Scorsese does Hitchcock

Here’s something you might get a kick out of. Current filmmaker Martin Scorsese making a short “film” tribute of sorts to legendary filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock. In actuality, the piece is an ad for Freixenet sparkling wines. But the ad itself is a nearly ten-minute segment combining documentary style scenes and an actual short film. The plot consists of Scorsese purporting to have found a “lost”, four-page Hitchcock script (with one page missing), entitled The Key to Reserva, and then shooting it “the way (Hitchcock) would’ve made the picture then, only making it now”.

While the scenario’s reality is certainly in question, the enclosed short film (about three-and-a-half minutes in length) is fun to watch, as it basically serves as an homage to numerous classic Hitchcock scenes, thereby serving as a short, loving tribute to Hitchcock himself. Heck, for that matter, the whole ad is fun to watch. It’s similar to the series of amusing American Express ads (by Scorsese and Wes Anderson, among others) in which different filmmakers take good-natured shots at their own styles and personae. Likewise, The Key to Reserva plays off Scorsese’s reputation as an obsessive curator of the history of cinema, which gives a spark of life to the thought in the back of your mind that maybe, just maybe, this is the real deal, making the ad that much more fun. (The ad’s closing scene clearly lets the audience in on the joke, in case they weren’t already).

Dave’s Film Festival, entry #3: “Dog Day Afternoon”

The next feature in the inaugural run of Dave’s Film Festival is Dog Day Afternoon, directed by Sidney Lumet and released in 1975. The film marked a reunion of Lumet with actor Al Pacino; the two had worked together a few years earlier in Serpico (the DFF opening-night selection).

Like that film, Dog Day Afternoon is somewhat of a crime drama, though the former is told from a cop’s perspective, while the latter looks at the scene through the eyes of two apparently first-time bank robbers. This film, at least its first half, is also somewhat of a dark comedy. Sonny (Pacino) leads the attempted heist of a Brooklyn savings-and-loan, but as in so many such films (see the review of the previous DFF selection), things don’t go at all as planned. For starters, the vault is nearly empty. But things really go south when, after Sonny tries to burn the bank’s register log, locals see the smoke and the police soon arrive.

The bulk of the film involves what happens next. Sonny engages the cops in a standoff for the rest of the evening and well into the night. In the process, he riles up the crowd that has assembled by taunting the swarm of cops and federal agents that have him cornered (he does so in particular by yelling “Attica! Attica!”, in reference to the Attica prison riots of 1971). The bank’s employees, mostly female tellers, start to form a bond with their captors. And eventually, we learn Sonny’s true motivation for the heist: this Vietnam war vet with a wife and several children needs money for a gender-change operation for his male companion.

At this point, the humor starts to seep out of the film, and most of our time is spent looking at Pacino’s sweaty face and wild hair (the cops have shut off the air-conditioning), so we can attempt to figure out what’s going on in this odd bird’s head.

In his review of the film, Ebert calls Pacino’s Sonny “one of the most interesting modern movie characters”, and certainly, as the film progresses, we realize that this film is not so much about a bank heist as it is a character study. This guy’s world has spun completely out-of-control; we see on his face that he realizes it in the film’s opening scene, and we see it again at the film’s end, as well as at numerous points in between.

When comparing the two Lumet-Pacino pictures screened during DFF thus far, Serpico stands out to me as the more enjoyable film. But I can’t discount Pacino’s character in Dog Day Afternoon, either; I spent the entire movie wondering what he was going to do next, and that’s a pretty good mark for any film.

Where Dave gets his political news

As we near the first of the presidential primaries, I thought it might be helpful to share with you, dear reader, the websites from which I gather my political news. You may or may not know that I have somewhat of an interest in politics, and so it should come as no surprise that I’m a bit of a political news junkie.

I’ve found that The Politico, a publication devoted solely to political news, has, on a consistent basis, the best coverage around. It was started in January of this year to provide a new challenger to the “big boys” of political news reporting. I could describe to you the reasons why it’s so good, but I’d rather just let you read this section from their mission statement (yes, they have one, and yes, I’ve read it):

“Reading a story should be just as interesting as talking with the reporter over a sandwich or a beer. It’s a curiosity of journalism that this often isn’t true. The traditional newspaper story is written with austere, voice-of-God detachment. These newspaper conventions tend to muffle personality, humor, accumulated insight — all the things readers hunger for as they try to make sense of the news and understand what politicians are really like. Whenever we can, we’ll push against these limits. In the process, we’ll share with readers a lot more of what we know instead of leaving it in our notebooks.”

