with Jack Nicholson as Darth Vader

Posted on March 1, 2011 by Lyle Verbilion

a day at the beachMiley Cyrus’ feature The Last Song is kind of like Terms of Endearment for teenagers. There’s conflict between a parent and child.  Miley’s got the Shirley MacLaine role. Jack Nicholson’s part is played by the teenaged Darth Vader. And he does a much better job of being this kid than he did of being Darth.

Greg Kinnear is kind of like  Jeff Daniels, but that’s not the part he plays.

I really liked the little brother.

The aquarium scenes were pretty. And the whole beach thing was swell. I really didn’t understand the need for a bad-girl sup-plot.

It’s an old formula, and it usually works. Like this time.

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A Pulitzer Bunny

Posted on February 26, 2011 by Lyle Verbilion

celebrating stop

Years ago my mother used to say to me, she’d say, “In this world, Elwood, you must be” – she always called me Elwood – “In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant.” Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me.

I don’t know why the play version of Harvey won a Pulitzer Prize. It’s a pretty good play with a really good message. And I guess it goes down pretty easily, so maybe that’s what puts it over the edge.

Elwood comes from a well-to-do family, but they don’t care for his drinking or for his best friend. Eventually they try to get him locked up in a mental institution that likes to give people “baths”.

The movie is a little hard on the mental health profession. Maybe in 1950 that was a novelty. It starts to make fun of all “normal” society, but comes off just taking empty potshots. I guess if I have any real complaint about the movie it’s that it takes easy shots instead of more incisive ones. Oh well.

What really makes the movie, for me, is Jimmy Stewart. I love Jimmy Stewart. I’ve seen him do comedy and westerns and disaster movies. He’s always fun to watch. His performance in Harvey is unlike any other of his career. He sounds tipsy the whole time — not drunk, but a little sloshy.

The other famous line from the movie comes from a cab driver, explaining what happens to folks treated at the institution. On the drive there, they’re friendly and enjoying themselves. After treatment, they start complaining about everything. “After this he’ll be a perfectly normal human being. And you know what stinkers they are!”

So there it is: a Jimmy Stewart movie telling you not to be normal. If this movie had been made 15 years later it would have had sympathetic hippie characters. Jimmy Stewart did a TV movie remake in 1972, but by then the hippies didn’t want it. It’s odd to think that the play was written in 1944, while WWII still raged. Of course, during wartime it’s difficult to tell the crazy people from the sane. But that’s another movie… (King of Hearts)

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Lovely, Still is awesome!

Posted on February 24, 2011 by Lyle Verbilion

Old Man HandsLovely, Still was released in 2010 and stars Martin Landau and Ellen Burstyn as old people in love. It’s a romantic movie, and then some. My advice is for you to watch the first half, then turn it off. The next day start over from the beginning and watch it all the way through. Then wait a few days and go through it one more time. That’s what I did.

The whole purpose of entertainment is to manipulate people. They take some tired, grumpy person who spent all day at work, and manipulate them into smiling, laughing, maybe crying or feeling genuine surprise.  The less you notice being manipulated, the better it is. Think of the wonder you had at the magician because you couldn’t even imagine a way he could have pulled off that trick.

Movies always try to manipulate us. They only show us certain scenes, and from certain angles. Almost all the boring stuff gets trimmed out. Everything you see on the screen is only for effect. That’s part of the fun.

Martin Landau was in my favorite Hitchcock movie, North by Northwest. He played the guy carrying the gun. (I was going to use the word gunsel, but then I looked it up and changed my mind. And then I thought about it and changed my mind again. And then I just gave up on it.)  He was in the first three seasons of Mission: Impossible as the scary looking guy who often wore masks. He played the commander of the moon base on Space: 1999, which people tell me is not as bad as I recall. And he had a remarkable performance as Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood. He’s in his 80s now. He plays an old man so well! His smile is so uplifting. The movie is pretty much from his point of view, and he does a great job in every single scene.

