Director, Hal Ashby’s first film, the notoriously hard to find, The Landlord is being shown on TCM on Friday, November 20th at 10:00 p.m.

It’s the first feature from Hal Ashby, and is an absolute must for any fans of the director. Not only is it a great film, but for Brooklynites it’s a veritable time capsule of pre-gentrified Park Slope and all it’s surrounding areas.

http://www.tcm.com:80/tcmdb/title.jsp?stid=22826

And in case you’re wondering: Hmmm, that sounds a lot like the Joe Pesci laff-riot, The Super? You’re right, it’s a total rip-off (The Super is the rip-off, that is — ironic considering how un-super it is). But it’s almost too sick to consider the two in the same breath, and truthfully I don’t even know why I did it…

Every week we will feature a new entry in our 70’s Superstars Series. Collect ‘em all! Just like Wacky Packages except with more polyester and cinematic iconoclasm…

This week’s 70’s Superstar is Hal Ashby.

Born William Hal Ashby in Ogden, Utah, Ashby experienced a tumultuous childhood that included the divorce of his parents, his father’s suicide and his dropping out of high school. Ashby was married and divorced by the time he was seventeen. Ashby moved to California where he became an assistant film director, winning the Academy Award for film editing. Ashby has often stated that film editing provided him with the best film school background outside of traditional study and he carried the techniques learned as an editor with him when he began directing.

Ashby directed his first film, The Landlord, in 1970. He soon embraced a counterculture lifestyle, became a vegetarian, and grew out his hair long before the ridiculous little ponytail on men look. Over the course of the decade, he directed several acclaimed and popular films, including Shampoo, The Last Detail, the still brilliant, off-beat romance Harold and Maude, and the social satire Being There, which resuscitated the career of Peter Sellers, who many had written off as a lost cause. He also directed the Woody Guthrie biography, Bound for Glory, which has a distinction of being the first film to use the Steadicam. However, his most commercially successful film was Coming Home, one of the first films to deal with returning Vietnam veterans; Jane Fonda and Jon Voight won Best Actress and Best Actor awards, and Ashby was given his only Best Director nomination.

After the filming of Being There, Ashby became notoriously reclusive and his behavior eccentric (he would pacify former girlfriends by hiring them as film editors or refused to eat food in the presence of others). As studio executives grew less tolerant of his perfectionism – he was scheduled to direct Tootsie – he found offers being refused and grew antagonistic towards production policies. Eventually, his later films were shelved or subjected to massive re-editing. In an attempt to revive his career, he discontinued his drug use, cut his hair, and began to frequent Hollywood parties as to suggest that he was once again ‘respectable. Unfortunately, his reputation preceded him and he never worked in film again.

Hal Ashby died in December of 1988 of pancreatic cancer. However, today he stands as an underappreciated auteur of the New Hollywood era. Earlier this year, a tribute was held to honor his work. The event, hosted by Cameron Crowe, featured appearances by Bud Cort, Jon Voight, Judd Apatow, and others, as well as a rare musical performance by Yusuf Islam, then known as Cat Stevens, who proclaimed, “The impact of my musical legacy was due in part to the fact that Hal Ashby embraced my albums and used them (as a soundtrack) for his amazing film Harold and Maude. People are as tied to that film as they are to my music and this event is an opportunity for me to honor the memory of the man.”

ஒரிஜினல் லிஸ்ட் இங்கே. பாஸ்டன் பாலாவுக்கு நன்றி!

சைரனோ டி பெர்கராக், Cyrano de Bergerac – எட்மண்ட் ரோஸ்டாண்ட் எழுதிய புத்தகம். வெகு நாட்களுக்கு முன் படித்த நாடகம், கதை மட்டுமே மங்கலாக நினைவிருக்கிறது. ஹோசே ஃபெர்ரர் நடித்து ஒரு முறை, ஜெரார்ட் டிபார்டியூ நடித்து ஒரு முறை வந்திருக்கிறது. இரண்டையும் கமல் குறிப்பிடுகிறார், இரண்டையும் நான் பார்த்ததில்லை.

ஸ்பார்டகஸ், Spartacus – ஹோவர்ட் ஃபாஸ்ட் எழுதிய நாவல். ஸ்டான்லி குப்ரிக் இயக்கி கிர்க் டக்ளஸ் நடித்த புகழ் பெற்ற படம். என் கண்ணில் சுமாரான படம்தான். நாவல் படித்ததில்லை.

எ க்ளாக்வொர்க் ஆரஞ்ச், A Clockwork Orange – அந்தோனி பர்ஜஸ் எழுதிய நாவல். படித்ததில்லை. ஸ்டான்லி குப்ரிக் இயக்கி மால்கம் மக்டொவல் நடித்தது. பிரமாதமான படம். குப்ரிக் கலக்கிவிட்டார்.

லாஸ்ட் டெம்ப்டேஷன் ஆஃப் க்ரைஸ்ட், Last Temptation of Christ – நிகோலாய் கசான்ட்சாகிஸ் எழுதிய நாவல். மார்டின் ஸ்கொர்ஸஸி இயக்கி இருக்கிறார். பார்த்ததுமில்லை, படித்ததுமில்லை.

பீயிங் தேர், Being There – ஜெர்சி கொசின்ஸ்கி எழுதிய நாவல். ஹால் ஆஷ்பி இயக்கி பீட்டர் செல்லர்ஸ் நடித்தது. படித்ததில்லை, ஆனால் படம் பார்த்திருக்கிறேன். சுமாரான படம்.

ட்ரெய்ன்ஸ்பாட்டிங், Trainspotting – இர்வின் வெல்ஷ் எழுதிய நாவல். ஸ்லம்டாக் மில்லியனர் புகழ் டான்னி பாயில் இயக்கியது. பார்த்ததுமில்லை, படித்ததுமில்லை, கேள்விப்பட்டதும் இல்லை.

பர்ஃப்யூம், Perfume – யாரோ பாட்ரிக் சுஸ்கிண்ட் எழுதியதாம். டாம் டைக்வர் இயக்கியதாம். பார்த்ததுமில்லை, படித்ததுமில்லை, கேள்விப்பட்டதும் இல்லை.

சிட்டி சிட்டி பாங் பாங், Chitti Chitti Bang Bang – ஜேம்ஸ் பாண்ட் புகழ் இயன் ஃப்ளெமிங் எழுதிய சிறுவர்களுக்கான புத்தகம். டிக் வான் டைக் நடித்தது. படம் சிறுவர் சிறுமிகளுக்கு பிடிக்கும். நாவல் படித்ததில்லை.

க்யூரியஸ் கேஸ் ஆஃப் பெஞ்சமின் பட்டன், Curious Case of Benjamin Button – ஸ்காட் ஃபிட்ஸ்ஜெரால்ட் எழுதிய சிறுகதை. ப்ராட் பிட் நடித்து டேவிட் ஃபிஞ்சர் இயக்கியது. இந்த வருஷ ஆஸ்கார் போட்டியில் ஸ்லம்டாக் மில்லியனருக்கு பெரும் போட்டியாக இருந்தது. படித்ததில்லை, இன்னும் பார்க்கவும் இல்லை.

