“To me, David Carradine was the apogee of hipness: not my favorite actor, not even in the top 50, but my existential hero, and a man who looked like he got laid a lot — a sort of B-movie Jack Nicholson. His vaguely Asian physiognomy made him suited to kung-fu and Zen masters, and his acting had that same alert detachment. You rarely got the sense that his roles cost him emotionally: Unlike his brother, Keith, who has been known to take risks, David had an inviolable sphere of privacy. But he never condescended to his material, even when it was risible, and his amusement was contagious.” — from a eulogy piece by New York‘s David Edelstein, called “Ode to an Existential Hero.”

At the urging of Santa Barbara Film Festival Roger Durling, I went last night to Neil LaBute‘s reasons to be pretty. A fiercely written and brilliantly acted (especially by costars Marin Ireland and Thomas Sadoski) twentysomething relationship drama, it’s the most emotionally affecting and — curiously out-of-character as this sounds — compassionate LaBute work ever. It’s surely the most satisfying live experience I’ve had in this town since God of Carnage, and the wisest $111 I’ve spent in a long , long time.

But brush away descriptions of reasons to be pretty (the lower case is mandated the play’s marketers) as a blistering examination of why male-sourced affirmations of conventional attractiveness are seen as vital by their female partners. For this is a bracing dive into wrenching emotional waters and a full-on dunk into 21st Century relationships among GenX/GenY clock punchers.

The four-character play is primarily a growing-up saga as experienced by Sadoski’s Greg — a morally aware and likably literate guy working a dead-end factory job and living with Steph (Ireland), his girlfriend of four years. Greg’s coworker and confidante is Kent (Steven Pasquale), a bright but loutish stud-muscle type married to Carly (Piper Perabo), who works as a security guard at the factory.

The story is triggered by a remark Greg has made to Kent (overheard and reported to Steph by Carly) that he considers Steph’s face to be “normal,” which means, of course, well short of hot, pretty, fetching, foxy, etc. He tells Steph in the play’s opening argument — a corker — that he meant this as a compliment, which she rejects out of hand. To her (and to most women out there, I presume) “normal” is a primal and devastating slap to the soul, and she’s so enraged that she leaves him hours later. [More on this in a piece called “Just Hot Enough.”]

The meat of the play is about how this loss shocks Greg and causes him to start listening to himself and his friends more carefully, and where this process finally takes him.

Sadoski, Ireland, Perabo, Pasquale.

The final scene between Greg and Steph is one of the saddest and most moving what-might-have-been exchanges I’ve ever witnessed in any context. Not in a play or a film — in my life, I mean. Sadoski and Ireland are flat-out devastating. This is what world-class relationship dramas do, I told myself as I watched. It’s not that movies don’t deliver dialogue and acting of this calibre — they don’t even seem to try. Most of the time they don’t even step into the batter’s box.

And there are people who’ve actually said they don’t understand what this play is about or why it was produced…God!

I’d like to see reasons to be pretty again soon and take Jett with me, but I’d better move quickly, I gather. Durling and other sources are reporting that ticket sales have been slow all along, and that without a Tony win on Sunday night — it’s been nominated for best play and best lead male performance in a play (i.e., Sadoski) — it may close soon after. Unfortunately a 6.5 pulse-taking piece by N.Y. Times reporter Patrick Healy suggests that it won’t win on either count. Life is unfair and then some.

On the right track but a little too Ad Age-y and statistic-minded. I was hoping for something broader and mroe sweeping about the Big Turnover — some more zeitgeisty. But the singer definitely has those Don McLean tonalities down pat.

If a film has already started when I enter a theatre…hell, if the trailers have begun playing I think of myself as not just a latecomer but an intruder during a church sermon. I believe it’s my primary duty not to disturb people who are already seated and watching. So I stand to the side and wait for my eyes to adjust to the dark, and then I start scanning for empty seats. Once I know where I’m going I crouch down like I’m about to go through combat fire on Normandy Beach and make a beeline for the seat, getting to it and sitting down as soon as possible.

I say this because a couple of groups of latecomers played it a little differently at the Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 screening the other night at the AMC Empire. They didn’t stand off to the side — they walked right in front of those with low-level seats (i.e., myself among them) and just stood in front of the screen, creating a silhouette effect as they muttered to each other for 35 to 45 seconds, looking up and around and deciding their next move, like orangutans or cattle or royalty.

