Welcome
to the 230th Edition of my long running series. This week I pay tribute
to the late Alex Chilton and Jaime A. Escalante. As you can see, I am
now in GUYS AND DOLLS in Noblesville which opens in June. I will get
more details closer to time.
Thumbsucker (2005): I open up with
this tribute to Alex Chilton who wrote the song THIRTEEN which was
featured in this film. Mike Mills directed and wrote this screenplay
based on the novel by Walter Kirn. Lou Taylor Pucci stars as the title
character named Justin Cobb. Justin is a high school teen who has not
gotten past the habit of sucking his thumb. Tilda Swinton plays his
mother who seems normal but has an obsession with a tv doctor, played by
LAW AND ORDER alum Benjamin Bratt. LAW AND ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT alum
Vincent D'Onofrio plays his father who is determined to break his son of
his habit but his advice is not working. Keanu Reeves plays his
unorthodox dentist who uses hypnosis to try to break him from that
habit. He is also diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder which he is
prescribed with pills for that problem. Justin is now broke from the
habit, winning debates for the debate team, and feeling much better but
other problems still await. Vince Vaughn plays the coach of the debate
team and I did not mind him in that part unlike some parts he plays. It
is a pretty good story about the hardships of growing up.
The
Best of Youth (2003): This is my Italian film for the week which was
directed by Marco Tullio Giordana. This Epic film centers around two
brothers in Rome named Nicola and Matteo and look at their lives from
the years 1966 to 2000 with the events that happen in those years.
Matteo gets a good job as a psychiatrist and Matteo joins the Italian
police force hoping to write all society's wrongs. Each of them meet
different people and through the years the brothers fall out and reunite
through all of the happenings. This was originally a tv mini-series but
was then released for theaters. It is a great story of an Italian
family which as I point out is most notable between the brothers. I am
not going into too much detail on this six hour film. I watched the
first three hours one day and the last part the next day and is really
worth it if you are willing to invest six hours of your time.
Stand
and Deliver (1988): This is my tribute to the late Jaime A. Escalante
who recently left us and MIAMI VICE alum Edward James Olmos plays. So
this is based on a true story where Escalante gets a job at an urban
school where he has many dropout prone students who might be in gangs
and seem to have no hope. He believes there is potential and decides to
teach them algebra and calculus. Lou Diamond Phillips plays one of the
students who is very difficult but begins to embrace a more structured
life. This is a very inspiring story of a teacher who motivated many
teens who were thought to have no hope left to become top class in SAT
testing. Andy Garcia has a small part as a member of the SAT board who
is investigating the class because he believes the whole class scored
too high for an urban class which is a big part of this film.
Frozen
River (2008): Courtney Hunt wrote and directed this independent film.
Melissa Leo stars as Ray who is a single mother in a dead-end job. She
meets a woman named Lila who is part of the Mohawk tribe and desperate
for money, she agrees to join her in smuggling immigrants across the
border between Quebec and New York. Her teenage son also resorts to some
rather unscrupulous methods of making money for the family. This is not
a very upbeat film but unfortunately it is pretty believable. It is
interesting to see what lengths people would be willing to take when
desperate for money where a mother and son have different methods and
the mother really does not have the right to criticize the son because
she was also committing crimes. Melissa Leo and Charlie McDermott who
plays her son are very good in the movie and work well together. The
other performances are pretty good and make for a pretty decent film as
long as you're not looking for a love story or some family story of
redemption. This was not my first choice for my movie on 2008 or later
and in fact I went through three others which will be featured in the
next couple weeks but I am glad I ended up with this one.
Blood
of Dracula (1957): I found this one of AMC and I guess this could be
considered my guilty pleasure for the week. First of all, let me remind
you this movie does not feature the iconic vampire whose name is in the
title. This is about a young girl whose father and mean stepmother put
her in a boarding school. The science teacher is a vampire and puts this
young girl under hypnosis to become a vampire so that she can do her
dirty work. There you have it, a pretty absurd vampire film but can be
enjoyable when in the mood as long as you can forgive the title.
