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My boy's wicked smart.

During a conversation about high-paid book club and party faciliators, the 'Fesser observed: "There are so many types of prostitutes."

The Cinetrix Checks Her Makeup

Last night, I saw Errol Morris' new documentary about Robert S. McNamara, The Fog of War [click to link to the dizzyingly well-designed Web site]. Today, I wrote glorious prose about the film, the circumstances under which I stumbled into seeing it, the luminaries that were present, and much more. Then I lost it. The post. Then I lost it. My mind.

So, on to the luminaries. Mr. Pentagon Papers himself, Daniel Ellsberg, was part of the post-film panel discussion with Errol Morris, which was hosted by Harvard's Center for European Studies. [Don't ask me. The crudites were yummy, and they were very free with the wine.] So too was Susan Orlean [part of the panel, that is, though not shy about having wine either], who is a Nieman Fellow at Harvard this year. I had recognized her during the screening [we were in the same row] and afterward had a nice chat with her and her husband John. We talked Kinkade and the tiger lady and more.

For a long time, I had held a petty grudge against Orlean for her portrayal of a certain Saturday night ritual with which I had the misfortune of being all-too intimately familiar, in her collection Saturday Night. I've never read The Orchard Thief nor seen Adaptation because of it, but I generally enjoy her New Yorker pieces. In person? She's delightful. Also charming. I can see how she's a successful interviewer.

It's worth a trip to her Web site for a chuckle. Refresh the page and these and other phrases show up after her name:
Susan Orlean

is no Jack Kennedy

knows when you are sleeping

swims on a full stomach

prefers boxers

does her own stunts

speeds up at yellow lights

lets it ride on red

means well

plus many more. I totally want to steal this idea. It's not as funny as this, but little is.

And to her credit, Orlean didn't flinch when I came up to her and said, "I understand you know when I am sleeping."

Do the Liquor Dance

Late last night, the 'Fesser and I joined a friend to thrill to the musical stylings of New Orleans' own Tin Men, arguably among the finest washboard-tuba-steel guitar combos in the land. Our pal summed up their oeuvre and sound nicely: They play everything from Leadbelly to Led Zep, but it all comes out sounding like Tom Waits crossed with Louis Armstrong. Last night, they gave Michael Hurley's "Werewolf" [also covered by Cat Power] the rockabilly clatter of a hirsuite, teenaged Michael Landon. Plus, Master and Commander fans, they sing sea chanties!

A word of caution: A drunk man with a tuba ain't nothin' nice.

Visions of the Dream City

I have never been one of those folks who looked at New York City as, somehow, the answer, the solution, the place where you could finally become who you truly were, who you were meant to be. It may be the confidence bred by my New York stock [Both parents are native New Yorkers and three of my four grandparents were born in Brooklyn. Yo]. Perhaps if I grew up in Columbus, or Des Moines, Williamsburg would hold more allure.

But I will always feel the pull of the "mythic city, so rich in memory and association and sense of place that to people everywhere it has come to seem real." You can see the "dream city of the imagination, born of that most pervasive of dream media, the movies" here at the Celluloid Skyline, an almost overwhelmingly intricate and detailed look at cinematic New York and companion to the book of the same name.

She sure do clean up nice.

Patience, young Jedi

...something slant sends along some truly frightening movie poster parodies from Fark's Mate-a-movie photoshop contest. Must be seen to be believed. Warning: may take forever to load, but it's worth the wait.

The lesser of two weevils

Last night the 'Fesser and I went to a sneak of the greatly anticipated, and in some quarters dreaded, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. Leaving aside the traumatic search for parking in downtown Boston and the confusion that ensued when the cinetrix ducked into one of the auditoriums screening the movie while the 'Fesser chose the other, I can say that O'Brian fans have little to fear. Liberties have been taken [it's set during Napoleonic Wars rather than the War of 1812, all the better to bash the French again, etc.], but details like Jack Aubrey's fondness for puns, Padeen's lumbering muteness, and Preserved Killick's sour mien make it through to the film version intact. Or so the 'Fesser assures me. And he was squarely in the skeptics camp going in.

