Day: April 27, 2014

“Too Effin’ High”

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A Bluray of Robert Zemeckis‘ Used Cars (’80) has been out since April 8th. Easily one of the funniest and most pungent social farces ever cranked out by semi-mainstream Hollywood. Written and created in the tradition of the great Preston Sturges. World-class performances by Kurt Russell, Jack Warden, Frank McRae and Gerritt Graham. “Used Cars is a lot of things — sloppy, juvenile, cynical — but Zemeckis and Bob Gale absolutely refuse to soften or second guess the insidiously wicked spirit of the idea originated by John Milius. While the movie is hilarious, its running theme of the American dream as a con job is what endears it on repeated viewings.” — posted in January 2008 by This Distracted Globe.

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Soderbergh’s Cinemax Knick

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The Knick is a 10-episode period drama (set in the early 1900s) from director Steven Soderbergh.and starring Clive Owen as Dr. John W. Thackery: “We live in a time of endless possibility…more has been learned about the treatment of the human body in the last five years than was learned in the previous 500…that is where we’ll start unlocking the mystery.” Costarring Andre Holland, Eve Hewson, Cara Seymour and Juliet Rylance.

Cinema Piccolo

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The Old Place, which I’ve now visited three times counting last night, is located in the little hamlet of Cornell, tucked away in the hills above Malibu. Sadly, the wrong kind of people (low-rent zombie developers without a smidgen of taste or class…people who just don’t “get it”) have built homes there. This used to be a ’60s and 70s time-capsule community (you can faintly sense the hovering presence of the ghosts of Sam Peckinpah, Steve McQueen and Jason Robards) but the old funky flavor is fading fast.

I don’t know why but the little yellow Cinema Piccolo van (i.e., “the world’s smallest cinema“), which was seen around Los Angeles in February and March, was looking lonely and abandoned last night in front of The Old Place.

Today was/is one of the most sunny and beautiful sky-blue Los Angeles days in a long time.

Cut A Break

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My initial reaction to The Other Woman was colored by low expectations based on the downmarket trailer. I’m presuming that the HE community steered clear of this Nick Cassevetes-Julie Yorn-Melissa Stack film, but did anyone find it at least a little better than expected? Like the Boston Herald‘s James Verniere and the San Francisco Chronicle‘s Mick LaSalle did? A $24,700,000 gross expected by tonight. “Insiders at the studio tell me that it played well to an audience over 25, but [this] also shows signs of potential growth with 18-34 audiences, and with males,” Deadline‘s Mike Fleming wrote today. “There really hasn’t been a female-driven edgy comedy since last summer’s The Heat and maybe We’re The Millers, and clearly there is an audience here that will show up.”

The Oppression of Cornball

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John Ford‘s sentimentality has always been his aesthetic Achilles Heel. I’ve mentioned the permutations before but here goes again. The “gallery of supporting players bristling with tedious eccentricity” as critic David Thomson put it in his Biographical Dictionary of Film. The old-school chauvinism and racism, the thinly sketched women, the Irish affection for loutish boozy behavior. I’m especially irked by Ford’s fondness for sappy-sounding ballads sung by male choral groups like Stan Jones and the Sons of the Pioneers. Ever time I watch (or try to watch) Ford’s The Searchers Jones’ music devalues it just a little bit more. I remember watching a laser disc of The Searchers with Guillermo del Toro in ’96 or thereabouts and flinching when Jones’ music began playing during the opening credits. Imagine if Ford had decided to avoid Jones’ balladeering and just let Max Steiner‘s score stand alone. This 1956 classic would seem a lot less problematic by 2014 standards.

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