ஃபாரஸ்ட் கம்ப், Forrest Gump – வின்ஸ்டன் க்ரூம் எழுதியது. டாம் ஹாங்க்ஸ் நடித்து ராபர்ட் ஜெமகிஸ் இயக்கியது. சராசரிக்கு மேலான படம். பல ஆஸ்கார் விருதுகளை வென்றது. ஆனால் அந்த சமயத்தில் வந்த பல்ப் ஃபிக்ஷன், ஷாஷான்க் ரிடம்ப்ஷன் ஆகியவை இதை விட சிறந்த படங்கள். புத்தகம் படித்ததில்லை.

மாரத்தான் மான், Marathon Man- வில்லியம் கோல்ட்மான் எழுதிய நாவல். டஸ்டின் ஹாஃப்மன், லாரன்ஸ் ஒலிவியர் நடித்து ஜான் ஷ்லேசிங்கர் இயக்கியது. பார்த்ததுமில்லை, படித்ததுமில்லை.

மாஜிக், Magic – இதுவும் வில்லியம் கோல்ட்மான் எழுதிய நாவல். அந்தோனி ஹாப்கின்ஸ் நடித்து ரிச்சர்ட் அட்டன்பரோ இயக்கியது. பார்த்ததுமில்லை, படித்ததுமில்லை, கேள்விப்பட்டதும் இல்லை.

டிராகுலா, Dracula – ப்ராம் ஸ்டோகர் எழுதிய நாவல். கமல் ஃப்ரான்சிஸ் ஃபோர்ட் கொப்போலா இயக்கிய படத்தை சொல்கிறார். நான் பார்த்திருப்பது பழைய பேலா லுகோசி நடித்த படம்தான். லுகொசி ஒரு eerie உணர்வை நன்றாக கொண்டு வருவார். நாவல் சுமார்தான், ஆனால் ஒரு genre-இன் பிரதிநிதி.

காட்ஃபாதர், Godfather – மரியோ பூசோ எழுதியது. அல் பசினோ, மார்லன் பிராண்டோ நடித்து ஃப்ரான்சிஸ் ஃபோர்ட் கொப்போலா இயக்கிய மிக அருமையான படம். நல்ல நாவலும் கூட.

கமல் கொஞ்சம் esoteric படங்களை விரும்புவார் போல தெரிகிறது. எனக்கு மிகவும் பிடித்த, மிக அற்புதமான நாவலும், அருமையான படமும் ஆன To Kill a Mockingbird-ஐ விட்டுவிட்டாரே!

கமலின் லிஸ்டில் காட்ஃபாதர் மட்டுமே நல்ல புத்தகம், மற்றும் நல்ல படம் – என்னைப் பொறுத்த வரையில். நான் படித்திருக்கும் புத்தகமும் அது ஒன்றுதான். கமல் சொல்லி இருக்கும் படங்களில் நான் பாதிக்கு மேல் பார்த்ததில்லை. பார்த்த வரையில் காட்ஃபாதர் மற்றும் எ க்ளாக்வொர்க் ஆரஞ்ச் மட்டுமே பார்க்க வேண்டிய படம். ஆனால் அவர் சொல்லி இருக்கும் படங்களில் பல பிரபலமான படங்கள் – ஸ்பார்டகஸ், ஃபாரஸ்ட் கம்ப், பெஞ்சமின் பட்டன், சிட்டி சிட்டி பாங் பாங் – இருக்கின்றன. பார்த்திருப்பீர்கள். படித்திருப்பீர்கள். நீங்கள் கமலின் தேர்வுகளைப் பற்றி என்ன நினைக்கிறீர்கள்?

தொடர்புடைய பதிவுகள்
கமல் சிபாரிசுகள் – சிறந்த திரைக்கதைகள் உள்ள தமிழ் படங்கள்

Snow Angels (David Gordon Green, 2008). A grim, atmospheric drama about people living small, desolate lives and the way a family tragedy accentuates the levels of their dismay to such a point that bad choices begin to take over. Green handles the film with an elegant restraint that sometimes veers close to bloodlessness, but overall gives it a hard, tense sheen. Adapted from a novel, the film sometimes feels as though it’s missing out on the deeper psychological understanding that’s far easier to realize on the page than on the screen. It offers up nice actorly moments for Sam Rockwell and Kate Beckinsale as the two leads and they hit their big emotional moments with gratifying force. Still, by the time the plot gets to the hard logic of its conclusion, you feel like you don’t really know these characters, especially Beckinsale’s, quite enough to make the ending feel as chilling as it should. As he demonstrated with earlier features like George Washington and All the Real Girls, Green’s greatest strength is crafting a depiction of small time life in all its grinding loneliness and interconnections that is equal parts authentic and poetic.

Which Way Home (Rebecca Cammisa, 2009). A documentary about the dangerous journey undertaken by central American children traveling alone in a quest to cross Mexico for the happy illusion of the United States promised land. The film meanders as much as the tired old train tracks that the kids follow, but Cammisa’s devotion to following these kids, getting in the durable tragedy of their lives and asking them about their dreams of a better future leads to a film that is consistently heart-rending. As blustery proclamations that “illegal means illegal” continue to dominate the dwindling discourse on U.S. immigration law, Cammisa puts a human face–a child’s face–on the issue. Attempts to discard any hint of humanity in favor of keeping the debate safely in the abstract seem especially cruel in the reflected light of this earnest piece of filmmaking.

Incident at Oglala (Michael Apted, 1992). This documentary from English director Michael Apted examines events surrounding the killing of two FBI agents on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in 1975. It is a thorough and unfussy act of scholarship, an attempt to get at all the angles of an uncertain event and consider whether or not justice was properly rendered. Apted lays it all out, like a man trying to get every puzzle piece on the table because staring at the entirety of it will be the only way to spot the solution. He makes a compelling case that conclusions finally arrived upon by those investigating and prosecuting the case were of dubious merit, and provides the level of background needed to understand how the inclination to reach those conclusions was developed, grown out of animosities stirred up by the burgeoning movement to achieve civil rights victories for Native Americans. It does what the finest documentaries do: it stirs you with the sturdiness of its facts instead of the bombast of its opinions.

Shampoo (Hal Ashby, 1975). Eight years after the sublime Bonnie and Clyde, Warren Beatty offered up his second film as a producer with this utterly unique film, meshing slyly satirical irony with the story of a hairdresser Lothario who’s enduring a particularly hectic spell on Election Day 1968, bounding between partners like a rapidly racing pinball in the hours leading up to the moment Richard Nixon is the 37th President of the United States. This also marked Beatty’s first screenwriting credit (along with Robert Towne, one year after Chinatown) and it’s hard to avoid seeing a hefty dash of autobiography in the stressed Romeo he’s polished up for himself. Beatty is predictably terrific in the role, and there’s an equally strong supporting performance by Jack Warden as a cuckolded husband who takes a break from anticipating the anointment of his preference presidential candidate to dabble in the Los Angeles counter-culture. The movie is filled with nice, seemingly offhand touches that flesh it all out, give a sense of a whole set of conflicts, concerns and histories taking place outside the frame, a quality that perfectly suits the cerebral care of director Hal Ashby.

