cobbling together a script (officially credited to Patrick Hobby, the name of the hapless screenwriter played by Jeffrey Kramer in the film) built entirely around existing action and stunt scenes from previous Roger Corman opuses. The final budget? $50,000. And, to the movie’s everlasting charm and credit, it looks it.

A sharp eye will notice, cut in amongst footage created by Dante and Arkush of the adventures of an exploitation film crew, headed up by Paul Bartel’s clueless and pretentious director, as they blithely go about shooting a picture a week, a ton of shots from Caged Heat, Death Race 2000, The Terror (seen at a drive-in), Big Bad Mama, Night Call Nurses and Crazy Mama. The existing footage blends well enough with the comedy built around it (not that we’re ever intended not to notice anyway), and it serves to pad the action and save Dante and Arkush thousands of dollars, as well as the embarrassment of having to admit that they wouldn’t know how to shoot such sequences themselves anyway.


"Buzz off!"

Dante calls it, on the commentary track, “a big home movie about the making of this movie.” And it’s certainly about the making of just about every other Roger Corman movie of the period too. But for all the comedy that blooms at the expense of Corman, the notoriously penny-pincher, Hollywood Boulevard is a movie of a remarkably sunny disposition, its cynicism balanced by a belief in, if not a love of movie production, then certainly in the movies themselves. The Corman figure here is embodied by Bruno Kirby look-alike Richard Doran as “P.G.,” and it’s a mark of the movie’s genial attitude toward this casting-couch sleazeball that when an actress incorrectly refers to him as “G.P.,” another responds, “It’s P.G., not G.P.” and the first woman’s only response is an affectless “Whatever.” Any movie about exploitation filmmakers that can link one of its central figures to a way-inside, utterly tossed-off joke about a change in the M.P.A.A. ratings system that was already old news by a couple of years in 1976—and have it be about the “PG” rating and not the sacred “R,” for heaven’s sake-- has definitely got its heart in the right place. And as if any further evidence of this proper pulmonary location is needed, Dante and Arkush intercut a typical picnic-in-the-grass romantic montage between the movie’s pie-eyed protagonists with Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen performing their gleefully obscene speed-freak country ditty “Everybody’s Doing It.” It makes absolutely no logical sense, but the movie hits a high off of this scene that infuses everything that comes after and happily takes the rest of the movie's running time to dissipate.


"Truckin'/Truckin'/Fuckin'/Fuckin'/Everybody's Doin' It Now"

But then, the entire cast has their hearts in the right place too; it’s a cast led by exploitation stars, low-budget filmmakers and veteran professionals that are, to a member, more casually appealing and blessed by sharper timing than they would be in almost anything else they did. Candace Rialson, in 1976 very much a sought-after starlet—she graced Holleb’s Night Call Nurses two years before, and would star the following year in a very popular exploitation comedy about a girl and her talking vagina called, strangely enough, Chatterbox-- is immensely appealing as the wide-eyed Midwest hopeful to hits Hollywood with plenty of big dreams and ends up driving a getaway car in a bank robbery (she thinks she’s been recruited as a stunt driver) before ever hooking up with the good folks at Miracle Pictures (“If It’s a Good Picture, It’s a Miracle!”) and becoming a star (sort of). Jeffrey Kramer, who later than same year would be seen patrolling the beaches with Roy Scheider’s Chief Brody in Jaws, plays the aforementioned Patrick Hobby with a loose-limbed, wisened-up Jimmy Olsen that is very appealing. (It’s a central joke embedded in Dante and Arkush’s premise that Rialson, all fresh-scrubbed and beauteous and straight off the farm, looking to hit the fast track to fame and fortune in the movies, should immediately hook up with the screenwriter.)


"Careful with that axe, Mary McQueen!"

Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov, in the early stages of their roles as exploitation cinema’s answer to Nichols and May, are delightful as the semi-self-deluded director and his nasty, ambitious, deliciously bitchy star—it struck me in seeing the movie again tonight just how unabashedly sexy Woronov could be on screen, which is something considering that the first time I saw her, made up and glowering as the horrific Miss Togar in Rock and Roll High School, I thought she was a female impersonator who bore a strictly unfortunate resemblance to Tim Curry. Rita George and Tara Strohmeier are sexy and funny as the two other starlets, Bobbi and Jill, who round out Bartel’s traveling stock company of hotties. (I actually met Strohmeier once when I first arrived in Los Angeles and came begging to the offices of the Los Angeles Reader, where she was the paper’s film editor, for a job as a film reviewer. I don’t know whether she was impressed or not that I remembered her topless seduction scene in a hammock, where she tries to seduce an unseen lover while swatting mosquitoes off her bounteous chest. All I know is that I didn’t get the job.)