If, after reading that, you don’t understand why I love The Politico, then you may be reading the wrong blog.

All that aside, the New York Times does often have interesting feature stories on the different presidential candidates on their Politics page.

For blogs with the latest news on the presidential race, I prefer those blogs featuring writers who are on the ground in the traditional early primary states. They can provide a unique window into how a presidential campaign progresses over time. There are two in particular I would recommend. The first is the blog of Brad Warthen, the editorial page editor of The State, the main newspaper in South Carolina. The second is Cameron’s Corner, the blog of the Fox News political team, led by reporter Carl Cameron. [Please don't take this to be an endorsement of Fox News. I firmly believe that 24-hour news channels, be they Fox, CNN, or one of the many NBC offshoots, are lame. I just stumbled upon this blog one day and thought it was good.]

While we’re at it, let’s not forget presidential ads. By far the finest such ad of the 2008 race is Mike Huckabee’s ad featuring ol’ Walker, Texas Ranger himself (especially a good laugh for those of you familiar with the Chuck Norris Facts).

And finally, for the finest political commentary and analysis, I turn to the talking heads at Red State Update.

Hopefully, dear reader, these sites will satisfy your insatiable appetite for political news for the time being. If you know of any other good political sites, feel free to share. Rest assured, I’ll let you know when I find other quality political news sites that are worth your precious time.

Dave’s Film Festival, entry #2: “The Asphalt Jungle”

The next entry in Dave’s Film Festival is director John Huston’s 1950 film The Asphalt Jungle, considered a classic of the film noir genre, which Huston had already helped pioneer in one of his previous films, The Maltese Falcon.

The film’s plot is a story of a bank heist that goes wrong and continues to turn sour well after the job is done. Upon his release from prison, a veteran criminal, Doc, assembles a group of small-time crooks to pull off the heist. They include a vault specialist, a heavy (Sterling Hayden of Dr. Strangelove), and a driver. After problems arise during the heist itself, more trouble comes from Doc’s financiers and from a police force trying to overcompensate for its stigma of corruption and ineptitude.

Some points of the movie didn’t come across too well. Certain production aspects weren’t believable, even for a 1950s film. For instance, the driver, who is shown in several scenes, is meant to be a hunchback. But the only scene in which this was physically apparent was the scene, a good two-thirds into the movie, in which another character refers to him as a hunchback. In every other scene — even after the fact is mentioned — I did not notice he was a hunchback. Also, the plot seems to unravel pretty steadily at the film’s end; the final few scenes with Hayden’s character, in particular, seemed unnecessary. [Please keep in mind that, at this point, all the films in Dave's Film Festival are films that I've never seen before. Were I to watch them again, I might notice new layers or plot points that would alter my opinion of the whole. But at this point, this is a first-impression affair.]

All in all, I enjoyed The Asphalt Jungle well enough, though I think Marsha fell asleep toward the end. I can certainly see how the film has influenced a great number of noir pictures that have come after it, particularly bank heist movies. But if you’re wanting to see just one classic noir film, I’d go with The Maltese Falcon.

Talkin’ ’bout “The Dark Knight”, “I’m Not There”

Somehow, yesterday (I don’t remember how it got started), I found myself searching for all things related to The Dark Knight, the next installation of filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s take on the Batman series, due out next summer. For those of you who don’t think Nolan’s first effort, 2005’s Batman Begins, is by far the greatest Batman film yet, well, you’re just wrong. In fact, as a guy who doesn’t usually go nuts over superhero movies (but who is a Batman fan), I can honestly say that it’s one of my favorite movies period.

Anyway, I’m particularly interested in what will be the outcome of actor Heath Ledger’s portrayal of über-villain the Joker in Knight. Clearly, the guy doesn’t like to be typecast, seeing as how he’s portrayed everything from a heartthrob, to a skate bum mentor, to a drug addict. And there was that western he did, and his turn as Casanova immediately following in a thinly veiled attempt to let people know that he still likes girls. But forgetting all that, if you’ve seen the still frame of him as the Joker, or read some of the comments he’s made about the role, you’d agree that we have reason to expect good things.

I’m also eager to see his performance in the new Bob Dylan pseudo-biopic I’m Not There, in which he portrays an avatar of Dylan’s late-1960s, early ’70s period, during which Dylan was in extreme demand, yet became somewhat isolated from both the rest of the world and his earlier role as a voice of the ’60s. In the film, Ledger plays one of at least six different versions of the Dylan mystique. [Batman himself, or at least the actor Christian Bale who portrays him in both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, also plays one of the Dylans in I'm Not There. Crazy.]

