Galloping into our hearts

You've met the Black Stallion, Trigger, Seabiscuit and the Black Beauty; now's your chance to get acquainted with “War Horse” (2011; 146 minutes), directed by Steven Spielberg and chosen by Rose Krc, which is scheduled for July 31 at CineVerse. It's also another in our series of World Cinema Wednesdays (this time from Great Britain).

Read more...

Benjy meets Errol Flynn

Last night, CineVerse delved into the comedy category with an exploration of My Favorite Year, the directorial debut of Richard Benjamin (!). Here are the notable discussion points presented:

WHAT IS IT ABOUT MY FAVORITE YEAR THAT KEEPS YOUR INTEREST?

• Its warm nostalgia for the golden age of television: Knowing that the TV program in the film is loosely based on Sid Caesar’s legendary Your Show of Shows makes it fascinating; Benjy Stone is based loosely on Mel Brooks and Woody Allen, who both wrote for Caesar’s program.
• The humorous intrigue around the character of Swann, who is not-so-loosely based on the larger-than-life Errol Flynn, famous for his womanizing, heavy drinking and tomfoolery; O’Toole brings a charismatic magnetism and suave but tipsy charm to the role.
• The comedy dynamic between straight man Benjy and the hilariously unpredicatable Swann, whom Benjy is responsible for getting to the TV show on time and intact.
• The stellar supporting cast, which includes Joseph Bologna as King Kaiser, Bill Macy as Sy Benson, Lainie Kazan as Benjy’s mother, Adolf Green as Leo Silver, Selma Diamond as the wardrobe lady, Lou Jacobi as Uncle Morty, and Cameron Mitchell as Karl Rodeck.
• It’s also the directorial debut of Richard Benjamin, himself a comedian and actor in several TV and movie comedies; if you know ahead of time that this film is helmed by Benjamin, it causes you to pay more attention to see if he succeeds or fails.

THIS FILM HAS BEEN ACCUSED BY SOME CRITICS OF BEING OVERLY SENTIMENTAL. DO YOU AGREE OR DISAGREE?

• Benjy provides a wistful voiceover narration and brings, as one reviewer puts it, “too much sentimental baggage” to the story.
• The scene where Swann visits his 12-year-old daughter and gets choked up about her, as well as the implicit father-child surrogate relationship Swann has with Benjy is a bit over the top for some critics.
• Perhaps it’s a little too reverential and nostalgic in its evocation of early 1950s television, as if suggesting that the zaniness and comedy stylings of Your Show of Shows type programs—which typically aired live—have never been nor never will be topped.
• Arguably, by drawing too many early comparisons to Errol Flynn, the movie makes it hard for Swann to break free and transcend a silver screen icon and become his own unique character. Swann’s personality is instantly likeable and enjoyable, but perhaps shackled by our knowledge that this character is meant to represent Flynn.

BENJI HAS ALSO BEEN DESCRIBED BY SOME AS A CHARACTER THAT’S HARD TO WARM UP TO AND WHO FUNCTIONS MAINLY AS A DEVICE TO HOLD THE STORY TOGETHER. WHAT’S YOUR FEELING ON THIS?

DO ANY OTHER MOVIES COME TO MIND AFTER WATCHING MY FAVORITE YEAR?

• Joe Gould’s Secret
• The Country Girl, in which Bing Crosby plays an alcoholic
• Radio Days, another movie that evokes nostalgia for a bygone time, this time for radio

OTHER FILMS BY RICHARD BENJAMIN

• Racing With the Moon
• The Money Pit
• Made in America
• Mrs. Winterbourne

Read more...

Time again for movie trivia

We'll have a little extra time prior to the screening/discussion of My Favorite Year on July 24, so make plans to join CineVerse promptly at 7 p.m. to engage in another movie trivia game and compete for DVD prizes. We'll end the game probably around 7:40.

Read more...

My Favorite Year...your favorite movie?

Keep your calendar clear on July 24, which is when you'll want to join CineVerse for the comedic romp “My Favorite Year” (1982; 92 minutes), directed by Richard Benjamin, chosen by Brian Hansen; Plus: We'll play a movie trivia game prior to the screening in which members can compete for prizes.

Read more...