The Underneath (Steven Soderbergh, 1995). This bit of film noir playfulness anticipated Soderbergh’s strident, inspired return to the forefront three years later with Out of Sight. Based on an old Don Tracy novel, The Underneath follows a man of questionable repute who returns to his hometown for his mother’s wedding. He winds up sticking around, in part because his new stepfather helps him get a job with a local armored car company, an occupational opportunity that will clearly offer problematic temptations. Besides building a smart, lean, toughly clever screenplay out of the material, Soderbergh takes on the film as an extended excuse to experiment with different techniques, dabbling in deep focus or washing scenes with color as if its all being scene through the vibrant tinted glass accenting the suburban homes the characters move through. Much of Soderbergh’s career has been marked by him trying on different approaches, different voices. He’s often referred to one of the films he made shortly after this one, Schizopolis, as being the point when he started markedly moving the boundaries of his work, but I think you can see some of that pending movement in the fringes of The Underneath.

(Posted simultaneously to “Jelly-Town!”)

The girls of Paran Maum

I finally got around to rewatching Linda Linda Linda last week, a Japanese movie released in 2005 I saw for the first time last summer after several people told me “you gotta check it out, you’ll love it, it’s totally your kind of movie.” And it really is. In fact, it might be your kind of movie too (especially if you’re my friend Caitlin, and I’ve been meaning to watch this movie with you for over a year). A touching, feel-good movie about a group of teenage girls putting a band together for a school festival? It’s pretty much a crowd-pleaser, especially for feminist music geeks who like movies.

The plot is as follows: guitarist Kei Tachibana (Yuu Kashii), drummer Kyoko Yamada (Aki Maeda), and bassist Nozomi Shirakawa (Shiori Sekine of Base Ball Bear) have a band and are playing Hiiragi-sai, their school’s annual festival. They’ve got a great set list of covers from The Blue Hearts, a popular Japanese rock band. Problem is, their singer-guitarist has quit the band, leaving them down a frontwoman days before their gig. They need a replacement and are adamant about it being a girl. They decide on Son (Bae Doona), a shy exchange student from South Korea whose Japanese is shaky and has never sung in front of an audience before. They rise to the occasion, with a little bit of struggle and growing along the way. Might sound like familiar territory, but it’s totally delightful.

One thing I really enjoy about this movie is how rehearsal is central to the girls’ interactions. For one, the time and effort they spend in practive, is critical in any band learning how to play together and key to their homosocial interactions. While some movies might document a band’s progression in one “rockin’” montage, this movie devotes several scenes to the band’s improvement, as well as the frustrations and tensions that result from feeling like they’re not getting their sound right. In their first rehearsal, they muddle their way through The Blue Heart’s hit “Linda Linda,” only to giggle at how horrible it was before trying again. Later, we find the girls forced to practice quietly at Kei’s ex-boyfriend’s studio space well into the night.

I also enjoy their commitment to the band. While the girls do have ex-boyfriends and crushes, they choose to balance boys with other issues their band usually comes first. In a key scene, Son is asked out by a male classmate named Mackey at school. The rest of the girls look through the window of an abandoned classroom, watching their lead singer choose the band, and her friends, over some guy who happens to like her but that she doesn’t know.

Sometimes the band wears on the girls, and the movie reaches a climax when the girls have worked so hard that they collapse after an all-night practice that makes them late to their gig. Their ambitions sometimes eclipse reality, as is clearly evident with Kei dreams about opening for The Ramones while sleeping through much of the festival. Yet, their drive still gets them to the gig, with their talent ultimately ensuring a rousing success at the festival and the promise of this new band.

Kei Tachibana, future seasoned professional; image courtesy of cinemastrikesback.com

I do find the girls’ fandom of The Blue Hearts, whose songs they cover, to be quite interesting. For one, girls identifying with a fast, hard-rocking all-male rock band, while at no time talking about how cute certain members are, seems to suggest a wider range of possibilities for who can influence a girl. The band even goes so far as to call themselves Paran Maum, which is “blue hearts” in Korean (an indication of Son’s importance to the band). There’s a lot of talk on this blog about the importance of women and girls influencing one another in popular music. However, we shouldn’t short shrift what it means for girls finding their sound and voice through boys and men or ignore the progressive and possibly queer potential in girls identifying with boys. Like Patti Smith, PJ Harvey, and Sleater-Kinney before them, these girls don’t plug in and rock out to be with the band — they are the band and want to thrash just as hard as the boys.

Nozomi, Kyoko, and Kei help Son learn The Blue Hearts; image courtesy of cinemastrikesback.com

And, of course, we cannot ignore the obvious queerness of an all-girl band who work closely together to perform a song clearly written for a girl from a boy and maintaining the boy’s words and intent. It’s where the movie gets its name and the band gets its purpose, after all.

As there are queer dimensions to the girls’ fandom, they also have an interesting relationship with fashion, ethnic identity, and music history, perhaps in some ways analogous to Mitsuko’s relationship to Elvis Presley and rockabilly fashion in Mystery Train. Kyoko rocks a Joan Jett-style mullet and weave punk fashion into their school wardrobe. She also shorten the length of her skirts, sport funky sneakers, and plays with accessories. Son and Nozomi opt out of fashion-plate status, feeling more comfortable in frumpy attire, while Kei prefers a more athletic, clean-cut look. In short, while they’re all required to abide by standardized dress, like many girls, they figure out a way to create and play with looks that better reflect their personality, and some are clearly influenced by rock music in constructing their identity.

Just as Paran Maum are influenced by The Blue Hearts, The Blue Hearts are clearly influenced by The Ramones. I don’t want to suggest that the Japanese cherrypick through relics and artifacts of bygone western pop culture because they are uniformly obsessed with American culture. For one, The Blue Hearts were active and popular in Japan during the late 80s and early 90s, in large part because they were heavily informed by classic British and American punk.

For another, The Ramones themselves had a similar relationship with their own American past, turning to surf rock and girl groups from the 50s and 60s. For them, while most 70s rock bands were trying to set a record for the longest organ solo, rock music needed the return of the three-minute pop song.

In addition, it’s worth pointing out that the movie itself has an interesting relationship with Japanese and American music culture via the presence of former Smashing Pumpkins’ guitarist James Iha, who is Japanese American and composed the movie’s instrumental tracks.