And, of course, the incomparable Dick Miller is genius as usual as Walter Paisley (the name of the murderous beatnik artist/poseur he played in Corman’s Bucket of Blood, and the name he would always have whenever he appeared in a film directed by Dante). At one point in Hollywood Boulevard, he takes Kramer and Rialson out on an ill-fated visit to a drive-in theater for the world premiere of the shot-in-the-Philippines actioner they just wrapped the week before, and while they’re waiting for the main attraction, they watch Corman’s The Terror, specifically a scene between Miller and Boris Karloff. There’s a nice sense of poignancy about Miller looking at himself on screen with the horror icon, but it’s one of the many things that are right about Hollywood Boulevard that the emotion is never pushed, just acknowledged. We’re to understand that it’s Paisley on screen, not Miller, and that connecting of the dots between Corman’s higher-toned Poe adaptations of the ‘60s and the no-frills B-movie milieu of Hollywood Boulevard is perfectly pitched for a movie so in love with everything, even the cheap sleaze and corner-cutting, about the world of low-budget filmmaking.

In 1982, a friend and I made our first visit to Los Angeles. I had recently discovered Hollywood Boulevard on cable and in the months prior to our visit ended up seeing it several times and loving it. And because of this movie, I screwed up the courage to contact New World Pictures in order to set up a screening of some of the Super-8 films my friend and I had made in the hopes of getting an in at Corman’s Venice studio. We ended up getting an audience with one of Corman’s producers, a very friendly woman by the name of Mary Ann Fisher, who gave us a tour of the facilities—New World was, at that time, partially located in a converted lumber yard, and several of the sets for Jimmy Murakami’s Battle Beyond the Stars and some other strange interstellar epic starring Klaus Kinski called Android were still standing. We showed her our films, and mid-screening she even took a call for Mr. Corman himself. And all during our meeting I waxed enthusiastic about Hollywood Boulevard, which had even by then gained a following and a measure of notoriety, at least, I suppose, within insider filmmaking circles. I was glad to be able to talk about any work from the New World stable, but particularly about this movie, which I genuinely did love, and I have a feeling that enthusiasm, coupled with her enjoyment of the films we showed her, was a major reason why she told us to come back, hang around and take a very low-paying entry-level gofer-type job with the studio.


Walter: "Have you been in pictures?"
Robby: "Not recently. I don't do nudity."

I know my friend wasn’t really interested—he was looking to get back home to his fiancé, and the lure of being a $2.00-an-hour gofer for Roger Corman probably didn’t fit into his future plans too neatly—but I’ve never really squared it in my head why I, being the relatively unfettered one at the time, didn’t take her up on her offer. It probably had something to do with the fact that I was still about five years away from being ready to hurl myself into a world as different from the one I grew up in as that of “Hollywood,” and I was scared shitless at the prospect. But it may also have had something to do with knowing the environment that I was enamored of, as represented however accurately or inaccurately by Hollywood Boulevard, was already something that belonged to another era. Filmmakers like Dante, Arkush, Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich, Francis Ford Coppola, even Ron Howard, their associations with Corman were all long past, belonging to a time of Corman-influenced (or hampered, depending on who you talk to) filmmaking that was like lightning in a bottle, not likely to be casually reproduced, and a look at the films Corman produced in the ‘80s and ‘90s seems to bear this observation out. This is just another reason why Hollywood Boulevard has such a special place in my heart—it’s a raucous comedy, a bittersweet satire of the movie business, but it’s also a tribute to that very style of fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants cinematic ingenuity on which Corman built his empire that was made while that style was still flourishing and functioning and still had some juice left in it. It may be ragged and stitched together and weaker at the seams in some places than others, but in the history of films about filmmaking there aren’t too many others, no matter what their budgets and ambitions, that, in my estimation, can stand next to it. I really do think it’s a jewel, a modest masterpiece in this famously frugal producer’s crown of tarnished jewels. He didn’t direct it, but today’s blog-a-thon guest of honor got it made, and for that, coupled with the fact that it’s his 80th birthday, I’m proud to salute Roger Corman and say thank you for all his films, but most especially the tour he provided us in 1976 down a sleazy, sexy, sensationally funny section of Hollywood Boulevard.