All's well that ends Welles

Yesterday, our CineVerse group was challenged to peel back the layers on Orson Welles' last Hollywood film, Touch of Evil, a movie that offers much more than what is seen by the naked eye. A summary of our group gab follows:

WHAT DO YOU FIND CURIOUS, ODD AND UNSETTLING ABOUT TOUCH OF EVIL?

• It’s a very stylized film with an exaggerated look and feel to it. The plot is fairly conventional and easy to follow, but the framing of the shots, lighting and visual design, camera movements, and editing style are very offbeat.
• Interesting casting choices: Heston as a Hispanic man, Mercedes McCambridge as a sexually ambiguous gang leader, Dennis Weaver as a sexually obsessed motel manager are all examples of quirky casting.
• A necessary but also deliberately cheap, tawdry and pulpy misc en scene and story: Welles essentially turns a trashy contemporary pulp novel into poetry here.
• The attack by the gang upon Vargas’ wife is disturbing for the late 1950s, suggesting a gang rape by a drug using gang—from which Mrs. Vargas strangely recovers quickly. This plays upon societal fears of the time, including fear of juvenile delinquency, marijuana use, and sexual threats to our women by minority no-gooders.
• The hyperbolic extent to which Welles isn’t afraid to depict himself as a morbidly obese, repulsive, sweaty and washed-up shell of a man. In essence, Welles is caricaturizing himself and commenting on how far he’s fallen from grace as a formerly hot property in Hollywood.

WELLES IS KNOWN AS AN INVENTIVE DIRECTOR WHEN IT COMES TO AUDIO AND VISUALS. WHAT ARE SOME OF THE INTERESTING TECHNIQUES HE USES TO CREATE MEMORABLE SHOTS AND SEQUENCES IN TOUCH OF EVIL?

• Long, uninterrupted takes, which require very careful planning, blocking, choreographing and technical prowess behind the camera, including: the famous 3-minute, 20-second-long continuous shot that opens the film; as well as the 5-minute-plus scene in the apartment of Lanniker’s daughter when Quinlan faces off with her and her boyfriend. These long shots create tension and a claustrophobic reaction from viewers, even on a subconscious level, who are waiting for a cut, reverse shot, close up or other edit point to relieve us of the spatial tightness and fixed visual concentration. By trapping characters together in the same shot for extreme lengths, the film insinuates that the fates of these characters are intertwined. These unbroken shots not only draw our attention because of their extreme length, but they proved to be an efficient way for Welles to shoot many scenes and stay under budget.
• High contrast, low-key lighting emblematic of film noir that employs heavy shadows.
• Crowded compositions and tight framing to add to the claustrophobic look and tone.
• Low-angled shots, often looking up at Quinlan, to suggest his malignant power and repugnant obesity
• Frequently moving camera, as evidenced by complex tracking shots, ambitious crane shots,
• Skip framing during zoom shots, which involves removing actual frames of film to exaggerate the effect of the zoom—such as the zoom in on the car explosion.
• Distorting lenses that make characters appear more grotesque or exaggerated and add a surreal quality to even ordinary objects, creating a sense of disorientation.
• Welles also employs an alternating baroque and gothic approach in many visuals, as film essayist Robert Cumbow states: “Baroque” in the way it uses incidental ornamentation within the frame composition, insisting upon signs, posters, souvenirs and bric-a-brac to provide comment on character and event, as well as to lend atmosphere. Bulky Quinlan, looking up quizzically, belatedly prepares his defense against the lanky Vargas, in a room walled with bullfight posters and photos of the great matadors. We almost expect him to snort and paw the earth. This mise en scene was, in part, Welles’s debt to Karl Freund, neo-Gothic cameraman (The Golem, 1920; The Last Laugh, 1924; Metropolis, 1926; All Quiet on the Western Front, 1930; Dracula, 1931) and director (Mad Love, 1935) who combined compositional richness with thematic darkness to create a Cinema of the Grotesque that seminally influenced the look and style of Citizen Kane (1941). Just as the milieux of Touch of Evil, the dark vaults of the police record depository, the “haunted” rooms of cheap motels and hotels, fit the Gothic tone that Welles adapted from Freund and other German film makers, its characters and relationships owe much to the archetypal model of the Gothic novel: the dark foreigner (Vargas), the fair lady victimized by evil (Susan), the imposing but secretive man of estate (Quinlan), the dark woman with supernatural connections (Tanya). The elements combine to chronicle the transformation of the Gothic into film noir—a path that Fritz Lang had also traveled.”