But what of the hoi polloi, who know nothing of Aubrey and Maturin's bumboy capers? Will this movie attract enough of those viewers to make back its reported $150 million cost? How many pirate movies not starring Keith Richards can the public be expected to embrace in a single year? There's no love story [a friend warned me about the "one sultry native" who appears during a brief encounter with Sting's Brazilian rainforest pals and seems included solely to be in the trailer]; no pouty Keira Knightley. Will the ladies go see it? Or will they boycott it in favor of the distaff version of Weir's own Dead Poets Society?

Such questions seem to trouble the Times, which ran this article as part of its ongoing strategy of surrounding prestige movie openings with page-filling meditations on violent women, the perils of improvising a racial self [whatever that means], whither the awards season, and other "zone-flooding" think pieces.

I don't want to spoil the movie for those panting to see it, but with Master and Commander Weir continues to make interesting choices in a 12-movie, 26-year career littered with them. As a director, he seems drawn to stories about conscribed communities bounded by ritual and language. Think about the school girls in Picnic at Hanging Rock [which Weir actually shortened for his director's cut, to ratchet up the unbearable suspense still further], or the Fox family in The Mosquito Coast [a favorite dystopia of the cinetrix], or the police detectives and the plain people in Witness, all living by codes that consciously separate them from the mainstream. Another constant is the disruptions that inevitably rip apart these isolated environs stem from the excessive pridefulness of the protagonists.

Master and Commander hews to both of these themes, as the H.M.S. Surprise, captained by Lucky Jack Aubrey [Crowe is very good] with the advice of Stephen Maturin [Bettany is good but a little slight], gives chase to the phantasmic French ship Acheron across the South American seas. [You never get any information from the point of view of the French, an effective ploy that had me whispering to the 'Fesser, "Who are those guys?"] But you are immersed, at times nearly drowned, in the world of the Surprise and come to care for a large number of characters.

Weir also does an excellent job eliciting great performances from the young--and I do mean young--actors playing the various midshipmen, particularly Blakeney [Max Pirkis]. No icky Hollywood wise children here. As Anthony Lane observes, "It is a shock to be reminded of the beardless age at which the sons of good families used to be pushed into the service." Lane's review in this week's New Yorker, in fact, is surprisingly subdued for a film he clearly likes a great deal. You get the sense that he himself is one of the fervid O'Brian fans to which he alludes, and is only just realizing he can stop holding his breath. "They" didn't ruin it. [Of course, he then works in a pun in the final graf that would shame Aubrey himself.]

Fun fact to know and shout: Weir got "Fox to buy a reproduction of an 18th-century frigate, the Rose, which eventually was reoutfitted as the Surprise for the movie, even before he had a deal to make the film." That's pretty boss.

It'll definitely rake in sound design statuettes come Oscar time, but will the Surprise stay afloat at the almighty box office? I hope so, even if it means a longer wait to see it again in the second-run houses. I haven't enjoyed a no-girls-allowed movie this much since Mamet's real estate guys hit the silver screen.

UPDATE A.O. Scott agrees. Joe Morgenstern does, too, which you can enjoy by following Terry's simple instructions.

So this is a Harvard bar, huh? I thought there'd be equations and shit on the wall.

Honestly, the cinetrix may have to break down and study German after all, because I'm certain that there's a term for the weird homesickness you feel when you watch a movie set somewhere you know as well as your own name. A pal nailed the English translation, complete with a superabundance of capital letters: "I'm a sucker for Places I Know in the Movies."

Until last night, the 'Fesser had never seen Good Will Hunting. So what, you say. Big deal. Plenty of people haven't.

But he grew up in the same city as Matt and Ben, and I've spent a good stretch of my adult life there, so we inhabit the locals' unique position of appreciating the little things that a movie shot--at least partially--on location can get right. Or really wrong. Nothing can shatter that critical suspension of disbelief moviegoing hinges on faster than a false note.