James Iha writes the songs; image courtesy of smashingpumpkins.com

As this movie depicts a band’s need to improvise, make quick decisions, and embrace makeshift situations, encouraging girls to be independent thinkers, so to does it showcase ingenuity. A tremendous example of this for me is Son’s ability to find surprising rehearsal spaces like empty karaoke rooms in order to become more comfortable with her voice and the microphone. In a lesser movie, Son’s scene in the karaoke bar would come off as oppressively quirky. Here, I find it touching. We see a girl negotiating with a male employee over the room and witness her becoming increasingly comfortable, if not still a bit awkward, with her voice, an unfamiliar language, and a developing stage presence. That she’s doing it on her own, in a space she’s found for herself, seems as good an example as any of how girls have to be creative and free-thinking for the assurance of their own maturity.  

Admittedly, I haven’t seen too many Japanese movies and have nothing more than a cursory, Criterion-approved understanding of Asian cinema, along with its influence and heterogenity. One thing that struck me is how much like a Wes Anderson movie Linda Linda Linda felt in terms of its reliance on long tracking shots, wide angles, deadpan humor, panoramic framing, and meditative pacing. That said, I hasten to add that Anderson has stated an indebtedness to the French New Wave and American directors like Hal Ashby, I’m assuming Japanese filmmakers like Akira Kurosawa and Yasujirō Ozu left an impression as well. Having never seen an Ozu movie at the writing of this post (though I do have Good Morning at home), I can’t help but wonder if Linda Linda Linda is actually continuing its nation’s film tradition and that the only folks who’d argue an Andersonian influence are just Western viewers with a shallow scene of cinephilia.

I’m also not entirely clear about the nature of Japanese schools. I came through an underfunded, less-than-superlative Texas public school system. Thus, Paran Maum’s school seems like a tony liberal arts magnate where teenagers are given considerable support and resources for their artistic inclinations, thus implying that the students come from respectable middle- to upper-middle-class families. But I’m not sure if this high school is exceptional in Japan or an indication of the country’s to education and their status as an economic superpower. So while I initially feel the need to mention the classed dimensions of privilege that allow the girls the fine arts education and leisure time to form a band (instead of, say, take jobs or quit school to support their families), I don’t want to suggest that what I see as an American viewer is in accord with Japan’s classed realities.

That said, despite my unfamiliarity with Japanese culture and my clearly raced position as an American white woman, I felt the band’s ambition and spunk tremendously inspiring and universal for anyone wants to see girls tear it up. I rooted for them through their hard times and had a smile on my face when they plugged in and finally let it rip.

Like Kei, I'm really glad Son is in the band; image courtesy of bateszi.animeuknews.net

Título original:Being There
“Um jardineiro de inteligência bem limitada, cujo todo conhecimento provém de seu jardim e de programas de televisão, se vê obrigado a sair da casa onde morou toda a vida depois da morte do patrão.”
Enfim, um Kaspar Hauser moderno na pele de nada menos que Peter Sellers…

You gotta give it to Jack Nicholson; when he’s good, he’s really good. I remember quite vividly seeing a preview for The Bucket List a little while back and thinking to myself, “Wow, Jack Nicholson acts like a geriatric character in a King Vidor flick nowadays! That movie looks like it’ll blow hard!” and heartily laughing to nobody because they none of my friends caught my witty King Vidor reference. But seeing today’s feature, The Last Detail, reminds me why Nicholson is not only a household name, but a real powerhouse when he wants to be. The Last Detail is what movies used to be, and still have the potential to be; edgy, in your face, and dangerous. A searing indictment of authority as well as a thoughtful look at the fruitlessness of youthful rebellion, The Last Detail glances across the cloying gulf of time and silently judges our moral character, wondering just how much we’ve learned in 30 years. I appreciate the confrontation from the past, as well as what it was trying to say in its present.

It begins with a simple theft. Young US Navy sailor Larry Meadows decides to make a bid for stealing $40 from the Commandant’s wife. It fails, he is caught, and for his insubordination, the fellow is given 8 years (!!!) in a Naval prison in New Hampshire. Pretty strict, huh? So Meadows is being escorted to the prison by two older sailors named Billy “Bad Ass” Buddusky and “Mule” Mulhall. The pair isn’t exactly the best for the job of getting this job done by the book, though, because Buddusky finds this sentence egregious. He actually takes a liking to Meadows and decides to live it up with him for the week they have to complete the assignment, spending their per diem on booze and women. The three live fast and hard, snubbing their nose at the powers-that-be while getting lost in the big city. Meadows learns a lot on their trip, and the boys really open up to him as a friend, but when he decides to make a break for it, their loyalties to each other and the Navy are questioned.

What an interesting, meandering movie! It’s a buddy movie mixed with a message movie mixed with a journey movie, and all these things come together to make it a good movie. Based on a novel by Daniel Ponicsan, The Last Detail endures as a powerful movie that transcends its decade with its openly rebellious nature and its well-written, enthralling organic dialog. And it is QUITE organic, often brought up in the 70s as an example of Hollywood going “too far”. Some classics include:

Meadows: Drop your socks and grab your cocks, we’re going to a party.

Buddusky: If this kid gets pussy out of this, I’ll eat my flat hat. (!)

____________________________________________________________

Mulhall: Tell you what, mister citizen bartender. You can take your beers and shove ‘em up your ass sideways. Can you dig it?

____________________________________________________________

Buddusky: You know what I like most about this uniform? The way it makes your dick look. (!!)

____________________________________________________________

Meadows (checking out a porn mag): Are they really doing that when they take that picture?

Buddusky: Well kid, there’s more things in this life than you can possibly imagine. I knew a whore once in Wilmington. She had a glass eye… used to take it out and wink people off for a dollar. (!!!!!!)

Well, don’t that just beat all! Just like a real sailor! It’s all about the rapport between the three leads. Otis Young plays Mulhall, the semi-serious black sailor with a sense of responsibility. I love how cool this dude is! It’s like the Navy enlisted Shaft! He’s a really wise fellow for a young Navy enlisted man, and some of Otis Young’s scenes really belie his age. Randy Quaid, so young here, is Meadows, and plays it with a sheepishness and a vulnerability that I’ve never seen from him before, and probably will never again. He’s actually pretty fantastic, and he reminds me of Lenny from Of Mice and Men.

But everyone remembers this movie because of Jack. Jack is the man here. I love Billy “Bad Ass” Buddusky. He reminds me of a cool older brother; dispensing home-spun advice about women, beer, and life, while never admitting fault or a lack of knowledge. He’s ALWAYS got something to say here, and that’s the persona that made him a star. There’s something about that eye-rolling, cigar-smoking, profanity-using young bastard that will remain in the memory of Hollywood as long as it lives. Nicholson was a real Hollywood bad-boy, giving aging A-list ne’er-do-wells like Peter O’Toole and Marlon Brando runs for their money with his sadistic charm and his filthy, filthy mouth. Roles like this and One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest defined his trademark sarcasm as well as his flashes of brilliance that would come less and less often in later years.

Hal Ashby created a winner with this one. He really helped define the movie-making process of directors’ rule in the 70s with films like Shampoo, Coming Home, Being There, and, of course, The Last Detail. There hasn’t been a movie in recent memory to come out with such a unique feeling to it, with such an air of adventure and fresh rebellion, to my knowledge, and if you know of one, please point me in its nearest direction. Randy Quaid, Otis Young, and Jack Nicholson gel together exceedingly well, and with dynamite sequences like the prayer scene in the clip above, or the infamous bartender fight, you might want to take the time to discover this one. I give The Last Detail 9 wink-jobs out of 10! A high recommendation!

