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In-flight entertainment

The 'Fesser and the cinetrix finally saw Kill Bill Vol. 1 tonight [it was free, still my favorite price]. And yes, the gore, the fixation with Uma's feet, the general excellence of Go-Go--all present and accounted for, as the reviewers promised.

In the film, the protagonist, The Bride, travels from one Asian city to the next via the fictious carrier Air-O. This is an airline with such a liberal carry-on policy that passengers can travel with their samurai swords at their sides--not even under the seat or in an overhead bin. [Guess the threat of items shifting during flight becomes a little more compelling when there's the risk of even a sheathed sword clocking you on the head.]

All this air travel got me to thinking. What do you suppose Air-O's in-flight movie would be?

A strong case could be made for the Sonny Chiba oeuvre, sure. Yes, yes, of course the Shaw Brothers kung-fu flicks. Thank you, honorable representative from the nation of film geeks. Get back to me once you've kissed a girl. Speaking of geeks willing to show off their extensive... knowledge, you can't whirl two feet in any direction, with or without the aid of wires, without someone pointing out that Kill Bill's plot is similar to Truffaut's excellent 1968 revenge noir The Bride Wore Black. Well, duh.

But I'd like to suggest another film that should have Air-O passengers ponying up for headsets: Jean-Luc Godard's 1966 Made in U.S.A. Maybe Vidiots has a copy? They're hard to come by. The cinetrix was fortunate enough to catch a private morning screening of this elusive title at Anthology maybe seven years ago.

It is virtually impossible to glean the plot of Made in U.S.A. or follow the dialogue, although Godard said he intended to make a version of The Big Sleep [itself famously shambling] with Anna Karina as the detective. Female in a male role, intentionally incoherent narrative, numerous references to other movies, a bright color palette--sound familiar?

OK, you can chalk up these resemblances to coincidence. But what to make of the direct steal from Godard's film in the early sequence in which the Bride tracks Vernita Greene to her Pasadena home, looking to right past wrongs? In the midst of the deathmatch, Vernita's young daughter arrives home from school. The two battling women attempt to pass off their destroyed surroundings as the work of the family dog and their relationship as that of old friends.

Here's the thing. Every time Vernita [or indeed anyone in Kill Bill] says the Bride's real name, some [extra-]diegetic sound covers it up and makes it impossible to decipher. The same thing happens in Made in U.S.A. In her search for her ex-boyfriend's murderer, Anna Karina encounters any number of people who tell her who the murderer is. And every time, Godard throws a gun shot or other sound effect onto the soundtrack, obscuring the killer's identity.

Trust me on this one. Remember, Quentin named his production company A Band Apart, a play on Godard's film Bande à Part. I'm just saying.

Mona Lisa Overdrive

Introduction to Painting--Wellesley College, 1954

With any luck, The Prime of Miss Julia Roberts has moved over to the second-run houses in your town, too. One reviewer called it the weirdest commercial release of 2003; "science fiction commissioned by a liberationist task force 30 years too late." And, well, let's be honest: a shameless bid for career revitalization by Ms. Roberts, lifted directly from the Robin Williams playbook.

While the cinetrix harbors a sick fascination for this feature, she has yet to see it. However, I recently stumbled across this letter the two producers, Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas and Deborah Schindler, wrote to Wellesley. Here's an excerpt:

We did not set out to make a documentary. We sought to take a snapshot of a time more than an institution and to illuminate the lack of choice available to most women in the country in the early 1950s. We've received an overwhelming response from young women who, after seeing the film, are finding that the same career vs. family issues which were relevant then, are relevant now. We are proud that the film is serving as a reminder that liberation comes not from what you've chosen, but from having the ability to choose.

One hundred years ago, many colleges and universities barred women from attending. Wellesley, along with a handful of other institutions, were the exceptions. While we can learn much from the exceptions, we can also learn from the rule. But to suggest that one college in the nation was exempt from that rule is inaccurate, and revisionist. We celebrate Wellesley not only for what it is, but for what it was. Their history is our history and serves as a reminder for how far women have come.

The head of the cinetrix may explode.

Not because of the sisterhood is powerful cant these ladies think will help make their case. If anything, I suspect any Wellesley grad would disassociate herself doublequick fast from women with such poor grasps on history and logic. Not even because they chose to send a letter demonstrating almost complete ignorance of subject-verb agreement, punctuation, and other grammar basics to some of the smartest women going.

