Netflix Update No. 21: “Millions”
October 19, 2009
ALEX ETEL
We watched “Millions,” a British fantasy from 2004 in which a seven-year-old boy finds a small fortune in English pounds and learns a few things about the good and bad potential in money.
Frank Cottrell Boyce adapted his novel for this screenplay and the film is directed, with a lot of whimsy, by Danny Boyle.
The story revolves around a fictional event, the deadline for Britons to either deposit their pounds in the bank or convert them into euros. A very large amount of the obsolete currency is being shipped by rail to a destination where it will be burned. A ring of thieves conspire to steal the money and toss it off the train bag by bag to be recovered by colleagues who are waiting trackside. One of the bags goes bounding into a cardboard “rocket ship” and brings it crashing down onto young Damian Cunningham (Alex Etel), who constructed it out of cartons and was playing inside.
LEWIS McGIBBON
Damian confides in his older brother Anthony (Lewis McGibbon), and the brothers immediately disagree on how to dispose of the cash before it becomes worthless. Damian, who is obsessed with saints to the point that he regularly meets and converses with them, wants to use the money to help the poor — though he isn’t quite sure what condition qualifies as “poor.” Anthony wants to spend some of the money on creature comforts and invest the rest — in real estate, for instance.
The windfall, and the manner in which the boys handle it, eventually brings their father, Ronnie (James Nesbitt), to grief — as though he didn’t have enough trouble, what with being recently widowed and trying to shepherd his sons on his own. The domestic and financial matters are further complicated when Ronnie meets and connects with, as it were, an attractive woman named Dorothy (Daisy Donovan), who met the boys — and inadvertently discovered their wealth — while conducting a charity drive at their school. In the end, thanks to filthy lucre, all the principals learn something about themselves and about each other.
KATHRYN POGSON
This is a difficult film to categorize, because it mixes some childhood hijinx with some serious themes. I have found some heated debate on movie web sites about whether it is even suitable for children, although the two boys dominate most of the scenes. Among the most ingenious and entertaining passages are Damian’s encounters with saints, including Joseph, Peter, Francis of Assisi, Nicholas, and Clare. These are not necessarily reverent portrayals, although the insight Damian gains from these conversations is usually therapeutic. And, after all, these are not presented as the actual saints but the saints as they exist in the imagination of a seven-year-old boy. Kathryn Pogson as St. Clare (“patron saint of television … it keeps me busy”) and Enzo Cilenti as St. Peter (“I’m on the door”) are especially hilarious.
Approach this with an open mind, and it’s a worthwhile experience.
LEWIS McGIBBON and ALEX ETEL
Netflix Update No. 20: “One, Two, Three.”
October 4, 2009
JAMES CAGNEY
Once in a while I put a movie on my Netflix list, and by the time its number comes up I can’t remember why I picked it. That’s what happened with the 1961 movie we watched tonight — a Cold War farce co-written and directed by Billy Wilder. After we watched it, I still couldn’t remember why I picked it.
This film in black and white stars James Cagney, Arlene Francis, Pamela Tiffin, and Horst Bucholz. Although it is full of references to America-Soviet issues of the late ’50s and early ’60s, it was based on a play by the Hungarian dramatist Ferenc Molnar, who died in 1952.
The film concerns C.J. McNamara (Cagney), who heads Coca-Cola’s operations in West Berlin, but yearns to be named head of the company’s European operations, based in London. McNamara’s wife, Phyllis (Francis), is weary of life in foreign cities — and C.J.’s philandering — and pressures him to take her and the two McNamara kinder back to the United States.
ARLENE FRANCIS
C.J.’s life becomes further complicated when his boss in Atlanta dispatches his daughter to Europe to get her away from her latest boyfriend and asks C.J. to take charge of the girl while she’s in Berlin. Scarlett (Tiffin) turns out to be more than the McNamaras can handle, and she meets, mates, and marries Otto Piffl (Bucholz), a fiery East German Communist. C.J. has to keep Otto and the pregnant Scarlett at bay while he figures out how to make the match palatable to the girl’s parents — who set off on a trip to Germany.