God is in the details. A good example of getting it right is the decor of the bar in the movie Beautiful Girls, which was set in Massachusetts, even though it was shot in Minnesota [they thought they'd have guaranteed snow there. Didn't happen.] Behind the bar were portraits of the pope and JFK. Just like you'd see stepping into any old-man bar in the commonwealth. I think it's part of the publican's license here. See, little things.

A roll call of the things gotten right in Good Will Hunting would be long, much longer than those for With Honors, Legally Blonde, Soul Man, or pretty much any movie set even partially in Cambridge going back to The Paper Chase and Love Story. There's a surprising amount of fidelity given that Damon and Affleck had next to no pull at that point in their careers to insist on anything. The red line subway cars have the old molded plastic seats, and the guy hawking the homeless newspaper in the background of a couple of shots is real--you can see him most any day, right there.

But I'm thinking about just two details today. The "Hahvahd bah" where Damon's Will first meets Minnie Driver's Skylar is the late, lamented Bow and Arrow Pub, a rare joint in the increasingly Disneyfied environs of Harvard Square where town and gown rubbed elbows while they drank dollar drafts and played Pop-A-Shot. The bar really was next to the Baskin-Robbins of "How'd you like them apples?" fame. It, and the Tasty--the greasy late-night burger joint where Will and Skylar first kiss--have since been forced out of existence by their landlord [Harvard]. But they remain suspended forever in the amber of celluloid because someone along the way insisted that real locations be used.

Mein gute, that sure was a long-winded way to say that the impending release of a certain holiday movie starring America's Sweetheart and her maidens in waiting is making me really anxious. Folks in the psych profession call when an analysand brings up the most important topic at the very end of the session a doorknob moment, I think. Which seems like something that would sound better... in French.

The laws of gravity are very, very strict; and you're just bending them for your own benefit

There was a time when the life of the cinetrix seemed to run in an eerie parallel with that of Amelia, the character played by Catherine Keener in Nicole Holoncefer's Walking and Talking. The film showed the sometimes painful intensity of women's friendships in a way rarely seen on screen [perhaps only Mike Leigh's Career Girls even comes close]. Now, plenty of women would like to see themselves portrayed on screen by Ms. Keener, myself included, but this story cut a little too close to home.

You see, the cinetrix once was involved with her own version of the "ugly guy" [played in the film by the excellent Kevin Corrigan] at the video store. Much of my cinema geekery schtick was honed during this time. But, man, he stomped my heart but good. Now I've just learned that he got married this summer, and bully for him. But I'm left searching for another polysyllabic German word to nail down this "odd nauseated, sucker-punch sensation that a former lover has wed." The combination of this news and the Old Hag's call for works that make you weep has put the cinetrix into a very weird space.

I'm hoping that the swashbuckling adventures of Aubrey and Maturin in a sneak screening this evening will prove the tonic for all this mooning around.

big guns, fast cars, dumb jokes, and huge explosions

Cosmo for Men weighs in with the 50 Best Guy Movies Of All Time. You can see the top 10 here. The rest are available in your checkout line, next to the Bedside Astrologer.

A shiny Sacajewea for the first person to tell the cinetrix what number GlenGarry Glen Ross is. She saw that one on a date.

He's a good man, and thorough.

If you care at all about film preservation, or are just irked at the crappy quality of some DVDs, you should certainly read this Times article about how celluloid becomes digital and the pitfalls that must be skirted along the way. The cinetrix has been angling to glean more hands-on knowledge about film preservation and was delighted to learn of the wonderfully monikered Grover Crisp, Sony Pictures' vice president for film restoration. He's fighting the good fight to make sure that DVDs are made from the best looking prints available, even if he has to make them himself.

I still remember going to see the original 1945 pre-release version of The Big Sleep at Film Forum in 1997. At the end of the film, they showed the featurette--available on the DVD--about the restoration and differences between the two versions, starring the earnest, not-cut-out-for-an-on-camera-gig preservationist Robert Gitt. Hearing the fortunate-they-were-in-a-dark-room crowd giggle and mock Mr. Gitt was pretty rich.

Sometimes it's not easy being a scornful, self-hating geek, I tell ya.
UPDATE Somehow I missed this guide to the best and worst of classic DVDs.