(My many thanks to friend and fellow Hollywood Boulevard enthusiast Machine Gun McCain for providing the wonderful screen grabs that make this post so much fun to look at. I owe you at least 10 or 12, MGM!)

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Blogless reader C. Jerry Kutner, a frequent contributor to Bright Lights Film Journal and proprietor of The Richard M. Powers Cyber Art Gallery, submitted this comment regarding Roger Corman that
I'm happy to post for him:

"One of the greatest things an artist can accomplish is the creation of his own universe. John Ford did it. Peter Jackson did it with his Tolkien trilogy. And Roger Corman did it in his Edgar Allan Poe/H.P. Lovecraft series (House of Usher-1960 through Tomb of Ligeia-1964). Happy Birthday, Roger! May you never be forgotten!"

Thanks for your contribution, Mr. Kutner!

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More Roger Corman Blog-a-Thon entries available at the following sites:

The House Next Door (Matt Zoller Seitz)
Flickhead (Ray Young)
More Than Meets The Mogwai (Aaron Graham)
That Little Round-Headed Boy
Greenbriar Picture Shows (John McElwee)
Between Productions (Robert Cashill)
Coffee, Coffee and More Coffee (Peter Nellhaus)
FilmZoneX (Dave Bohnert)
Johnny Larue's Crane Shot (Marty McKee)
Lance Tooks' Journal (Lance Tooks)
Nadaland (Robert J. Lewis)
The House of Irony (Steven Wintle)
The Bleeding Tree (Neil Sarver)
VertiBlog (Marty Langford)
Tales from the Lab (Dr. Gangrene)
KGB Productions, Inc. (Karl Bauer)
Giant Monster Blog (Brian O.)
The Exploding Kinetoscope
(Chris Stangl-- from his essay "The Roger Corman That Conquered the World," a spot-on observation relevant to my own piece: "The real lessons of Roger Corman's career are resourcefulness, savvy and taking joy in the doing of the job.")


Thanks again to Tim Lucas for poking us with a sharp stick and getting these out there!

EDWARD COPELAND's BEST OF THE BEST: Ten Instances When The Academy Got It Right

Although I did cast my vote, I must say I fell asleep at the wheel and missed a big opportunity to promote Edward Copeland’s recent poll on the Worst Best Picture Winners Ever. It was an opportunity for readers to cast their own top ten choices, complete with as much commentary as they cared to include, and Edward’s compiling of the results made me realize it was a project those who enjoy the quizzes from the professors here at SLIFR U would probably have enjoyed as well.

My apologies to Edward, a frequent visitor to this site (as I am to his), for not doing my part to promote his fascinating poll or participating in the comments column with further observations after it was published.

But all is not lost. Those who fancy a run at listing their top ten best choices for Best Picture by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are directed toward Edward’s new contest. This time out, he’ll be ranking, from the 78 Best Picture winners, the best from 1 to 10, number 1 being the best of the Best. Edward will tally the results and post them by April 30 or May 1. And Edward adds this comment:

“Remember: Only complete, ranked lists will be counted. Also, I'd like more of you to include comments this time for when I assemble the announcement post.” (That last part was directed toward the likes of me, I’m afraid…)

So if you’re looking for a place not to vent this time, but to say, “Here, dear Academy, are ten instances when you really got it right,” then head on over to Edward Copeland on Film and pick your top 10 (he’s provided a handy list of all 78 winners right there on his site).

DAVE CHAPPELLE'S BLOCK PARTY plus TIM LUCAS WANTS YOU! and other BLOGOSPHERE NOTES

Hi, everybody! I’ve been dormant in the old blogosphere (as far as new material on this one, anyway) for nearly a week now, but it’s time to get the old furnace fired up again. Lots to write about, most importantly part three of the Professor Brainerd answers, which will lead IMMEDIATELY into a brand-new quiz to hopefully appease the veterans and snare a whole bunch of new students who have never participated in SLIFR U’s testing programs. And there are several items on deck, new and old, that I’d like to get on-line before too much more dust is allowed to gather on them. I’m imagining that this week will be a very productive and entertaining one at Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule.