However well this film may have worked in 1961, it hits the wall with a thud in 2009. It is riddled with what are now stale allusions to the Soviet Union under Nikita Krushchev as well as a steady diet of really bad jokes. In addition, the movie is a school of overacting. Wilder directs it as though directing the Marx Brothers, but Chico and Harpo are nowhere to be seen, and the actors who are in sight don’t have the chops to make this kind of comedy work. Everyone in the film, except Arlene Francis, seems to have been told that farce is measured by how loudly and how rapidly an actor can speak and how fast they can rush from room to room. Cagney — in his last starring role — opens the film speaking as though he is auctioning tobacco, and he doesn’t let up for an hour and fifty minutes.
PAMELA TIFFIN and HORST BUCHOLZ
Tiffin and Bucholz and a bunch of supporting players do their best to keep up with Cagney’s pitch and pace, and the result is an exhausting experience with too few rewards to make it worthwhile. In one scene there is an attempt at humor in which Cagney threatens Bucholz with half a grapefruit — a pathetically obvious reference to the scene 30 years before in which he pushed a grapefruit into Mae Clarke’s face in “Public Enemy.” It was almost as though Wilder were saying, “You should be laughing at this, folks; after all, this is James Cagney.”
The high points in this train wreck are a scene in which the uncredited Red Buttons, playing an Army MP, does a fleeting imitation of Cagney for C.J.’s benefit, and the closing title in which C.J. is chagrined to get a bottle of Pepsi out of a Coke vending machine. There is also some fascination in watching Cagney and Bucholz work together inasmuch as it is well documented that they hated each other and made no secret of it on the set.
JAMES CAGNEY in the closing frame of "One, Two, Three."
Netflix Update No.19:”Sweet Bird of Youth”
September 25, 2009
PAUL NEWMAN
Prompted by Shirley Knight’s impending appearance at the George Street Playhouse, we watched “Sweet Bird of Youth,” the 1962 film adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ 1959 Broadway play. I have never seen the play on stage, and I have read that the tale lost some of its edge with the modifications that had to be made to satisfy the sensibilities of the early ’60s. By today’s standards it’s tame, but it dealt with some tough subject matter for the Eisenhower era.
This film has one of those casts that dazzles the mind: Paul Newman, Geraldine Page, Rip Torn, and the wonderful Canadian actress and even more wonderful human being, Madeleine Sherwood, recreated their Broadway roles, and they were joined by the redoubtable Ed Begley Sr. Geraldine Page and Rip Torn both were nominated for Tony awards for their work in the play. Begley won an Oscar and Page and Knight were nominated for the film.
GERALDINE PAGE
Newman plays Chance Wayne, who returns from Hollywood to his hometown in Florida, almost literally dragging along with him a legendary movie star, Alexandra Del Lago (Page), who has sunk into a drug-and-alcohol-induced stupor after what she perceives as the failure of her latest film. On the surface, Chance Wayne is her driver and spear carrier. In reality, he is exploiting her — in every possible way — in the hope that she will give him what has been an elusive “big break” in the movies.
Alexandra travels to Florida with Chance because she has gone underground to avoid the fallout from what she has adjudged a box-office flop. Chance has another goal — to reunite with Heavenly Finley, the love of his life whose father, Tom “Boss” Finley (Begley), is a moralizing, corrupt, and ruthless political kingpin who doesn’t want Chance near his daughter.
ED BEGLEY Sr.
Finley’s son, Tom Jr., who doesn’t have his father’s cunning but outdoes him in brutality, is played by Rip Torn.
This film, which in 1961 was off limits to audiences under 18, may have been sanded down from Williams’ original version, but it far outstrips the embarrassing 1989 television remake with Elizabeth Taylor and Mark Harmon as Alexandra and Chance and Rip Torn as “Boss” Finley. Even though its techniques are dated, the movie can play with your emotions as you try to sort out your feelings about the actress and her gigolo — both of whom are infuriating yet sympathetic — and frazzle your nerves as Chance keeps antagonizing the volatile and dangerous “Boss.” The players in this film aren’t stars first and foremost; they’re actors, doing their work as well as it can be done.
PAUL NEWMAN in a scene from "Sweet Bird of Youth."