To sum up, here’s a good New York Times article on Ledger as an actor.

Dave’s Film Festival, entry #1: “Serpico”

The first screened entry in Dave’s Film Festival is Sidney Lumet’s Serpico, released in 1973. The film stars Al Pacino in the title role of Frank Serpico, a real-life New York City police officer who helped expose a ring of corruption within the NYC law enforcement system in the late 1960s and early ’70s.

I was interested in viewing the film after seeing it referenced in the Wes Anderson film Rushmore, in which the main character puts on a stage adaptation of the film at his high school. And when watching Serpico, one can easily see many of the stylistic touches that Anderson employs in his films: distinct coloring, unique wardrobe choices, and conspicuously straight-ahead camera angles at certain key moments (such as one of the final scenes in which Serpico testifies before the Knapp Commission).

Like many Seventies movies, Serpico takes a harsh view of the world. The title character eagerly joins the police force as a young man, but soon finds that some cops play fast-and-loose with the rules in their attempts to deal with criminals. But what really gets to him are the constant payoffs that other cops take from bookies and other lowlifes. Over time, as Serpico continually refuses his share of the money, other cops become distrusting of him, and he bounces around from precinct to precinct, ostracized at nearly every turn and receiving little to no help from his superiors.

The film focuses intently on what sets Serpico apart from the other cops. The first major difference is his appearance; Serpico dresses like a hippie, so he’s more effective at fitting in for plain-clothes duty than his fellow officers. The second is his unwillingness to take payoffs, and the majority of the film’s plot documents the frustrations this causes in both his professional and personal life.

Pacino is very good in this film, in which his intensity dominates nearly every scene. His character is of either Italian or Greek heritage (I couldn’t tell for sure), and the family scenes are underscored with Mediterranean music, just like the Godfather pictures. Perhaps we’re supposed to see what could happen if Michael Corleone happened to be a NYC cop instead of a criminal.

All said, I enjoyed the film immensely. Its Seventies style was engrossing, though not overpowering (unlike many films from that decade), and actually added to its appeal, similar to some of Woody Allen’s Seventies movies. And though I had an idea about how the plot would end, I didn’t know for sure, and so I had extra reason to stick around. Recommended.

Dave’s Film Festival

With all these folks signing up for Netflix (or the Blockbuster version thereof) so they can rent more movies for less money, I’ve decided to plot a different course toward the same end. I’ve signed up with a program that allows me to rent more movies for a lot less money: namely, the Oklahoma County public library system.

No, it’s not very sexy to check out your movies from the library, and they don’t have a lot of blockbusters (no Spider-Man 3, dang). But they do have a lot of classic titles that I’ve wanted to see for a while. And they’re free (excluding late fees, which one need only exercise a sparse bit of memory to avoid). That’s still quite a bit cheaper than even Netflix.

And who knows, every once in a while, I may find one there that came out after the beginning of the new millennium.

So, in this spirit of free films, I’m launching the first ever Dave’s Film Festival. It will likely be an ongoing, sporadic affair, consisting of me and (usually) Marsha watching selected entries whenever we have the chance. And attention all you film buffs out there: Dave’s Film Festival is open to the public. In other words, if you know where I live, you can come watch the movies with me. Would Ebert extend such an offer? I think not. [Update: Marsha says to call first.]

There’s really only two criteria if you want to enter your film into Dave’s Film Festival. First, your film has to be available for free within the Oklahoma County public library system. Second, it has to be a film that I’m interested in seeing. I understand it may be difficult to know whether your film will appeal to my delicate yet preternaturally good tastes. Perhaps the best way to gauge it is to read my reviews of other entries and use your best judgment to determine how your film stacks up against the rest.

In truth, I’ve already watched the first three entries. Two, Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon, are Sidney Lumet pictures starring Al Pacino. The third is John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle. All three are crime dramas, yet all look at the subject from notably different angles.

Please be on the lookout for reviews of the entries in Dave’s Film Festival. Of course, I will be posting reviews of most, if not all, of the successfully screened entries right here on this blog. I look forward to your feedback.

It’s fall, and so I’m listening to Neil Young

It must be fall. Autumn. A glorious time – my favorite season of the year – when the air gets cool and the colors change. Some call it “football weather”. Whatever it is, I love it. In Oklahoma, fall doesn’t last long; in reality, it’s summer here at least eight months out of the year. But even in those few short months (or maybe weeks) when we experience fall, I feel more alive than I do the entire rest of the year.