Tomorrow I take a look at a movie I needed to do a review of a LOOONNNGGG time ago. Get ready for my belated review of Inglourious Basterds! Until then!

Hal Ashby, born in 1929, was an American film director. His first film was The Landlord, which had a really strong story and visual style and recieved various positive comments. Because Ashby was a film editor before his directing career, his films has a good visual style. He plays around with color, quick cuts, and music choice. He was one of the first people to make a cult film and Harold and Maude is known as one of the cult classics today. This film   influences the trend of indie films of our time. Other films directed by Ashby are Shampoo , Coming Home, and Bound of Glory. 

“Shampoo is the quintessence of what the world felt like to me in 1975: loose, a little lost, a bit sweet, naive, sincere. It’s America, brimming with candy and possibilities, though we might still fuck it up.” – comment made on Hal Ashby’s film

“A lot of people enjoy being dead. But they are not dead, really. They’re just backing away from life.” ~~Maude Chardin

Director Hal Ashby announces his intentions for “Harold and Maude” in the opening scene, and those intentions are, shall we say, a wee bit impish: Bored, rich, purposeless 20-something Harold Chasen (Bud Cort) swings from a noose while his mother (Vivian Pickles) can’t be bothered to end her phone call. Staged suicides, we learn, are common in the palatial Chasen homestead and no cause for alarm — just annoying interruptions in mom’s quest to marry off her son. Those young adults, the things they do to stave off ennui.

And so begins “Harold and Maude,” an unconventional romantic comedy where the pursuit of life trumps all that mushy love stuff (yippee). But perhaps “unconventional” isn’t the right word to describe Ashby’s movie, for it hardly captures all the wild weirdness that makes the movie — based on Colin Higgins’ novel — such a strangely moving affirmation of life.

First, though, there’s the lovely mishmash of bizarreness to muddle through. It’s no wonder everyone calls this one a “cult classic”; “Love Story” it ain’t. (Chorus from Broken Record Girl: yippee.) Harold’s got absolutely no interest in life. But he’s cheeks over teacups in love with death, or at least the idea of it, so he spends his time staging elaborate suicides (the human torch bit is a personal favorite) and attending random funerals. It’s there, in a graveyard, that he meets Maude Chardin (Ruth Gordon), a 79-year-old widow with an irrepressibly optimistic worldview and a knack for lifting cars. She senses Harold’s stuck in limbo, so she befriends him, slowly wearing down his resistance. At first Harold is simply a tagalong in Maude’s madcap adventures — including the liberation of a potted tree that ends in a side-splitting car chase — but gradually he becomes a participant. The shift is subtle, but when you do take notice it’s so powerful that it almost knocks you over.

Which is true of “Harold and Maude” as a whole. At its core the film is a beautiful message movie, a retelling of that time-honored “carpe diem” speech. It’s the unusual script, however, that makes the message seem fresh. Higgins’ novel dials down the sentamentality and avoids cliches, and so, too, does Ashby’s film. Ashby elects to bury the insights underneath all the blackly funny suicides and Maude’s antics. (The scene where she plays war protestor to Harold’s gung-ho recruit? Priceless.) Instead, Ashby lets the insights emerge in quieter moments, like the one where Maude, desperate to save that potted tree from its stifling life of city servitude, tells Harold: “Grab the shovel.” It’s a little scene, a throwaway little line, but what punch it has. ”Harold and Maude” is jam-packed with these kinds of brilliant moments. And like any truly great movie, there’s just no end to them.

Those moments probably wouldn’t mean much without Cort and Gordon, who turn in wonderful performances as good today as they were in 1971. It’s a tricky dance, shifting from dark comedy to drama and back, but these two do it beautifully. Cort’s Harold is a strange creature, a boy who can’t fully embrace life but lacks the guts to commit suicide, and that is off-putting at first. But there’s a deep current of fear in Harold that Cort makes painfully real. “I haven’t lived. I’ve died a few times,” he says. What 20-year-old, staring into that void between youth and adulthood, hasn’t felt the same? Gordon plays nicely off that negative energy, making Maude less a lover (though there’s a scene that suggests she is) than a teacher. She wants to reach Harold, show him what it means to take that fear and use it, channel it. But she’s no soapbox preacher. She couldn’t give a fig about morality: ”It’s best not to be too moral. You cheat yourself out of too much life.”

That, you see, is Maude’s gift to Harold and Ashby’s gift to us: the reminder that backing away from life is its own kind of suicide. Call me sentimental, but when that truth’s hidden in a film this haunting, poignant, comical and original? I’ll fall for it every time.

    Hal Ashby fought the Hollywood system and throughout the 1970’s he won. At the top of his career with films like “The Last Detail”, “Harold and Maude”, “Bound for Glory”, “Shampoo”, “Coming Home” and the decade ending “Being There.” Ashby was one the most prolific and best directors of the ‘70’s then came the 1980’s and a downward spiral that lasted until his death in December 1988.  What happened? Well, on the surface, Ashby, Hollywood’s hippie director, known to smoke a lot of weed and use cocaine on occasion could easily be classified as another drug burn out. Most people seem to think that is what happened and the studios pretty much encouraged that line of thinking. After reading Nick Dawson’s recent biography “Hal Ashby: Life of a Hollywood Rebel”, you come away with the conclusion that yeah, Ashby used drugs but he was not a cocaine addicted druggie and drugs never got in the way of his work.  He was a consummate professional who lived, breathed, and died for his films. More so than his five ex-wives, and one child who he never could bring himself to know, Hal Ashby’s films were his family. 

    Ashby’s early life was marked by the suicide of his father, which he could never confront and would haunt him for the rest of his life. He would become the father that was not there and he buried himself in his work. Dawson details his years of apprenticeship as an assistant film editor working which such greats as William Wyler and George Stevens both who he came to admire and wanted to emulate. His big break came when he began working with Norman Jewison who became his mentor and good friend. It was Jewison who gave Hal his first break as a director with “The Landlord”, a film that would give him his film identify, as a purveyor of protagonists who were outsiders. It was 1970 and it was his decade. The cult classic “Harold and Maude” followed and then came “The Last Detail” with Jack Nicholson and more uses of the “F” word than anyone had heard before on screen. Ironically, of all the films he made in the 1970’s, his biggest hit, “Shampoo” was the one film of the decade that did not reflect his personality. It was the first time Ashby felt like a hired gun. The film was the brainchild of Warren Beatty and screenwriter/director Robert Towne, two strong personalities who would force their way into getting the film made with their vision. They were the big Hollywood guns and had the power. For Ashby, it was an artistic set back; still he had plenty of glory ahead with his next few films.