THIS FILM IS PARTICULARLY FAMOUS FOR ITS 3 MINUTE, 20 SECOND-LONG UNINTERRUPTED TAKE (THE OPENING SCENE). WHY DO YOU THINK WELLES CHOSE TO SHOOT THIS AS AN UNBROKEN, CAREFULY CHOREOGRAPHED SINGLE SHOT INSTEAD OF CHOPPING IT UP INTO SEVERAL SHOTS EDITED TOGETHER?

• If it were cut up, we wouldn’t know how long the bomb had been ticking or what length of time occurred between the car leaving the parking garage to arriving at the border.
• It establishes the geography of this border town and anchors in our minds how large, dirty and memorable the town is.
• It also ratchets up the tension and suspense, causing us to pay attention to the fact that not a single cut has occurred.

WHAT THEMES CAN YOU IDENTIFY THAT ARE EXPLORED IN THIS MOVIE?

• Racism: it’s the reason why Quinlan is so angry and deadest on manipulating this murder case—he is prejudiced against Vargas.
• Betrayal: Quinlan betrays the faith of his friend and vice versa
• Corruption and pollution: corruption of power, contamination of the town and its residents, the influence of corruption and drugs on youth (the biker gang)
• Ambiguity: not being aware of one’s guilt, innocence, prejudices, or even sexual orientation, as exemplified by the butch leader of the biker gang
• Ego and arrogance, which prove to be the undoing of Quinlan
• Social and cultural ugliness, as personified by the array of grotesque characters, from the nervous night man to the butch drug pusher to the seedy, balding gangster to Quinlan himself
• The evil inherent in every man, at any time—how the nature of evil is pervasive, even when you have good intentions, it can go awry and turn evil. The title of the film suggests that everything—even the best that man can offer—is capable of being touched by evil.

DOES TOUCH OF EVIL BRING TO MIND ANY OTHER FILMS?

• Robert Altman’s The Player, in that it also contains a bravura long, uninterrupted opening take
• Psycho, which also contains a scantily clad Janet Leigh in a fleabag motel room managed by a creepy night clerk
• The Searchers, which also features a lead character colored by his racial hate
• Many other films by Welles that showcase larger-than-life lead characters whose hubris destroys them, including Citizen Kane, Othello and Macbeth

OTHER FILMS DIRECTED BY ORSON WELLES

• Citizen Kane
• The Magnificent Ambersons
• The Stranger
• The Lady from Shanghai
•  A trio of Shakespeare adaptations: Macbeth, Othello, and Chimes at Midnight
•  Mr. Arkadin
•  The Trial
• F for Fake

Read more...

Get touched by Evil

On July 17, CineVerse will return to its latest monthly theme: Triple talent pioneers--Filmmakers who wrote, directed, produced (and sometimes starred in) their movies. This time around, the spotlight is on Orson Welles, director, screenwriter and co-star of “Touch of Evil” (1958; 95 minutes), which is considered by many film historians to be the last in the classic Hollywood cycle of films noir. Plus, we'll also screen excerpts form a documentary on Welles.

Read more...

"I have come back, Miss Havisham..."

One of the finest adaptations of a Dickens novel--or any novel, for that matter--is David Lean's 1946 version of Great Expectations, which CineVerse enjoyed discussing last evening. A roundup of the major talking points follows:

WHAT IS INTERESTING ABOUT THIS FILM VISUALLY?

·       The exaggerated, gothic sets, which evoke a look of German Expressionism and borrow elements from classic horror films, as evidenced by several key set pieces: the graveyard; the haunted house (Ms. Havisham’s dark, decrepit mansion); the grim barrister’s  office, decked out with death masks of clients who have been hanged; the London apartment where the stranger Magwitch visits Pip on a dark, stormy night; and the courtroom sentencing chamber where poor wretched souls are condemned to death.