But that’s not why I know it must be fall. I know because I find myself impulsively listening to Neil Young. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of another artist whose music screams “fall” quite like his. As I write this, I’m listening to a solo acoustic show of Young at Toronto’s Massey Hall in 1971 — one of the live archival releases from Young’s vaults that he’s started issuing in the past year. Every track gives the feeling of natural resignation, from the opener “On the Way Home” to highlights from albums like After the Gold Rush, which he’d just released, and still-in-progress numbers from the then-upcoming Harvest.

On this date, Young played acoustic guitar on most of the 17 tracks, and piano on the others. Some songs, like “Love in Mind”, “Bad Fog of Loneliness”, and the opener, I’d never heard before, and I love ‘em. The others are stripped-down arrangements of some of his classics. You’ve heard “Needle and the Damage Done” on solo acoustic, and possibly even “Cowgirl in the Sand”. But what about “Ohio”, “Helpless”, or “Down by the River”? I hadn’t, and I have to agree with an opinion I’ve heard elsewhere: only when you hear Young play his songs solo have you felt their full impact. Though this album was just released earlier this year, I’ve got to think it will become one of the definitive pieces in Young’s canon.

Young’s songs often look at the decay of things. But just like the message of one of his most autumnal tracks, “Don’t Let it Bring You Down”, after the decline, there’s hope that things will improve. Fall is a time when nature enters a period of decay, as part of the earth moves further from the sun’s warmth. Eventually we’ll get back to spring and summer. Still, with Young’s music and a brisk breeze, I could stay in autumn a while longer.

Finally saw “Darjeeling Limited” last night

So, last night Marsha and I finally saw Wes Anderson’s new film The Darjeeling Limited, of which I’ve previously blogged about quite a bit. It’s a story about three brothers — played by Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody and Jason Schwartzman – on what’s intended to be a journey of spiritual and self-discovery through India, during which the siblings at least kind of hope to reconnect with one another; they haven’t seen each other in the year since their father’s death.

The film features a lot of the same themes as Anderson’s other movies: familial distrust, parent issues, quirky behavior. And it has many of the highly unique visual settings and very particular shots you’d expect from an Anderson film. But another of the common threads that run throughout an Anderson film has been his severely deadpan style of humor; that is, until now.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some funny moments, though few (if any) laugh-out-louders. Instead, this seems to be Anderson’s first full attempt at making a movie that is not first and foremost a comedy, but rather a true look at humans for what they are. (Here’s another review toward that end, though it’s probably even more gushy than mine. To attempt some sort of “balance”, here’s a review that’s not as kind.)

Anderson has verbalized his admiration for the French New Wave filmmakers, to whom he’s been compared stylistically. A lot of those French New Wave films, to me, seem to be not so much about events, like most movies today, but rather about being. It’s a differentiation Anderson has come close to making in his previous films, but he gets closer to the mark here. Unlike most of his past films, like Rushmore or The Royal Tenenbaums, redemption for the characters in Darjeeling isn’t fully realized. They don’t totally reconnect with all the people in their lives. The mom and dad issues aren’t resolved — in fact, they’re left conspicuously hanging. And the story doesn’t come to a full conclusion. But if you’re going for that French New Wave feel, it ends how it’s probably supposed to. (I said to Marsha after we left the theater, “It was pretty existential, wasn’t it?”, not so much as a question, but just to see if she agreed. She did.) 

So, all that being said, here’s the summary: the first half is kind of funny; the second half is a thinker; I really liked it; and I look forward to seeing it again soon.

[Addendum: I'd read that some of the events in the film retain even more poignancy considering Owen Wilson's recent troubles. After seeing the movie for myself, I can say that's definitely true. Incredibly enough, this recent MySpace interview of Wilson by Anderson, his longtime friend, is just as moving, though I don't know for sure that it's meant to be.]

Another live Black Keys show on the web

Okay, this one’s even better than the one I highlighted in my previous post. Later in the afternoon, I did some more surfing, and I found this outstanding live video of the Black Keys from June 2006. According to Wikipedia, it’s a show they played in Amsterdam.

So, why’s this one better? Well, the show from the other post was from 2003, and this one’s from 2006. As a band, the Black Keys seem to be getting better and better with each passing year (month, even?), and that goes for their live shows, as well. With each record, and with each time I’ve seen their live performance, they seem to be refining their sound, yet they’re still exploring more of the space that can conceivably be covered by a band taking equal influence from both blues and punk music. I know, that’s saying a lot.

In this video, even more so than the other, the sound is clear, the picture is crisp, and the outcome is fantastic. Check it out. Now. I’m serious.