No, mostly I think they're full of shit because they think that any young woman watching Julia Freakin' Roberts is going experience a moment of clarity about her own life, much less come away thinking, "I had my doubts before, but Julia's right. We have come a long way, baby." Please. "[L]iberation comes not from what you've chosen, but from having the ability to choose"?

Look at Ms. Julia herself. Remember all the young women who achieved liberation by breaking up a couple [My Best Friend's Wedding; paging the first Mrs. Moder!] or taking a legger from their own nuptials [Runaway Bride; hi, Kiefer!]? Or who chose to be whores with hearts of gold after Roberts' turn in Pretty Woman? [Oh, wait.]

Roberts' long reign as America's Sweetheart has given her the "ability to choose" to produce a star vehicle for herself even as she gets too old to be cast as an ingenue by the Hollywood system that made her. Basically, Mona Lisa Smile is all about Roberts' feeding off the vitality of her starlet costars. What's next--a bio pic about Elizabeth Bathory?

The Italians have a word to explain Mona Lisa's smile: sfumato. It means blurry, ambiguous, and up to the imagination. Ms. Roberts' smile has oft been celebrated, but unlike that of La Gioconda, it has never left anything up to our imaginations.

I got the power of Massachusetts when it's late at night

The Boston Globe's Sam Allis takes a stab at explaining why it's so hard for actors, even those gifted at accents, to nail the Boston accent.

Everyone in movies mangles a Boston accent. It flummoxed Robert Mitchum in "The Friends of Eddie Coyle." Robin Williams's stab at it in "Good Will Hunting" was like fingernails on a blackboard. The Kennedy accents in the movie and television takes about them over the years have been ghastly. Most recently, the stars of "Mystic River" sounded as if they came from five different countries, none of them in this hemisphere.

True 'dat. Sadly, after that promising lede surveying some of the most egregious offenders in the accent rogues' gallery, Allis, too, comes up short of uncovering a definitive answer.

So, what does a Bahstahn accent actually sound like? Those searching for the genuine item should listen to Cambridge's own Lenny Clarke [his frequent pahtnah in crime, Denis Leary, is from Worcester, which doesn't count] or listen to Click and Clack on En-Pee-Ahh.

You may well ask, what about the cinetrix? Does she have an accent? Not online.

Filthy mouths and bad attitudes

"So many people wearing sunglasses indoors," the 'Fesser observed last night. We were watching The Blues Brothers, the scene in which Jake and Elwood perform "Sweet Home, Chicago" in front of an audience riddled with cops, cowboys, and John Candy all waiting to kick their asses, to be specific.

Make of this what you will, but the cinetrix has seen The Blues Brothers more times than she has seen any other movie. That's right, more times than she's sat through interminable holiday showings of The Wizard of Oz, The Sound of Music, and It's a Wonderful Life, combined. It's my favorite musical, no question.

I can't remember the first time I saw the movie. I have shamefaced suspicions it was because of some boy [the same reason I saw Blade Runner and used to watch Doctor Who even though the music freaked me out]. Since then, while I've seen it bleeped on broadcast and intact on video, I've never seen it projected, and I'd never seen it on DVD. Until last night.

Here's the thing. On DVD, The Blues Brothers is different. Did you know that Elwood had a job? Or garaged the Bluesmobile? Me, neither. Did you need to? Probably not. The whole experience of spectatorship became increasingly unnerving as the 'Fesser and I sat side by side on the sofa in shock, commenting "That's new" upon hearing additional dialogue from Maury Sline or watching a gas tanker blow up or witnessing Cab Calloway perform an additional, cocaine-themed verse of "Minnie the Moocher."

Don't get me wrong, it was a wonder watching a crystalline print of a beloved movie. For instance, right before the Good Ole Boys' Winnebago goes crashing into the drink, it sails by a shop with the sign "Mr. Bills" on the facade. Funny, huh?

We're still planning on getting the movie on DVD for the 'Fesser's dad and for my father, both huge fans. [The 'Fesser's dad's favorite line: "No, ma'am. We're musicians."] Without knowing about our fathers' mania for the Brothers Blues, the 'Fesser and I watched the movie the first weekend we hung out together.

Thanks in no small part to my dad, I know every line of dialogue, every music cue and song lyric. Under hypnosis, or after a few bourbons, I could probably recite the whole movie. And do all the dances. My dad would even leave messages on my machine in college when he noticed it was going to be on tv, so we could watch it together while apart. We invoked it nonstop when he drove with me to Chicago, where I joked I'd be living in an SRO next to the El, just like Elwood. [It is a source of eternal sorrow that once we arrived in Chicago, we did not dine at Chez Paul, which has since closed.]