·       It condenses major portions of the novel down to strong singular shots, sequences and montages: it tells much of the story visually without dialogue or exposition.

o   Consider the montage sequence where Mrs. Joe is being cruel to Pip and shouting at him, only instead of hearing the word “Pip,” we hear a shrill horn

o   The sound design on this film is outstanding; the howling wind is virtually a character unto itself

·       Lean has a proclivity for carefully composed shots and dramatic visuals within the frame, with the elements within it carefully sorted to attract the eye to the center.

·       The first half is shown from the perspective of the young Pip

o   via forced perspective sets (bringing the ceilings down closer to the actors, and glass mattes to portray the storm-filled sky)

o   via a wide angle lens, all to put you in the shoes of the young Pip so you see these visuals from his awed, impressionable young point of view.

o   via tracking shots and point of view shots (e.g., the close-ups of the cow and the creepy tree)

WHAT STANDS OUT ABOUT THE STORY AND THE CHARACTERS?

·       Pip is the main protagonist, but he’s like the straight man in a comedy team—a character who is often a surrogate for the audience and not the central originator of the action; his personality is not altogether that interesting

·       Instead, this tale’s strength lies in its colorful supporting characters, who have such a strong influence on Pip’s life, as brought to life by the fine supporting cast.

ARE THERE ANY SIGNIFICANT THEMES EXAMINED IN THIS FILM?

o   High ambitions and self-advancement: Pip and those around him have “great expectations” about his future.

o   Class, money, and social promotion are less important than conscience, loyalty, compassion and love: Pip is disillusioned by his dreams of becoming a gentleman; he feels unsatisfied by the achievement.

o    He learns that a man’s real worth is through his good deeds, faithfulness, warmth and kindness—as taught to him by Magwitch, who has lasting inner value and worth despite being a wanted criminal.

o   Victorian society is filled with inequalities: this is a class system where the rich live a life of privilege and entitlement and the poor and miserable don’t have many opportunities.

o   The motif of doubles is prevalent in the film, though less so than in the book: there are two disabled women (Ms. Havisham and Mrs. Joe), two escaped convicts, two hidden benefactors (Magwitch and Jaggers), and two adults who aim to guide children according to their wishes (Ms. Havisham and Magwitch).

THIS ADAPTATION OF THE ORIGINAL NOVEL ELIMINATES AND CONDENSES SCENES AND CHARACTERS. DOES IT BOTHER YOU WHEN A GREAT WORK OF LITERATURE IS ALTERED FOR A MOVIE VERSION?

o   It’s nearly impossible to stay completely faithful to the original source material of a long, sprawling novel when you only have a couple of hours to tell the story.

o   Lean proved that he can tell this basic story cinematically with this adaption and again in 1948 with his version of “Oliver Twist.” He said in an interview: “Choose what you want to do in the novel and do it proud. If necessary, cut characters. Don’t keep every character, just take a sniff of each one.”

o   This film tacks on a more romantic, idealized ending than the original novel had. According to Wikipedia: The original ending has Pip, who remains single, briefly see Estella in London; after becoming Bentley Drummle's widow, she has remarried. It appealed to Dickens due to its originality: "[the] winding up will be away from all such things as they conventionally go." Dickens revised the ending so that Pip now meets Estella in the ruins of Satis House. Dickens also changed the last sentence from "I could see the shadow of no parting from her." to "I saw no shadow of another parting from her." for the 1863 edition of the novel.

DOES GREAT EXPECTATIONS MAKE YOU THINK OF ANY OTHER FILMS IT MAY HAVE INSPIRED?

·       Sunset Boulevard, in how Norma Desmond is a creepy old woman who hosts a younger man

·       Several horror films that were influenced by the high contrast lighting, forced perspective sets and gothic visual atmospheres achieved

·       Wuthering Heights, another romantic drama with dark, gothic touches

OTHER FILMS BY DAVID LEAN

·       Brief Encounter

·       Blithe Spirit

·       Oliver Twist

·       Bridge on the River Kwai

·       Lawrence of Arabia

·       Doctor Zhivago

·       Ryan’s Daughter

·       A Passage to India

Read more...

Expect a great adaptation

Doing Dickens justice on the big screen can be challenging for filmmakers, but not for David Lean, who made the definitive cinematic versions of Oliver Twist and, earlier, Great Expectations” (1946; 118 minutes). That's the picture next up in the CineVerse lineup, slated for July 10 and chosen by Dan Quenzel.