“Well…we here! Yeah! Lessee here…shit, I can’t see too well…okay, I’m seeing better now….so where ya wanna sit?…yeah, yeah, I know we’re blocking views of the screen for some folks but don’t we count too? What you think? You like those two seats…see ’em? Ones behind the pretty girl? The blonde girl…yeah.”

You fucking animals, I said to myself. Not a thought in your heads that there’s anything going on in this theatre of any importance except you and your friends looking for seats, and your bullshit gorilla chatter as you decide what seats and which aisle.

A rope “tied to [his] neck and genitals” suggests that poor David Carradine died from “accidental suffocation,” according to this news story. Yeah, okay, but the term is autoerotic asphyxiation. It refers to “intentionally cutting off oxygen to the brain for purposes of sexual arousal. It is also called asphyxiophilia, autoerotic asphyxia, scarfing or kotzwarraism. Colloquially, a person engaging in the activity is sometimes called a gasper.”

“Predictably ratcheted up a few notches from the original 1974 film and cloaked in contemporary sociological relevance, Tony Scott‘s The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 is an efficiently reworked version of a tense, ticking-clock suspense story. More than anything a fascinating portrait of how much New York has changed in 35 years, the film delivers the goods in excitement and big-star charisma, with the contrasting low-key and cranked-up acting styles of Denzel Washington and John Travolta playing off one another nicely. Comparatively low-tech thriller looks to hijack solid-to-strong returns.” — from Todd McCarthy‘s 6.4 Variety review.

6.4.09, 8:50 pm.

Updated: An interesting revelation came out of yesterday’s Woodstock Bluray/DVD interview session in Manhattan’s W Hotel. It casts doubt on the authenticity of the book by Eliot Tiber that the film is based upon. [Note: disputed/corrected material is discussed beginning with paragraph #9.]

(l. to r.) Mamie Gummer, Jonathan Groff (playing Michael Lang) and Demetri Martin (playing Eliot Tiber) in Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock.

Woodstock festival producer Michael Lang said that outside of a few accurate details provided by “Taking Woodstock” author Eliot Tiber about his allegedly pivotal role in enabling the 1969 Woodstock Music Festival to happen, most of the story he tells in the book is “pretty much nonsense.”

Here‘s an mp3 of a chat with Lang and fellow Woodstock music festival producer Joel Rosenman about this and related matters.

Lang and Woodstock producer-partner Artie Kornfeld both derided Tiber’s personal recollection of his involvement with the Woodstock festival as mostly fantasy.

Lang: “Eliot’s recollections are pretty much nonsense. Past the phone call that he made to me. He called me — that’s true. He called my office, spoke to my assistant Tisha. We went up to see him. [Garbled.] He gave me this guy Morris Abrams, a real estate agent to go around and look for other land and that’s how we found Max [Yasgur]. That was really his only involvement. He didn’t know Max [and] Max didn’t know him. The rest of it is pretty much nonsense.”

Lang has written his own book about the historic festival called The Road to Woodstock (Ecco), which comes out at the end of the month.

Lang: “Taking Woodstock” “is a book that [Tiber] has written three times. And what resonates, I think, is that sort of sincere stuff about how he raised his parents, what that relationship with them was like, and what he was feeling because of being closeted…living that other life. And what happened when we descended on that town and on his motel. That part of it is accurate. The rest of it is what he would have liked it to be….given his druthers.

Groff, Martin

Rosenman: “We’re not so much about accuracy [for] that book and that movie when it comes to Eliot as we are having Woodstock appear in the media, as the way Michael makes it appear as it was [in his book].”

Update re disputed quotes and information (filed at 6:51 pm eastern): I also wrote this morning that “doubt has been cast on the alleged intent of Ang Lee‘s Taking Woodstock (Focus Features, 8.14), particularly statements by Lee that he deliberately chose not to use footage from Michael Wadleigh‘s Woodstock 1970 documentary for aesthetic/creative reasons.