Netflix Update No. 18: “Nothing in Common”
September 14, 2009
TOM HANKS
We watched “Nothing in Common,” a 1986 film directed by Garry Marshall, starring Tom Hanks, Jackie Gleason, Eva Marie Saint, Sela Ward, Bess Armstrong, and Hector Elizondo.
Hanks plays David Basner, who is on a rapid rise in the advertising industry; he has money, friends, women. What he doesn’t have is any sense of self, thanks to a dysfunctional upbringing by parents — Eva Marie Saint as Lorraine Basner and Gleason, in his last role, as Max– whose marriage limped along for more than 30 years without a raison d’etre, and now, at a critical moment in David’s career, has collapsed. Both parents bring the issue to David, who has kept his distance since he left home and has never developed a relationship with either of them.
Bess Armstrong plays a high school friend and one-time flame to whom David often turns for understanding or simple emotional release. Sela Ward plays Cheryl Ann Wayne, a hard-nosed but seductive agency executive with whom David becomes entangled, in more ways than one, as he tries to land a major airline account. Elizondo is David’s boss, and Barry Corbin is the head of the airline and Wayne’s father.
JACKIE GLEASON
All of these actors turn in strong performances. Hanks gets a chance to show his full range, from borderline nuts to pensive and insecure. Gleason, conceding a year before his death that he is an old and infirm man, uses just enough of the Charlie Bratton bombast and the Poor Soul pathos to make Max a complicated and interesting character. Gleason avoids what to him was always a temptation to chew the scenery. When he had it under control, Gleason had an intuition for drama, and he puts it to work here, particularly in brief passages in which he doesn’t speak. Eva Marie Saint, who I think is among the most unappreciated of actresses, is very moving as the broken-hearted wife and mother.
EVA MARIE SAINT
This movie takes on some difficult, almost embarrassing themes — the reasons for the failure of this marriage and the impact of a bad marriage on the child it generated — and it deals with them realistically, not looking for easy answers.
Marshall managed to achieve a delicate balance between comedy and drama that in some ways is almost tragedy. This film hasn’t got a lot of attention, but it should.
Netflix Update No. 17: “October Sky”
September 5, 2009
JAKE GYLLENHAAL
We watched “October Sky,” a 1999 film based on the real life of Homer Hickam Jr., who became a NASA engineer after initially experimenting with rocket flight against his father’s wishes.
Homer is played by Jake Gyllanthaal and his father — called John in the movie — is played by Chris Cooper.
John Hickam is a supervisor in a West Virginia coal mine, and he expects Homer to follow him into the trade, as most boys in the town have followed their own dads. The unexpected launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik in October 1957 inspires Homer to work with some of his friends to build and fire a succession of rockets, gradually refining the devices. Homer’s open desire to escape from what seems to him the pointless existence in his hometown — and specifically to enter a national science fair in order to get a college scholarship causes increasing tension between him and his father.
CHRIS COOPER
This movie is a little melodramatic, but it presents a stark picture of the lives of people in a company town that depends for its mean existence on a failing mine.
Cooper gives a credible performance as a man whose own courage and determination with respect to protecting the mine and the livelihoods of his employees does not help him recognize his son’s courage and determination, though directed at a different goal.
Laura Dern plays the idealized role of a high school teacher whose mission is to help the boys and girls in these grim surroundings to pursue their dreams.
At the movies: “Adam”
August 17, 2009
HUGH DANCY
There were eight other people in the audience when we saw “Adam” last night at the art theater in Montgomery. The film had been consigned to the least of the screening rooms — the one with broken seats, and undersized screen, a pile of cardboard boxes at the front of the house, and an odd odor that seemed best ignored. All signs were that there wasn’t much respect for the movie, which was a prize-winner at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
The plot seems familiar. Ravishing young writer Beth Buchwald moves into a New York brownstone where her downstairs neighbor is Adam Raki, a technical wizard who has Asperger’s Syndrome — a form of autism. Incompetent in social situations, Adam — left on his own in the apartment after the recent death of his father — gingerly establishes a friendship with Beth, who becomes cautiously but increasingly interested in him — both in helping him improve his social skills and in sorting out their personal feelings for each other.