I didn't get to see Slither over the weekend, and I desperately want to see it before it disappears. But I did make it to the Van Buren Drive-in in Riverside Saturday night with the Southern California Drive-in Movie Society, where I took in a late-night double feature of Spike Lee's terrific, surprisingly muted Inside Man and Dave Chappelle's Block Party, which turned out to be the best movie I've seen so far this year. Speaking as someone not at all in love with hip-hop, the music or the cultural phenomenon, I was completely disarmed by Chappelle's ease and genial mania as host of the movie and of the block party itself, as well as the movie's egalitarian spirit and the multitude of electrifying musical performances that anchor and solidify that spirit. Backed by rock-blues band nonpareil the Roots, the stage pulsates with high-voltage life brought by Mos Def (who proves himself, if you didn't already know from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a snappy comedian here as well), Kanye West, rappers Dead Prez, a reunion of the Fugees, and most startlingly, Erykah Badu and Jill Scott. And Chappelle himself is casually hilarious within director Michel Gondry's equally casual, yet kinetically exciting and vibrant documentary style; Gondry lets the performers shine without extraneous editing trickery or other ostentatious directorial moves, taking it all in with the kind of enthusiasm that translates very well to a viewing audience. Chappelle, recruiting unlikely audience members for his block party from the populace (white as well as black) of his hometown in Ohio, at one point stumbles upon a college marching band, and their genuine joy at being invited to come to New York and participate in the show had me in tears. I had my FM-stereo sound cranked pretty loud at the drive-in Saturday night too; I felt like the movie showed me elements of a musical style that I was in no position or frame of mind to appreciate before. Now I'll be scouring the papers, praying for an Erykah Badu concert, with special guests Dead Prez and the Roots. I can't imagine another movie in 2006 making me feel as good as Dave Chappelle's Block Party did, but if such a beast does come bouncing down the trail, won't I be the lucky one?

Don’t forget, the Angie Dickinson Blog-a-Thon is but a mere two weeks and two days away. And the ideas for new blog-a-thons just keep rolling in. The latest comes from Brian Darr, who will be announcing very soon the date for his proposed Friz Freleng Blog-a-Thon, an idea that has been generating lots of excitement amongst the regular participants in the Blog-a-Thon network. Keep an eye on Brian’s blog Hell on Frisco Bay for more details as they become available.

And Tim Lucas, of Video Watchdog magazine, “the perfectionist’s guide to fantastic video,” is celebrating the 80th birthday of Roger Corman all this week on his own blog, Tim Lucas’ Video WatchBlog. Tim is making an admittedly short-notice call for entries in a Roger Corman Blog-a-Thon to be posted on the actual date of Corman’s 80th birthday, which is this coming Wednesday, April 5.

In Tim’s words, “I realize this is short notice... but I'd like to see a Roger Corman "Blog-A-Thon" this Wednesday. That gives you about as much time as Roger had to make The Little Shop of Horrors. It doesn't have to be ambitious, just post a rough-and-ready blog in the true Corman spirit. It's the least we can all do for a man who has given us 50 years of entertainment; the man who infused exploitation with social commentary; the man who kept Vincent Price and Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre working when no one else would; the man who discovered everybody from Jack Nicholson to James Cameron to Jennifer Love Hewitt; the man who made Dick Miller a star; the man who sent Angie Dickinson the script for Big Bad Mama; the man, when all is said and done, who changed the face of Hollywood… Fellow bloggers, there's the gauntlet. Consider it thrown down. I've got my eye on all of you. Don't make me pluck it out.”

So, in the interest of keeping my my eyesight working properly, such as it is, I’m doing my part to help Tim spread the word on his “rough-and-ready” Blog-a-Thon idea. As always, if you have a blog and would like to particpate, send Tim an e-mail at Tim@videowatchdog.com and let him know what you’re up to. And also, as always, if you have an itch to put down a few words but have no blogspace to call your own, feel free to send your submissions to me at powser2@earthlink.net and I will post it, along with my own modest entry, on Wednesday. The Corman Blog-a-Thon might, in some ways, brush up a little too closely with the Angie Blog-a-Thon for some, but personally I see no conflict of interest—I’ve got a idea that steers way clear of the Angie-Roger connection. (And TLRHB, this might be a good place to go after that drive-in aesthetic idea!)

Roger Corman on Wednesday, and a whole passel of other new goodies coming your way this week on SLIFR-- I went to CostCo this weekend and stocked up on Monster Khaos Energy Drink, so I’m good to go. I hope you are too!