“Information provided yesterday by Warner Bros. director of feature post production Kurt Galvao suggests that Lee wasn’t being entirely truthful with the press in Cannes when he said he decided against using even a few snips of Woodstock concert footage in order to stick to Taking Woodstock’s particular turf (i.e., the story of Eliot Tiber). Galvao said that Taking Woodstock reps actually tried to get hold of Woodstock footage and were turned down.”

I asked Galvao about this matter twice yesterday and he didn’t equivocate or modify his words in the slightest. The meaning of what he told me twice was quite clear — i.e., that there was interest on the part of the Taking Woodstock team in possibly using documentary footage of the original Woodstock festival in their own film. I didn’t assume or imply that Lee or producer-screenwriter James Schamus had personally requested this footage, but was careful to say that “reps” of that film had contacted Galvao, and not those two specifically.

Galvao has nonetheless written me this afternoon via the Warner Bros. legal department to claim that I misquoted him. Here’s how he puts it:

“My comments of June 4th were misreported by you, and I would like record set straight for your readers because the misrepresentation (and misquoting) is hurtful to my reputation as well as that of director/producer Ang Lee. Therefore I am requesting that you print this letter in full.

“At no time did Ang Lee and/or screenwriter/producer James Schamus and/or Focus Features request that concert footage from the documentary Woodstock be made available for their narrative production Taking Woodstock, and for you to infer that they made this request more than once is simply inaccurate.

“The conversations that did take place between the Taking Woodstock team and Warner Bros. were preliminary ones about using B-roll (background; second unit) and newsreel footage that is owned by the Woodstock filmmakers and Warners. This footage would have been of concertgoers en route to the event, and local color – that sort of thing.

“Not long after these preliminary conversations, the Taking Woodstock filmmakers realized they’d rather stage such scenes themselves (especially since they had a great cinematographer, Eric Gautier, who shot The Motorcycle Diaries and Into the Wild), and did just that.

“Perhaps this confusion arose because during the course of my interview with you, I did mention another party (unrelated to Focus Features or Ang Lee or their film), that did request footage from the DVD (and that request was declined).

“Again, I want to reiterate that request had absolutely nothing to do with Taking Woodstock. In no way, shape or form did Ang Lee and his colleagues misrepresent themselves or their artistic intentions, nor did they harass anyone at Warner Bros., as you unaccountably imply, least of all me.

“Thank you,

“Kurt Galvao

Director of Feature Post Production

Warner Bros.”

Tony Scott‘s The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (Columbia, 6.12) , which I saw last night, is an unquestionably better film — more rousing and flavorful, zippier and craftier — than the 1974 Joseph Sargent original. I haven’t time to do a review and that would be stretching my agreement anyway, but it’s a very satisfying summer-crime fuckall flick. A retread, yes, but with an attitude all its own…pow!

Scott’s Pelham is first-rate crackerjack escapism because (a) it knows itself and is true to that, (b) it’s content to operate in its own realm (i.e., isn’t trying to top the chase sequences, effects and explosions in the last big urban actioner…it’s not playing that game) and (c) it’s just a solid all-around popcorn movie,full of focus and discipline. Scott exhibits the same precision and intelligent pizazz he used for Man on Fire and Crimson Tide. Is Pelham some kind of drop-to-your-knees golden fleece movie? No — just another urban slam-banger but smart, clever and muscle-car sweet.

The New York subway-kidnap hostage thriller has more intricate plotting than the ’74 film, richer characterizations of the top MTA guy (Denzel Washington in the old Walter Matthau role) and top-dog hostage-taking badass (John Travolta in the Robert Shaw role) and a slew of supporting performances across the board that are much more vivid and interesting than those from the class of ’74, and at the same time less broad and farcical.

Plus the Travolta and Washington characters are more psychologically layered; more work has put into their rationales and backstories. In hindsight Matthau’s performance seems humdrum and almost glib in comparison to Washington’s. And Travolta…my God, he’s a friggin’ madman in this thing! Fierce, irate, flying off the handle, lunging — his finest bad guy since the “”ain’t it cool?” guy in Broken Arrow. And James Gandolfini‘s New York Mayor isn’t the buffoon figure from the ’74 film — he’s playing a rationale, practical, somewhat full-of-shit politician, and he does so with an unforced attitude..