ROSE BYRNE
The subplot involves Beth’s doting parents — Rebecca and Marty Buchwald — who are more eager to meet Adam than he is to meet them. Marty is preoccupied the while with a pending indictment against him, the result, he says, of his attempt to help the daughter of a friend and business associate.
This would have been a predictable film if all it involved was a woman who is high-minded despite her beauty and can see the worth between the surface of a tortured psyche. But the script by Max Mayer, who also directs, doesn’t go for the obvious. Nothing is neat or certain about this story — not the nature of the feelings Adam and Rose have for each other, and not the hierarchy among the characters from “normal” to “disturbed.”
PETER GALLAGHER
The delicate balance among these characters is maintained because of the excellent casting and strong performances. Mayer can hardly have found a better actor than Peter Gallagher, for instance, to portray the self-assured, bigger-than-life Marty Buchwald, or a better actress than Amy Irving to play the philosophical, self-possessed Rebecca.
In the leading roles of Adam and Beth, Hugh Dancy and Rose Byrne create a fitful chemistry that alternately warms the heart and rattles the nerves. Both the development and the denouement of their relationship are unsentimental and credible.
FRANKIE FAISON
A charming addition to the cast is Frankie Faison as Harlan, a longtime friend of Adam’s dad and a kind of Jiminy Cricket who instinctively knows how to respond to Adam’s erratic temperament.
This film is a lesson in reserving judgment and weighing another person’s shortcomings only when taking into account one’s own imperfections and errors — not to mention one’s own deliberate transgressions.
“Adam” deserves better than the room at the back. And what is that smell, anyway?
An NPR interview with Max Mayer is at this link:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111732938
ROSE BYRNE and HUGH DANCY
Netflix update No. 15: “Mrs. Palfrey at The Claremont”
August 13, 2009
JOAN PLOWRIGHT
We watched the 2005 film “Mrs. Palfrey at The Claremont,” which director Dan Ireland and screenwriter Ruth Sacks adapted from a novel by the late British writer, Elizabeth Coles Taylor. We are in our Joan Plowright period, and that wonderful actress plays the title role in this film — Mrs. Palfrey, that is, not The Claremont.
The Claremont is a past-its-prime London hotel where the aged, refined widow, Mrs. Palfrey, takes up temporary residence in the hope of establishing a relationship with her only grandson, Desmond. The grandson, who labors in the archives of the British Museum — one can only imagine — does not return her telephone calls, leaving Mrs. Palfrey to fill her days reading Wordsworth and cautiously interacting with the odd collection of residents at the hotel, who gradually begin to suspect that Desmond doesn’t exist.
RUPERT FRIEND
Mrs. Palfrey’s life takes an unexpected turn when she stumbles, literally, into the acquaintance of a nearly destitute writer Ludovic Meyer, played by Rupert Friend. The story of their relationship explores the question of what actually constitutes family.
This is a deceptively intense film that pokes at some potentially painful issues that many of us will confront in reality sooner or later — issues of loneliness, vulnerability, and fulfillment.
Joan Plowright is magnetic and moving as always, and she is supported by several skilled performers, including those who play the quirky guests and staff at The Claremont, and the stunning Zoe Tapper, who appears as the lover Meyer finds only because his path first crossed that of Mrs. Palfrey.
Don’t pass this one up.
RUPERT FRIEND and JOAN PLOWRIGHT
Visit our concession stands
August 12, 2009
The Christian Science Monitor has a story about a phenomenon known as “guerrilla drive-in” — referring to a fad in which movie buffs or people out for a good time are setting up ad-hoc outdoor movie sites.
In one sense, the full-blown outdoor movie — the drive-in — had two practical advantages that the indoor theater couldn’t match. One was the opportunity to make out in relative privacy — or so I’m told; the other was the opportunity to take kids to a movie regardless of how they behaved.
There were some disadvantages, including poor sound systems, mosquitos, susceptibility to bad weather, and rowdy patrons. Apparently these outweighed the advantages, because the number of drive-ins in the United States has dwindled from about 5,000 in the 1950s to 383 ( including the Delsea in Vineland, here in New Jersey) according to the Monitor’s story.