     Ashby did not trust the moneymen, the suits but for the next few years, he would work well with the ones he met like Jerome Hellman who produced “Coming Home.”  After making the film version of “Being There” in 1979, this would all change. Ashby’s work in the 1980’s took a spiraling fall downward, a combination of bad decisions and bad bosses.  Films like “Lookin’ to Get Out”, which he did as a favor to Jon Voight  and “Second-Hand Hearts” were plagued by  bad scripts and Ashby’s relenting drive to continuously edit and re-editing the films trying to find a way to make it work. Overrun budgets, unfriendly executives, bad mouthing, and multiple projects put into turnaround all contributed to his decline.  Ashby found himself with less and less control. The suits were running the insane asylum. With the “The Slugger’s Wife” one of Neil Simon’s worst scripts producer Ray Stark enforced Simon’s contract that his script could not be changed, unless Simon rewrote which he continuously did during the production. Ashby, who liked to have his actors improvise, found this stifling, unfortunately, he had no recourse; after all, this was Neil Simon. It seemed like an unlikely, pairing Ashby and Broadway Neil Simon, and best said this is one film to avoid.  His films were book ended by Bridges, Beau and Jeff.  Beau starred in his first directorial effort and brother Jeff worked on his last feature “8 Million Ways to Die.”

    To the end of his life, Hal Ashby reciprocated what Norman Jewison did for him by becoming a mentor to young new talent, and lived a life where his films were everything. To the very end, his philosophy was “never sell out.”

Friends,

My complaint is not with the song, but with the video:

It’s kind of a cool version of Wilco’s “In Your Dreams,” a song I think happens to rank as one of their best. It’s simple and straightforward compared to, say, any song from their Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album. By the way, the new Wilco album, Wilco (the album), isn’t bad either. I haven’t fully digested it, but it played through a few errands I had the other day.  But “In Your Dreams” feels just about right on to me. Kind of the way I think the White Stripe’s “Now Mary” may be one of their best. It’s bare bones blues-riff rock and roll….(and I like it?).

But the problem isn’t the song. Or the recording. It’s Mr. Thomas J. Junkyard and Mr. Thomas J. Junkyard’s Thomas J. Junkyard Productions! They went and inserted Jeff Tweedy’s body (sans his left hand) into dumb picture overlays. I’m pretty sure, Mr. Thomas J. Junkyard would have produced a better Thomas J. Junkyard Production had he just left the live footage alone. Plenty of great rock and roll concert videos manage to kick ass without the cut out and the picture overlays, sir.

Interestingly enough! The album from whence came “In Your Dreams” is titled Being There after the Hal Ashby’s (Harold and Maude and The Last Detail) 1979 Peter Sellers picture of the same title. How do you like that!? Well, you’ll like this even more then. Last Saturday, our Labor Day group pitched some blankets at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery and watched Hal Ashby’s 1979 Peter Sellers picture from whence came Wilco’s 1995 album! How do you like that!? Well, you’ll like this even more. When pitched our blankets at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery showing of Hal Ashby’s 1979 Peter Sellers picture of the same name as Wilco’s 1995 album, we saw sitting across the way, the actress, Anna Ferris. And do you know who she was with? Why, I’ll tell you. She was with her boyfriend. And if you follow that link, you’ll see. Quite the regular-looking guy, that gentleman. Really regular. Incredibly regular. A bona fide “buddy, don’t ever take her for granted because, buddy, you better realize how much of a lucky bastard you are”-type lucky bastard. And I’m not even that much of an Anna Ferris fan! I wanted to approach him, shake his hand, and say, “Sir, you’re proof; there’s hope for us all!”

Just sayin.

Pratfalls

VERDICT:
6/10 Seamen (had to do it)

Not that bad, but kinda disappointing all the same.

The Last Detail is about two navy men that are given orders to escort an eighteen-year-old navy man over to prison to serve out an eight-year sentence for unsuccessfully trying to steal forty bucks from a donation box. So during their five day trip, the two sailors book it off to Washington D.C. and New York City to show the kid the time of his life before he gets locked up for good.

Good, simple premise right there. Lots of male bonding, masculine grunting, wild debauchery and swearing abound to be had amongst three guys that pretty much spend all their time on a boat filled with dudes. And there’s two things in particular that make it worth watching:

1) The combo of Robert Towne’s script and Hal Ashby’s direction that makes you feel like your hanging out these guys as part of the gang instead of watching a group of actors recite their lines. And…

2) Jack Nicholson.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen a movie where Nicholson didn’t look like this, but what a refreshing reminder it is to see him during his heyday. But who am I kidding, this is Jack Fucking Nicholson we’re talking about here. He’s always been the man and he always will be. His volatile role in The Last Detail is just one more badass performance he’s given in a career that’s continually proven that there’s only one Jack. Someone get that man another hot dog, he’s fuckin’ earned it.

A shockingly young Randy Quaid is also in this as the kid who’s getting locked up. He actually got nominated for an Oscar for this movie. It’s almost sad that he’s now remembered as Clark Griswold’s dumbass, redneck brother-in-law from the Vacation movies and as the ex-fighter pilot who got anally probed by aliens back in the sixties and thus saves Earth from total destruction as a form of kamikaze payback in Independence Day, but then again, those are two pretty sweet roles. Actually, I take it back. That’s not sad at all. Way to go, Randy. You’re the man, too.

So the problem with this movie is that not only was not as funny as I had hoped it would be, but the ending kind of sucks and there really isn’t much character development to be had either. You’d think with a movie like this that the whole damn thing would be chock full of watching these three guys change from their old ways and there’d be some kind of redemption at the end, but it really doesn’t come off that way. It actually reminded me of something like On The Road by Jack Kerouac, where the audience is just kind of watching these characters drift through life and then that’s the end. It’s actually kind of depressing after a while. I don’t know, I guess the whole machismo thing didn’t do it for me either.

But even though I wasn’t sold on it the first time around, The Last Detail is a movie I can see myself revisiting because it feels like something you need to see with other people who find it freakin’ hilarious to really get it, like The Big Lebowski. And like I mentioned earlier, it’s directed by Hal Ashby, and I’m big on Hal Ashby, so that’s another reason to give it second look. If anything, it’s compelled me to bump up a crap load of old Jack Nicholson movies to the top of my Netflix queue. So at least I’ve got that going for me.

Bound For Glory (1976), Dir. Hal Ashby/Starring: David Carradine
Criterion Collection

The Criterion Collection once again dusts off an underappreciated gem. This time it’s Bound For Glory, Hal Ashby’s biopic of folk singer Woody Guthrie from 1976 with David Carradine as Guthrie. The movie has been cleaned up considerably and the new 5.1 surround sound is a revelation but the best part of the package is found on disc two. Disc two features a short behind the scenes feature as well as a rollicking interview between Ashby and Carradine. The surprise is a few rough cut scenes from from Ashby’s proposed follow up, another Guthrie movie but one with a sci-fi bent entitled This Time Machine Kills Fascists. The title comes from the phrase Guthrie had painted on his guitar “This Machine Kills Fascists” and it tells the story of an unlikely meeting between Guthrie and Science Fiction writer H.G. Wells. In the film treatment (a replica is included with the booklet) Wells travels thru time to 1944 and has a chance meeting with Woody Guthrie at a roadside diner. The two men get to talking and soon Guthrie has convinced Wells to let him go back in time and kill Hitler using a rifle disguised as a guitar (much like the one used in 1968’s Fastest Guitar Alive starring Roy Orbison). The fifteen minutes of rough footage mainly show Guthrie once again played by David Carradine working on the time machine with H.G. Wells who was portrayed by Ray Walston. While the scenes are interesting it’s clear why it was never made. Instead of This Time Machine Kills Fascists Ashby went on to make the Oscar winning Viet Nam drama Coming Home.