The 2009 Pelham was made by a guy who understands and respects the original, and who sincerely wanted to make a better film — and he did! Integrating it very nicely and believably into a 2009 realm. And very grippingly and thrillingly. There’s no boredom to be had, and it never overcranks it. And if I say any more this’ll be a review, which I promised not to write.

So David Carradine is gone, found hanging in a Bangkok hotel room. And he wasn’t that old either (i.e., plenty of gas in the tank). I’m sorry for the guy and his loved ones. He was working on a film so it’s not like he was destitute, but then he apparently had flirted with the idea of offing himself from time to time.

His last public appearance, to my knowledge, was at Santa Monica’s Aero theatre during a panel discussion following a screening of Hal Ashby‘s Bound for Glory, in which Carradine played Woody Guthrie.

I don’t have a favorite Carradine performance per se, but I’ve always had a soft spot for his work in Larry Cohen‘s Q — The Winged Serpent. His Kill Bill performance never did it for me.. But I liked him in Martin Scorsese‘s Boxcar Bertha. I don’t mean to sound facile. The man is dead and I’m sorry. Better to hang out than to fade away.

Film in Focus coverage of Tuesday night’s Manhattan premiere of Sam Mendes‘ Away We Go, which I couldn’t attend due to seeing The Hangover and then going to the Nurse Jackie premiere.

The forthcoming 45th anniversary Dr. Strangelove Bluray (Sony Home Video, 6.16) is more than a visual disappointment — it’s a flat-out burn. I paid $35 bills for it yesterday afternoon and I’m seething. It’s hands down the worst grainstorm experience since Criterion’s The Third Man because Sony’s preservation and restoration guy Grover Crisp went the monk-purist route in the remastering and retained every last shard of grain in the original film elements. No John Lowry-styled finessing whatsoever.

Capture from the new Dr. Strangelove Bluray, out on 6.16.

Captured from the 2001 “special edition” DVD.

I understand and respect the fact that Dr. Strangelove (’64) was always intended to look somewhat grainy. I realize that the inside-the-B-52 scenes used source lighting and that the combat footage outside Burpleson Air Force base was supposed to resemble newsreel footage, and these conditions were meant to result in stark and unprettified images. Which is fine. But I’ve been watching this film for decades and the Bluray version is easily the grainiest rendering yet. The grain isn’t just noticable — it’s looks much more explicit.

I’m speaking of an aesthetic concern common to all Bluray discs of older black-and-white films, which is that Bluray masterings and Bluray viewings on any decent-sized plasma or LCD screen (I have a 42-incher) tend to make the untreated natural grain elements in an older monochrome film seem much more vivid and distinct. The result is that this new Bluray version could almost be called a kind of remake. It’s Strangelove reshot in a low-lying Egyptian swamp with Peter Sellers, Sterling Hayden, George C. Scott, Slim Pickens and Keenan Wynn covered in swarms of micro-sized mosquitoes.

For comparison’s sake I popped in my favorite Dr. Strangelove DVD, which is the 2001 “special edition” with the full 1.33 to 1 aspect ratio intact. My Sony Bluray player and 42-inch plasma screen makes this version look a bit grainier than it did on my old 36-inch Sony analog flatscreen, but at least the grain isn’t amplified and underlined like it is on the Bluray, and the alternating 1.33 to a and 1.66 to 1 aspect ratio means you’ve got a taller and fuller (i.e., more aesthetically correct) image to boot.

Repeating the rant and caveat emptor — the visual textures contained in the new Strangelove Bluray make it a total visual rip. Do not buy this thing. If you have an old set with a seven-year-old DVD player or a newish plasma or LCD with a Bluray player, buy the 2001 “special edition” Strangelove and stay with it. It obviously doesn’t have the image density that the Bluray version has but you’ll be seeing more of what Stanley Kubrick originally shot and it looks reasonably acceptable in terms of sharpness and monochrome tonal correctness, etc.. And it looks somewhat less grainy and is therefore less problematic. Not a perfect rendering but better than the Bluray.

I obviously haven’t addressed the Bluray extras — the documentaries, the intro section and chaptering graphics, the packaging, etc. All of these elements are fine, entertaining, attractive, stimulating, first-rate.