My strongest memory of the experience is of taking the kids to a drive-in one steamy summer night and being stuck with the choice of being eaten by the famous Jersey Mosquitos or rolling up the windows and suffocating — unable to see the screen through the fogged-up windshield.
But I also remember going to outdoor movies in a less formal way when I was a student at Penn State. Every Friday night, a screen was erected on one of the campus lawns, and we could sit on the grass and watch several slightly dated films, plus cartoons. That was almost 40 years ago, and I can’t remember whether we paid an admission. What I do remember was that, because we were seeing them outdoors, we enjoyed the movies almost regardless of their quality. I guess it’s the same effect as eating a dirty-water hot dog on a street corner in Manhattan.
The Monitor’s story is at this link:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0810/p17s02-almo.html
You can make your own drive-in movie marquee at this link:
I learned it in the movies
August 9, 2009
TOM HULCE
The Times of London, on its web site, presents its candidates for the ten most historically inaccurate movies. The bad news is that all but two were made before 1999, which — if one were to take this seriously — would suggest a fearsome and precipitous trend.
The earlier of the two monstrosities that were made before ’99 was “Amadeus,” the 1984 hatchet job on Antonio Salieri in which Tom Hulce played Mozart. The second was “Braveheart,” which I understand is a significantly inaccurate account of the life of a 13th century Scottish hero, Sir William Wallace. I don’t know anything about Wallace, which is to the point: If I had overlooked the fact that Mel Gibson starred in this film and had gone to see it, I might have accepted the account as roughly correct.
ANNE BANCROFT
Why The Times focused its attention mostly on the past decade I am not aware; maybe it reflects the level of confidence the editors have in their audience. Of course, inaccurate historical films have a proud history that extends back to decades before “Amadeus” appeared. Virtually every film based on the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, for example, tries to outdo the original writers — even one of my favorites of that genre, Franco Zefferilli’s “Jesus of Nazareth,” made for television in 1977. Zef famously took pains to place the events of the gospels in their proper historical context, but he couldn’t restrain the tinkering hand. Like all dramatists, he had to portray poor Mary Magdalene, played by Anne Bancroft, as a prostitute — indeed, show her in a scene with one of her clients — even though there is no support for that idea. In Zefferelli’s tale, Barabbas — encouraged by a well-meaning Judas Iscariot — personally invites Jesus to support an armed rebellion against the Roman occupation of Palestine.
VAN HEFLIN
And as long ago as 1942, the year I was born, Van Heflin starred in the mercifully long-forgotten “Tennessee Johnson,” which purported to be a biography of Andrew Johnson, 17th president of these United States and a particular obsession of mine. The film had a pretty good cast, including Ruth Hussey, Lionel Barrymore, and Noah Beery, but the title itself set the tone for the movie as history: Nobody ever called the man “Tennessee Johnson.” The climactic scene in which Johnson goes to the floor of the Senate to defend himself against charges of impeachment was wholly fabricated. In fact, Johnson’s counsel — recalling how he came to be impeached in the first place — would not hear of him appearing at the trial for fear of what he might say. Sort of the Joe Biden of his day, in that respect.
At any rate, decide for yourself on the The Times’ choices, available at this link:
Sui generis
August 5, 2009
GERTRUDE BERG
A few months ago, I wrote in this journal that my wife and I had discovered and watched on line a few episodes of the television series “The Goldbergs.” Those episodes are at http://www.archives.com.
After I wrote that blog, I heard from a publicist who was handling a new documentary film about the owner, writer, and star of “The Goldbergs” — Gertrude Berg — who was one of the most remarkable women of the second half of the 20th century. As a result of that contact, I wrote the following story, part of which has appeared in the Courier-Post of Cherry Hill and has been picked up on other blogs:
When the U.S. Postal Service issues its “Early TV Memories” stamps this summer, don’t look for Gertrude Berg.
The New York City native, who 80 years ago created the domestic situation comedy, and became a media mogul, was not included with the likes of Lucille Ball and Harriet Nelson, who decades later followed her into American homes.
