Preview of TFT 38 - Miracle at St. Anna

Plummer: ‘My Sex Sex Injury Made Shatner A Star

Gareth here.   When a movie star dies, there’s always a strange mix of responses from people - like your genial co-hosts - who never met the person.  But in some mysterious sense it may be appropriate to say that we knew them - especially if we saw them on an enveloping cinema screen when we were children; when movies seemed like giants, and the realms of possibility that they held out were endless.  We go to movies to be entertained, provoked, inspired, moved, comforted, excited, and that’s just for starters.  We develop something like a relationship with the archetypes on screen.  They teach us something, because they remind us of ourselves.  We may not know what the lesson is that is being taught, but we know it would be worth paying attention to if we could.  In that light, I think it is appropriate today to mark the passing of Paul Newman by listing the names of films in which his presence made me think I wanted to be in the room with him - just to be around someone so interesting, so beguiling, and with such a kind face:

The Hustler

Cool Hand Luke

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

The Sting

Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson

Absence of Malice

The Color of Money

The Hudsucker Proxy

Twilight

Where the Money Is

Cars.

There’s a story I’ll tell on the next episode of TFT about his humanitarian work, but for now, I raise a bottle of salad dressing to the memory of this man whom I never met, but whose face and voice have been an ineradicable part of my cinematic formation.

Ed Harris’ Gun Says

“You Can Teach Old West New Tricks”

Jeremy Says No.

Show Suspended due to Economic Crisis

Hey There Dear Listener:  Who Says You Actually Need to See a Film to Review It?

Films Reviewed This Week: Pineapple Express, Tropic Thunder, Righteous Kill

* The Film Talk - Part 37 -  Pineapple Express / Tropic Thunder/ Righteous Kill (Click to Play, Right-Click to Download)
* Click Here to Subscribe to ‘The Film Talk’ in iTunes
* Click Here for ‘The Film Talk’ Feed

I once had a friend at high school called Paul, but for some reason everybody called him ‘Duck’.  It was one of those nicknames whose genesis was lost in the mists of whatever else it is you spend your teenage years doing.  I remember going to see ‘Dead Poet’s Society’ (an extremely well-crafted but morally hollow film, to my mind) in 1989 at East Belfast’s Strand Cinema, which Van Morrison is photographed beside for the inlay cover art of ‘The Healing Game’ album, and where I saw more of the formative films of my 15th/16th/and 17th years than anywhere else.  Duck came into the theatre just as the audience was almost fully seated, and so we called out to him: ‘DUCK!’  A few dozen people did.

That serves merely as a circuitous way into talking a little about a film I saw last night, called ‘Duck’, and for good reason.  It’s about a man and a duck.  The man is a widower, and earlier lost his son.  The movie’s version of the US is a soulless place in which every tree is being colonised by shopping malls, and where psychiatrists mistake innocence for mental illness.  The man, played by Philip Baker Hall, an actor who can genuinely be called ‘great’, not least because I usually feel exhilirated any time I see him, wanders around accompanied by the eponymous creature, a gorgeous goose, looking for the ocean.  The movie doesn’t really hold together - it’s a fable whose critique of the breakdown of community is not exactly subtle or nuanced; but it’s absolutely worth watching for the central performance.  Hall is so beguiling and sympathetic that he manages to invest the duck itself with a personality.  It is easy to buy into their relationship, and not for a second - until after the film was over - did I think about the central absurdity and slightness of this film.

TFT 37 Preview

Received this mail from listener ‘Lee Smithey’ regarding Drive-Ins:

“There used to be one up near Gallatin, TN, and I have some fond memories of going up there on a summer evening, throwing frisbee with friends as the sun went down, then sitting in lawn chairs under the moon watching two movies for the price of one until the wee hours.

My wife, my daughter, and I drove 45 minutes last weekend to the Delsea Drive-In (we live in Philadelphia now. Delsea is in NJ) see http://www.delseadrive-in.com/ to watch WALL-E and then Hancock.  Its a baby-sitter free date - our two-year old slept on a pad in the back of our VW Golf while we watched the films.
Why aren’t drive-in theatres more popular?  You get:

* a beautiful sky on most nights
* your own private viewing booth (your car)
* your own speaker system
* two movies
* a concession stand that sells everything from popcorn to eggplant
parmesan (I’m serious).
* time to stretch and visit during the intermission
* no problems with the people behind you whispering so loud that it
interrupts your viewing experience

I’d give up the Fordist / slaughterhouse routine (of being directed to big square climate-controlled theatres where you sit should-to-shoulder with people and where your shoes stick to the floor) more often if there were a drive-in closer to us.

Seems like it could be a winner for the owners too. I get that you can’t control the weather (they show the films even if its raining), and then there’s the mosquitos (There was a nice breeze blowing last weekend, so we didn’t need it, but we draped mosquito netting over the windows.) I also get that its seasonal (though I remember watching movies perfectly happy under blankets).  I haven’t done the math on it of course, but it seems like the overhead would be so low that it could still turn a profit as a seasonal business. I bet they also end up selling more concessions than a regular theatre since people are there so much longer and there are so many more enticing options.

Just an idea for your show.”

The Drive In

(Photo above taken during my Belcourt Evening Excursion)

I was going to write a post about Neil La Bute’s ostensibly thoughtful but really just a ‘Pacific Heights’-style thriller, ‘Lakeview Terrace’, and about how it’s well photographed and mounted with imagination, and how Patrick Wilson is turning into my favourite same-generation-as-me actor, and how Samuel L Jackson reminds us of how he really can bring it when he’s working for more than just a pay cheque, and how the exploration of racial tension, the psychological terrain of the police officer, the power dynamics in marriages when one set of in-laws is wealthy, and the simple concept of how an obsession with private property may be at the core of the breakdown of community (good fences in this film not only fail to make good neighbours, but become a tool for concealing the sinister agenda of the bloke next door).  I was going to write about how Neil La Bute’s films create a mood that is rare in contemporary mainstream cinema and that he is at least trying to say something meaningful, even if the content of his purpose has to battle to float above the apparently a priori cynicism that is his modus operandi (two Latin phrases in one sentence might be the kind of thing that would impress a character in one of his movies).  I was going to write about how, for the first hour or so, I felt close to compelled by ‘Lakeview Terrace’, and thought it had the potential to be one of the best films I’ve seen this year; before it turned into less than the sum of its parts.  I was going to write about these things, but then I read this.