Not to sound all Carrie Bradshaw or anything, but what do you do when you've grown up with a movie--know it as well as you know your own face--only to discover it's changed? I'm still trying to figure that one out. [I think Warner Bros. has the right idea.] My resolve that I will never watch the Belushi corpse-fuck that is Blues Brothers 2000 is stronger than ever, that's for sure.

I'm reminded of the time, a few years ago, when we went to see Pee-wee's Big Adventure [another formative film text in the cinetrix's girlhood] projected at a rep house. Sitting up in the balcony, I was initially dismayed when a clot of sullen yet chatty teens took the row behind us. Great, they'll ruin this moment I've been waiting for, I thought. I was so wrong. By the end of the screening I wanted to see every one of my favorites with them. You see, not only did they know every word, they even sang along with the background music.

Deus sex machina

Torontonian Adam Sternbergh examines the rise of what he terms the "Thank you for saving me from my evil hag of a fiancee" movie, as well as its antecedents. He is dead on about the message these so-called comedies send. The protagonists are no longer saved from marrying the wrong, usually emasculating, woman; they're saved from marriage itself.

The evil fiancees in these movies are so uniform, and so easy to spot, that it's a wonder any guy proposed to them in the first place. They come clad in pearl earrings and prim sweater sets, the embodiments of asphyxiating domesticity. They're armed with detailed life plans and bags full of V-neck sweaters, pre-sized for their new hubby. (The V-neck sweater apparently being a universal symbol of emasculation.) They trash the bachelor's treasured mementos, criticize his habits, and ostracize his old gang of friends—all of which is presented as a pre-wedding hazing ritual meant to soften him up for a lifetime of subjugation.

Plus, the guy had to sit through a lot of truly shitty movies to assemble this piece.

[I'm certain this article's posting in the midst of the Martha Stewart trial is merely coincidence.]

Well, off to block the 'Fesser's sweaters!

She's a real sad tomato; she's a busted valentine

The cinetrix watched The Big Sleep again the other day. It was the first time I'd seen it on DVD, and Warner Bros. has pulled together a nice little package. The double-sided disc includes the unreleased 1945 version as well as the cockeyed 1946 release we all know and love. Earnest, nerdy UCLA film archivist Robert Gitt walks the viewer through the differences between the two in a short documentary. Basically, all is as it was when I [and the Old Hag] saw it on the big screen at Film Forum in 1997.

Except then, I didn't see the original trailer, which is also included. It's a pretty baffling piece of advertising--I've been mulling over and rewatching for the past few days.

Movies adapted, either freely or meticulously, from novels are as old as the cinema itself. But I can't remember ever seeing the act of reading so strangely foregrounded as it is here. We see Bogey, dressed as Philip Marlowe, walk up to a saucy salesgirl in a bookstore. He tells her he's looking for a book, something along the lines of The Maltese Falcon. She helpfully hands him best-seller The Big Sleep, describing it to him in stilted Book of the Month Club-speak she seems to read off a cue card. Already, this is a weird tack to take. Humphrey Bogart: you loved him in a Hammett adaptation four years ago; now come see him in a movie based on a 1939 Chandler novel!

Bogey opens the book at random and begins to read aloud. Cut to a silent montage of scenes from the film, as Bogey's voice continues to "read" from The Big Sleep over the images. Was the assumption that the movie-going public was so intimately familiar with Chandler's hard-boiled novel that the visuals served as a slideshow, proof that Warner Bros. had gotten it right? I wish I knew.

There's a reason that I put "read" in quotes. I searched pretty thoroughly for the passage Bogart opens to but couldn't find it anywhere. Maybe some proud owner of a contemporary copy can double check for me. But my suspicion is that the words Bogey speaks were not written by Chandler but instead were crafted by some combination of William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett, and Jules Furthman, the movie's scriptwriters.

So why go to all the trouble of this bizarre conceit of setting Bogart in a bookstore? Some strange nod to his years at Andover, maybe? Another excuse to have him presented as a matinee idol desired by foxy lady clerks everywhere? You got me.

****

Philip Marlowe: She tried to sit in my lap while I was standing up.

That's another thing. Call it the Rosie the Riveter effect, but every time Bogart turns around, there's another devastating woman. In addition to the lovely Carmen and Vivian Sternwood, he meets not one but two arch bookstore clerks, a cab-driving dame who tells him to call her in the evenings because she works days, flirty cocktail waitresses, and cigarette girls. Name a job that doesn't call for a heavy and a woman fills it. I suspect more B-list ingenues got work in this manly noir than in any of a dozen women's pictures from the same year.