But Berg is being reintroduced to the American public in a documentary film – “Yoo Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg” – written and directed by Aviva Kempner.
The title evokes the phrase associated with Berg during the radio and television runs of the show she created and controlled, most widely known as “The Goldbergs.”
The principal character, Molly Goldberg, and her neighbors in a Bronx apartment building, interacted by leaning out their windows and calling: “Yoo Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg … Yoo Hoo, Mrs. Bloom.”
From her window, Molly – portrayed by Berg – invited listeners and viewers into the Goldberg household to share the lives of her husband, Jake; their children, Sammy and Rosalie; and Molly’s brother, David Romaine.
The show ran on radio from 1929 to 1946 – five days a week for much of that time – and on television from 1949 to 1956. Berg herself wrote every script in longhand.
PHILLIP LOEB
There were also a stage play, a movie, a lucrative vaudeville tour, a comic strip, a jigsaw puzzle, a newspaper column, a line of women’s dresses, and a popular cookbook – although Berg couldn’t cook.
Berg’s rise to prominence, Kempner emphasized, occurred “at the time of the greatest domestic anti-Semitism in America, and during the rise of Adolf Hitler in Europe.’’
Berg presented the family as Jewish – adopting a mild Yiddish accent and a unique use of language that became a hallmark of the character:
As Molly shows off a hat, a neighbor asks: “With what dress are you going to wear it?’’
“With mine periwinkle,’’ Molly answers, striking a pose: “Visualize!”
And Berg didn’t shy away from difficult issues affecting Jews.
The documentary points out that in 1933, the year Hitler became dicator of Germany, she had a rabbi conduct a Seder service on the program. And after Kristallnacht in 1938, she wrote an episode in which a stone smashed an apartment window while the Goldbergs were celebrating Passover; Molly calmed the children and urged Jake to continue leading the Seder.
“And yet,’’ Kempner said, “Molly Goldberg was universal. You didn’t have to be Jewish to love her.’’
This urban mother first appeared on radio a month after the stock market crash, and the Goldbergs became so important to the national psyche during the Great Depression, as people maintaining the family circle in spite of want, that Franklin Roosevelt himself acknowledged it.
THE CAST OF "THE GOLDBERGS"
Kempner – based in Washington, D.C. – made the documentary through her Ciesla Foundation, whose goal is to “produce films about under-known Jewish heroes.” Kempner – whose work includes a 2000 film about baseball legend Hank Greenberg – said that although the Gertrude Berg film is complete, she is still raising money to pay for it.
The new film includes vintage photos and motion pictures and input from members of Berg’s family, actors, her biographer and others, including U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The story they tell has its dark sides.
Berg, born in 1898, did not grow up in the kind of setting she portrayed in her shows.
“She never had a nurturing mother like Molly Goldberg,’’ Kempner said. “She created what she didn’t have.’’
Berg’s own mother sunk into depression after the early death of her son and ended her life in a mental institution. Berg’s father badgered Gertrude into working at resorts he opened in the Catskills and in Florida but never supported her career as an actress and producer.
By contrast, her husband, Lewis Berg, a chemical engineer, typed many scripts from his wife’s handwritten originals.
Especially unsettling in Gertrude Berg’s life was the impact of “Red Channels,” the publication that purported to expose Communists working in radio and film.
One of those identified was Philip Loeb, an actors’ union leader, who played Jake Goldberg on the television series. Berg herself was listed as a “sympathizer.”
CBS and her sponsor pressured Gertrude Berg to fire Loeb. She refused, and her show was cancelled. NBC eventually picked up the show, but Loeb had accepted a cash settlement out of consideration for Berg and the other actors. Blacklisted from radio and film, he committed suicide in 1955.
Berg won an Emmy for her portrayal of Molly Goldberg, and a Tony for her 1959 Broadway performance in “A Majority of One,” and her autobiography was a best seller.
Still, only a small percentage of Americans today know who Gertrude Berg was, Kempner said, “and I want to restore her correct place in our cultural history.’’
The home web site for the film is at http://www.mollygoldbergfilm.org/home.php Information about theaters showing the film is available there.
The Ciesla Foundation web site is at http://www.cieslafoundation.org/
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