Read more...

A dog with bark AND bite

Neo noir was on the agenda last Wednesday at CineVerse--Quentin Tarantino style. Here are the highlights of our in-depth discussion on Reservoir Dogs:

HOW DID THIS FILM DEFY YOUR EXPECTATIONS?

·       It’s not a linear narrative that tells a beginning to end story: it jumps around in time and space with flashbacks and scene ellipses. This timeline shifting forces us to pay more attention to what’s going on so that we don’t miss any key details.

o   Tarantino was quoted as saying: “Novels do this all the time. A novelist would think nothing of starting in the middle. I think movies should benefit from the novel’s freedom.”

·       For a neo-noir crime thriller, it’s arguably as funny as it is violent and suspenseful.

·       Except for the heist escape flashback, it lacks action scenes, chases and other energetic scenes, relying on well-written dialogue to drive most of the story and characters; in fact, the movie’s “action” takes place after the heist itself, and plenty of action takes place off the screen.

·       The characters each have incredible presence and watchability, with some given more elaborate backstories and motivations than others; for example, Mr. Blonde, despite being a sadistic torturer, is given a backstory and character context that makes him more palatable.

·       The film proves enigmatically interesting, leaving lots of questions for the viewers to try to answer themselves: What went wrong at the heist? Where did everyone go? In fact, we don’t even realize these are criminals until after the opening coffee house scene, which introduces a colorful crew who could be professionals that abide by the law, for all we know.

·       There is no moral side-taking in this story, or good guys vs. bad guys exercise, per se: yes, Mr. Blonde is pretty reprehensible, but all the other criminals, who are just as capable of great violence, are as deserving of our sympathies and rooting interest as is Mr. Orange, the undercover cop.

WHAT ARE SOME HALLMARKS OF TARANTINO’S CINEMATIC STYLE AS A DIRECTOR?

·       Long, extended dialogue scenes filled with pop culture references, realistic adult banter, and ample profanities

·       Use of older music (in this case, songs from the 1970s, some of which many people would say are pretty cheesy) to add a retro hipness quotient to the vibe of a scene or montage

·       Intense scenes of punctuated graphic violence: consider the anal rape scene in Pulp Fiction or the baseball bat beating in Inglorious Basterds.

·       It’s obvious this filmmaker has been influenced by the works of Martin Scorsese, John Woo, Stanley Kubrick, and Sergio Leone, as well as the French new wave artists like Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard.

·       As one critic put it: “the distinguishing and transforming characteristics of (Tarantino)…is the aura of irreverent yet familiar media saturation that informs his fictions. His characters don’t operate in a hermetic, sterile, politically correct cultural vacuum; they watch, listen, discuss and deconstruct the same cheesy music, TV shows and movies that Tarantino himself (and his audience) does, creating an ingratiating bridge between soulless murderers and popcorn-fed voyeurs.”

·       In short, his films often stress style and attitude as much as substance.

WHAT ARE SOME ESSENTIAL THEMES AND MESSAGES ESPOUSES IN THIS MOVIE?

·       Redemption through suffering and pain: these characters are looking to be redeemed from their lives of crime and gangsterism. Getting “out of the life” is their road to redemption.

·       Flouting authority and catching the boss with his pants down, as one critic put it: consider that only those in highest authority (the bald boss) have the ability to give names

·       Our intrinsic human nature will always spoil the best laid plans: we can’t help but serve our own self interests, betray, violate and be inhuman to one another.

·       Be careful whom you trust.

OTHER FILMS THAT RESERVOIR DOGS BRINGS TO MIND:

·       The Asphalt Jungle and The Killing, two earlier noirs where heists go wrong and the crooks have to scramble for cover

·       Mean Streets

·       City of Fire, a 1987 Hong Kong thriller that Tarantino borrowed liberally from

·       Glengarry Glen Ross

·       The Usual Suspects and Boondock Saints, two movies accused of ripping off Tarantino’s style and pop culture hipness

OTHER FILMS DIRECTED BY QUENTIN TARANTINO

·       Pulp Fiction

·       Jackie Brown

·       Kill Bill 1 and 2

·       Death Proof

·       Inglorious Basterds

·       Django Unchained

Read more...