Grow up, geezers

OK, this is just the sort of thing I'm talking about.

AARP The Magazine is doling out La Chase d'Or -- The Golden Chair -- a whimsical trophy in the shape of a lounge chair.

The "Best Movies for Grownups Awards'' were created to encourage filmmakers to expand their vision and make more movies that resonate with the growing age 50 and older audience.

And that's different from the Golden Globes blowing smoke up Michael Douglas' ass the other night how, exactly? Oh, maybe you AARP folks can't stay up that late any more and missed it?

Don't forget: everything that happens to the boomers at every life stage is important. Attention must be paid! Can't wait til they introduce the "Best Comedy featuring adult diapers/Viagra hijinks Award" You know it's only a matter of time. As it is, we already know waaaay too much about their tragic struggle with erectile disfunction.

Shouldn't the house organ of the AARP stick to what that organization does best: advising naval-gazing boomers how to invest wisely so I don't have to support their incontinent, longevity-chasing solipcism 'til I'm old enough to join? Tell you what: We'll treat you like grown-ups when you start behaving like grown-ups.

xo,
the cinetrix

A classic case of can't-stand-it-itis

For those of you playing at home, today's Times piece [by Newsweek Wall Street editor Allan Sloane] is the third review of Denby's tell-all the paper of record has run in the past 30 days. Here's hoping every angle is finally exhausted because the cinetrix, for one, sure is.

The smart writer is not a smart investor, however. He's emotional. He's irrational. He confuses what he desperately wants — to make money to validate his investment manhood — with the market, which doesn't care what you paid for your stock or whether you live or die.

Did we really need a Street-savvy scribe to tell us that?

No Amazon link. Let Keller peddle the damn book. And quit stroking Denby already. It's unseemly.

R.I.P. Charlotte Zwerin

It is with great sorrow that the cinetrix read of Charlotte Zwerin's death last week at age 72. She was the director of Thelonius Monk: Straight No Chaser, among other documentaries.

Ms. Zwerin worked for many years with David and Albert Maysles, early practitioners of the documentary genre known as cinéma vérité, which uses a small camera to capture the drama of daily experience. Her editing for them was of such quality that they gave her credit as the third director of well-known films like "Gimme Shelter" (1970), an account of the Rolling Stones' 1969 tour of the United States.

It was her decision to include the band members' reactions to the killing of a fan on the stage of a concert at the Altamont Speedway in Livermore, Calif., the site of the tour's last concert.

"The real hero of the making of the film was Charlotte Zwerin, who edited it and got a directing credit," Stephen Lighthill, a cameraman, said in an interview with Salon.com. "I was stunned with what she got out of my footage. She compressed it and gave you a sense of a buildup of tragedy that you otherwise wouldn't have."

She told The Times she stopped working with the Maysleses because they would not let her produce. "They cast an awful long shadow, and it came time for me to get out of it," she said.

Recommendation: Gimme Shelter, which still freaks me out every time.

Moviediva in the house!

[Too much paying work to snark about the surprising--and not so surprising--Oscar nominees just now.]

However, if you fine people are less beset than the cinetrix and are casting about for some divertissement, allow me to introduce you to the moviediva. Heck, I'll let her speak for herself:

I am the Film Curator at the North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) in Raleigh, North Carolina.

I believe there is nothing to compare to seeing a film with an audience, shown on the big screen. Or, as Francois Truffaut said, "The most beautiful thing I have ever seen in a movie theater is to go down to the front and turn around, and look at all the uplifted faces, the light from the screen reflected upon them."

[A]udiences used to renting films need a pressing reason to leave the house and go out to see a film they know is at the video store, may have seen once long ago, or one of which they have never heard. Film notes can make a huge difference, and I've enjoyed writing and giving introductory talks at the NCMA.

As I researched my talks, I discovered there was relatively little on the Web about films that pre-dated the Web. There may be 200 reviews on a current film, and fan sites for some older ones, but very little on older titles. moviediva is a response to that need.

The site is a treasure trove and should easily beguile the hours.

Be sure not to miss the fierce wit and insight of moviediva jr., now 14, who's been posting her own essays since she was 11. Man, does she have chops. She collects sheet music and even includes her own drawings in her review of the Astaire-Rogers' movie Roberta.

The cinetrix *hearts* ms. moviediva jr. You will, too. [Special thanks to the NC nerddiva for the link.]