The Three Musketeers (1973)-Richard Lester

The Four Musketeers (1974)-Richard Lester

8 1/2 (1963)-Federico Fellini

The Ten Commandments (1956)-Cecil B. DeMille

12 Angry Men (1957)-Sidney Lumet

The 39 Steps (1935)-Alfred Hitchcock

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)-Stanley Kubrick

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)-Richard Fleischer

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)-Charles Barton

The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926)-Lotte Reiniger

The African Queen (1951)-John Huston

Alien (1979)-Ridley Scott

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)-Lewis Milestone

All the President’s Men (1976)-Alan J. Pakula

Amadeus (1984)-Milos Forman

American Movie (1999)-Chris Smith

Amores Perros (2000)- Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

And the Fifth Horseman is Fear (1965)-Zbynek Byrnych

Andrei Rublev (1966)-Andrei Tarkovsky

Animal Crackers (1930)-Victor Heerman

Annie Hall (1977)-Woody Allen

The Apartment (1960)-Billy Wilder

Apocalypse Now (1979)-Francis Ford Coppola

Around the World in 80 Days (1956)-Michael Anderson

Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)-Frank Capra

Babe (1995)-Chris Noonan

Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)-John Sturges

The Bank Dick (1940)-Edward F. Cline

The Battle of Algiers (1966)-Gillo Pontecorvo

The Battleship Potemkin (1925)-Sergei Eisenstein

Beauty and the Beast (1991)-Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise

Before Sunrise (1995)-Richard Linklater

Being There (1979)-Hal Ashby

The Bicycle Thief (1948)-Vittorio de Sica

The Birds (1963)-Alfred Hitchcock

Blade Runner (1982)-Ridley Scott

Born Into Brothels: Calcutta’s Red Light Kids (2005)-Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman

The Blues Brothers (1980)-John Landis

Brazil (1985)-Terry Gilliam

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)-George Roy Hill

The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)-James Whale

The Bridge On the River Kwai (1957)-David Lean

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)-Robert Wiene

Caddyshack (1980)-Harold Ramis

Casablanca (1942)-Michael Curtiz

Chinatown (1974)-Roman Polanski

Cinema Paradiso (1988)-Giuseppe Tornatore

Citizen Kane (1941)-Orson Welles

City Lights (1931)-Charlie Chaplin

City of God (2002)-Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)-Steven Spielberg

Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)-Woody Allen

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000)-Ang Lee

Das Boot (1981)-Wolfgang Petersen

The Deer Hunter (1978)-Michael Cimino

The Defiant Ones (1958)-Stanley Kramer

Dersu Uzala (1975)-Akira Kurosawa

The Devils (1971)-Ken Russell

Les Diaboliques (1955)-Henri-Georges Clouzot

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)-Luis Bunuel

Do the Right Thing (1989)-Spike Lee

Dog Day Afternoon (1975)-Sidney Lumet

Dracula (1931)-Tod Browning

Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)-Stanley Kubrick

Duck Soup (1933)-Leo McCarey

Dumbo (1941)-Ben Sharpsteen

Eaux d’artifice (1953)-Kenneth Anger

The Elephant Man (1980)-David Lynch

Ed Wood (1994)-Tim Burton

E. T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)-Steven Spielberg

Evil Dead II (1987)-Sam Raimi

The Exorcist (1973)-William Friedkin

Fanny and Alexander (1982)-Ingmar Bergman

Fantasia (1940)-Walt Disney (producer)

Fargo (1996)-Joel and Ethan Coen

Fiddler on the Roof (1971)-Norman Jewison

A Fish Called Wanda (1988)-Charles Crichton and John Cleese

Fitzcarraldo (1982)-Werner Herzog

Forbidden Planet (1956)-Fred M. Wilcox

Frankenstein (1931)-James Whale

Freaks (1932)-Tod Browning

The French Connection (1971)-William Friedkin

Gandhi (1982)-Sir Richard Attenborough

The General (1927)-Clyde Bruckman and Buster Keaton

Ghostbusters (1984)-Ivan Reitman

Glory (1989)-Edward Zwick

The Godfather I and II (1972)-Francis Ford Coppola

The Gold Rush (1925)-Charlie Chaplin

Gone With the Wind (1939)-Victor Fleming, George Cukor, Sam Wood

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)-Sergio Leone

Goodfellas (1990)-Martin Scorsese

The Graduate (1967)-Mike Nichols

Grave of the Fierflies (1988)-Isao Takahata

The Great Dictator (1940)-Charlie Chaplin

The Great Escape (1963)-John Sturges

The Guns of Navarone (1961)-J. Lee Thompson

A Hard Day’s Night (1964)-Richard Lester

Harold and Maude (1971)-Hal Asby

Harvey (1950)-Henry Koster

Hell in the Pacific (1968)-John Boorman

High Noon (1952)-Fred Zinnemann

How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966)-Chuck Jones and Ben Washam

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)-William Dieterle

The Hunt for Red October (1990)-John McTiernan

In the Heat of the Night (1967)-Norman Jewison

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)-Frank Capra

Ivan’s Childhood (1962)-Andrei Tarkovsky

Jaws (1975)-Steven Spielberg

Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)-Stanley Kramer

The Kid (1921)-Charlie Chaplin

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)-Robert Mulligan

Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)-Robert Hamer

King Kong (1933)-Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Shoedsack

Lady and the Tramp (1955)-Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, and Hamilton Luske

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)-David Lean

The Lost World (1925)-Harry O. Hoyt

Patton (1970)-Franklin J. Schaffner

The Maltese Falcon (1941)-John Huston

Man With A Movie Camera (1929)-Dziga Vertov

Manchurian Candidate (1962)-John Frankenheimer

Manhattan (1979)-Woody Allen

Mary Poppins (1964)-Robert Stevenson

Memento (2000)-Christopher Nolan

Metropolis (1927)-Fritz Lang

The Miracle Worker (1962)-Arthur Penn

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)-Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)-Frank Capra