I
Never Changes My Attitude (1937): This is my animated short film for
this week which features Popeye. We start with Popeye crying because he
has a letter from Olive Oyl that she left him to be with an aviator. As
it turns out this aviator is Bluto who is holding Olive against her will
on an airplane. Popeye then takes to the sky to help save Olive from
his arch-enemy. Looking back, I realize how violent these cartoons are
and this is no exception. I also realized that each Popeye cartoon
usually uses the same formula. A villain, usually Bluto, is taking
advantage of a damsel in distress, usually Olive, and then Popeye comes
to the rescue but is not a very strong guy until he eats his can of
spinach. This one was still entertaining though and was an enjoyable six
minutes.
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928): This is my French
and silent film for the week. In the few silents I have seen this may
very well be the best in my opinion of what I have seen. I found this on
TCM . Carl Theodore Dreyer directed this film which covers the trial of
Joan of Arc through transcripts that were found of the real trial.
Theater actress Maria Falconetti pulls of the title role very well in
her first and only screen appearance. The next highlight was the music
score which was added later in some found footage of the film and they
use Richard Einhorn's VOICES OF LIGHT which fit this movie so well.
There is no evidence that Dreyer even settled on a score. The next
highlight was the close-up shots that were very done very well. There
were some pretty surreal shots done where words can't even describe the
awe I was in while watching this. Make no mistake, as much I include the
occasional silent I am not a fanatic of them and this one had the most
effect on me that I have seen. It is thought that Dreyer was very mean
to Falconetti so that he could get the facial expressions he wanted.
Footage of this movie was thought to be lost until it was found in a
mental institution in Oslo. I do not know the story there. Another
interesting image I saw was a baby breast feeding and the nipple was
actually shown which the US would have never gotten away with.
Fall
Time (1995): I found this one on IFC and co-stars Mickey Rourke in what
I call his "transitional period". To be honest, if I had not seen that
name I would have passed it when looking for something to record to my
DVR. It did turn out to be rather interesting and different. We see
three high school friends, David Arquette, Jason London, and Jonah
Blechman, go out on a joyride who then decide to stage a mock
kidnapping. What they do not know is that there is a real robbery going
on and mistake Stephen Baldwin, who is one of the robbers, for their
friend and abduct the real robber instead. This leads to far more than
they bargained for when they are captured and tortured. Mickey Rourke is
the leader of the duo of their crime gone wrong because of an immature
practical joke gone wrong. Country music singer Sammy Kershaw has a
small role as of the police officers. This is not for everyone but the
performance of Mickey Rourke kept me connected but if you don't like him
you might not like this one.
Shampoo (1975): Hal Ashby directed
comedy that takes place in late 60s Beverley Hills. Warren Beatty stars
as hairstylist George Roundy. He is looking for a relationship and his
own salon but having an affair with the wife, daughter, and mistress of
one of his backers does not help his situation. Julie Christie, Goldie
Hawn, and Lee Grant are his women of the movie that he just cannot
settle with which lead to some funny situations of sexual revolution.
Jack Warden plays his backer. Carrie Fisher makes her screen debut in a
small role. Beatty co-wrote this script with Robert Towne.
Eyes
of Laura Mars (1978): Irvin Kershner directed this thriller which was
co-written by John Carpenter. Faye Dunaway stars as the title character
who is a very controversial fashion photographer. She soon starts to
have visions of some very brutal murders. Tommy Lee Jones co-stars as
detective John Neville who finds the connection of the murders and the
photos she features in her magazine. STAR TREK and BOSTON LEGAL alum
Rene Auberjoinous has a very interesting performance as her very
flamboyant manager and even wears a dress. Brad Dourif and Raul Julia
also co-star. This is nothing great but the performance and the music
really make this worth watching. I really got hooked in by the theme
called PRISON which was sung by Barbra Streisand. I am not really a huge
fan of Streisand but I really liked this very haunting song that she
sung so well.
Well, that is it for this week, stay tuned for next week which so far includes a documentary, Sally Hawkins, and many others.
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