The Muppet Movie (1979)-James Frawley

The Music Man (1962)-Morton DeCosta

My Fair Lady (1964)-George Cukor

Network (1976)-Sidney Lumet

A Night at the Opera (1935)-Sam Wood

The Night of the Living Dead (1968)-George Romero

North By Northwest (1959)-Alfred Hitchcock

Nosferatu (1922)-F. W. Murnau

Oldboy (2003)-Chan-wook Park

On the Waterfront (1954)-Elia Kazan

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)-Milos Forman

Ordet (1955)-Carl Theodor Dreyer

Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)-Guillermo del Toro

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)-Carl Theodor Dreyer

Paths of Glory (1975)-Stanley Kubrick

The Phantom of the Opera (1925)-Rupert Julian

Planet of the Apes (1968)-Franklin J. Schaffner

The Princess Bride (1987)-Rob Reiner

Psycho (1960)-Alfred Hitchcock

Pulp Fiction (1994)-Quenton Tarantino

The Quiet Duel (1949)-Akira Kurosawa

The Quiet Man (1952)-John Ford

Raging Bull (1980)-Martin Scorsese

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)-Steven Spielberg

Rain Man (1988)-Barry Levinson

Ran (1985)-Akira Kurosawa

Rashomon (1950)-Akira Kurosawa

Rear Window (1954)-Alfred Hitchcock

Rocky (1976)-John G. Alvidsen

Rosemary’s Baby (1968)-Roman Polanski

Rushmore (1998)-Wes Anderson

Safety Last! (1923)-Fred C. Newmeyer and SamTaylor

The Saragossa Manuscript (1965)-Wojciech Has

Schindler’s List (1993)-Steven Spielberg

Scrooge (1951)-Brian Desmond Hurst

Serpico (1973)-Sidney Lumet

Seven Samurai (1954)-Akira Kurosawa

The Seventh Seal (1957)-Ingmar Bergman

Sherlock, Jr. (1924)-Buster Keaton

The Shining (1980)-Stanley Kubrick

Silence of the Lambs (1991)-Jonathan Demme

Singin’ in the Rain (1952)-Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly

Sleeping Beauty (1959)-Clyde Geronimi

Some Like It Hot (1959)-Billy Wilder

The Sound of Music (1965)-Robert Wise

Spartacus (1960)-Stanley Kubrick

Spirited Away (2001)-Hayao Miyazaki

Stalag 17 (1953)-Billy Wilder

Stalker (1979)-Andrei Tarkovsky

Star Wars (1977)-George Lucas

The Sting (1973)-George Roy Hill

Sunset Blvd. (1950)-Billy Wilder

Taxi Driver (1976)-Martin Scorsese

The Thief of Bagdad (1940)-Michael Powell, Ludwig Berger, Tim Whelan, Alexander Korda, Zoltan Korda, William Cameron Menzies

The Third Man (1949)-Carol Reed

This Is Spinal Tap (1984)-Rob Reiner

Tokyo Story (1953)-Yasujiro Ozu

Tootsie (1982)-Sydney Pollack

Toy Story (1995)-John Lasseter

Trading Places (1983)-John Landis

A Trip to the Moon (1902)-Georges Melies

Ugetsu (1953)-Kenji Mizoguchi

Unforgiven (1992)-Clint Eastwood

The Verdict (1982)-Sidney Lumet

Vertigo (1958)-Alfred Hitchcock

The Virgin Spring (1960)-Ingmar Bergman

Viva Zapata! (1952)-Elia Kazan

WALL-E (2008)-Andrew Stanton

Waiting For Guffman (1996)-Christopher Guest

Watership Down (1978)-Martin Rosen

Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)-Robert Zemeckis

The Wild Bunch (1969)-Sam Peckinpah

Wild Strawberries (1957)-Ingmar Bergman

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971)-Mel Stuart

Wings of Desire (1985)-Wim Wenders

Witness for the Prosecution (1957)-Billy Wilder

The Wizard of Oz (1939)-Victor Fleming, Mervyn LeRoy, and King Vidor

The Wolf Man (1941)-George Waggner

The Wrestler (2008)-Darren Aronofsky

Young Frankenstein (1974)-Mel Brooks

Z (1969)-Costa Gravas

Zorba the Greek (1964)-Mihalis Kakagiannis

P. S. This list is naturally subject to be added to

Yusuf Islam’s birthday. Or “Cat Stevens” as known to his fans.

This is a maudlin, obvious, and sappy anti-war film. The first scene, featuring real Vietnam veterans (and Jon Voight as a paraplegic who, out of respect, wisely decided not to add to their dialogue) talking about their experiences and what Vietnam did to them, is raw, real, and excellent. Unfortunately, nothing else in the movie, barring one truly amazing sex scene, lives up to it. It’s basically the tale of two damaged Vietnam vets and the woman who loves them. I hate how so many supposedly profound war movies end up being little more than glorified Harlequin novellas. Which is a little unfair to Ashby, because Coming Home does attempt to say something, but it doesn’t really succeed. Props to the mostly fine performances from Voight, Jane Fonda, and Bruce Dern (I love that guy!). The soundtrack is also stacked with amazing songs by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, and any other popular 60’s entertainer you can think of, even though at times Ashby just slots them in with little care.

C

El viernes por la tarde estuve en la presentación del ¿último? número de la revista “Children´s book of american birds” y en el concierto de los hermanos no reconocidos de Iván Ferreiro:  Presidente.

Ví a músicos callejeros con instrumentos de ferralla en la calle Tallers

(en Bcn está prohibido):

Me emborraché en el bar filogay “La penúltima” y en el recién abierto “La Porta del Raval”. Y en los baños fue donde descubrí que la inteligencia es sexy. Al saberlo, salí corriendo a la calle e hice el pino de puro placer. Me dí a contagiar a los transeuntes de poesía y felicidad.

El sábado fui a ver el concierto de Frank Harvey y la pinchada de DJ Zodiac en el Insanity Vice.

Al salir de nuevo a la calle, me acordé de mi descubrimiento del viernes por la noche, y no pude remediármelo, tuve que hacer el pino en una pared del Eixample de puro goce y placer, llenando las calles de poesía y fulgor.

Grité con el mayor impudor: “la inteligencia es sexy”.

En la Avenida Mistral encontramos una bicicleta abandonada del Bicing y compramos un montón de latas de Estrella a un paqui y corrimos despues a celebrar mi descubrimiento.

La alegría fue tanta durante el fin de semana que el domingo quedé rendido,

tan tan cansado… que no tuve más remedio que irme a meditar a la bañera:

Créditos:

Poeta: Luís Cernuda

Poema: “Estoy cansado”

Libro: Un río, un amor [1929]

Además, descubrí también

<<<<<5 cosas>>>>>>

por las que ha merecido seguir vivo durante el fin de semana:

1. El  libro/reportaje Falsos Testigos del porvenir, de Braulio García Jaén y La Doble Hélice, el blog que ha servido de soporte al proyecto.

(gracias a Miguel Angel Maya)

2. La película Harold & Maude, de Hal Ashby, que viene al hilo del proyecto Harold & Blúm.

3. La revista literaria breve “La Comunidad Inconfesable”, que saca nuevo número de Julio.

4. Enterarme de que los libros de la editorial nicaragüense Leteo Ediciones pueden descargarse ¡gratis!

5. La canción El baile de la ducha, de Carlitos.