My memories of Ellen Burstyn are fewer. I recall The Exorcist, and Same Time, Next Year. I’m still planning on seeing Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. Amazon keeps suggesting I buy Requiem for a Dream, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. In real life, she’s only five years younger than Landau. Her face is just as beautiful as his. Nobody else could have pulled off this role. Looking through Landau’s eyes, you fall in love with her too.

The photography is great. The whole “in love at Christmastime” vibe is pretty awesome. The music is swell. And how many movies take place in Omaha?

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Troubling Dream I

Posted on February 22, 2011 by Lyle Verbilion

reflecto pondI was back home, in the country, surrounded by miles of emptiness.  It was night.  I was walking my dog along the fence-line.  There was a large moon in the sky, supplying light.  From the corner of my eye, I saw someone moving.  I was afraid of thugs or thieves or gangs.  But my dog wagged his tail in friendship.  He jumped up on the stranger who greeted him warmly.

“Down, dog, DOWN!” I shouted, hoping that the stranger wouldn’t take offense.  But he petted my dog, scratched him behind the ears, and in all ways acted civilly.

He said, “I can’t believe that she’s really gone.”

Suddenly it dawned on me that, yes, indeed, she was really gone.  And that this man was no stranger.  A woman walked out of the house, onto the back porch near us, and I recognized her as my close relative: sister, cousin, aunt, niece, I don’t know which.  The dread increased.

Suddenly switch to a man driving along the road next to the house.  He follows the curves up the hills into the mountains.

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Some Call it Acts of Worship

Posted on February 19, 2011 by Lyle Verbilion

wet streetActs of Worship is another of those Movies of Addicted Women. But this time there’s no 12 steps. There’s inappropriate sex, but no children. The main character is little more than a kid. You don’t even find out how or why she came to this life. It’s just one of those bad choices that people can’t help but keep on making.

There’s a lot of street life in the film. And it seems like everything is connected. But you’re never quite sure where those connections occur and who knows who.

It’s only a little painful to watch.

I didn’t recognize any of the actors. They all did fine. It could have been a movie that felt clumsy. But the awkwardness always seems to fall back into the characters. It is kind of in the same vein as Down to the Bone, not too polished, not pretty, really realistic seeming.

If you like drug addict movies, as I seem to, this is definitely a pretty good one to watch.

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Chaos String Cheese Theory

Posted on February 17, 2011 by Lyle Verbilion

moreChaos theory is the mathematical study of deterministic behavior that is not predictable. It’s chaotic, not random. There is so much cause and effect going on that it’s too complicated to know what’s going to happen next. The classic example is weather. Which is why meteorologists get no respect.

The movie Chaos Theory wants to say that it applies to life as well. And maybe it succeeds. I lost track. It’s a comedy, after all.

I don’t understand why it’s told in flashback. The framing may provide extra certainty, I guess. Which makes sense because otherwise it all seems pretty, uh, random. The plot moves forward because of misunderstandings. It’s all mistakes and misunderstandings.

Folks try to explain how it all started because someone set clock 10 minutes forward. This shows that they don’t know what they’re talking about. She set the clock backwards. We the viewing audience know the difference. But things are so chaotic in this movie that other folks can’t keep it straight. Spring forward, fall back.

It’s not the plot that makes it funny. It’s the characters. And it is a funny movie. The characters are not chaotic. You can see pretty much where they’ve got to go. The getting of there is all the fun.

Easy on the string cheese, buster.

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Froggie got the right idea

Posted on February 15, 2011 by Lyle Verbilion

Froggie Got The Right IdeaMy favorite scene in The Muppet Movie is when Kermit and Fozzie are in Fozzie’s uncle’s car. Kermit tells Fozzie to “bear left at the fork in the road”. There’s this giant eating utensil-type fork in the road. Fozzie says, “Right frog”. What makes it funny is that the frog is on the right and the bear is on the left.

My new t-shirt has nothing whatsoever to do with that. But us frogs got to stick together.

Please buy my t-shirt. Wear it to all your family get-togethers and make people talk about your great taste in casual wear.

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Sweetwater’s Famous Son

Posted on February 12, 2011 by Lyle Verbilion

The Lights in the Sky are StarsAnother of my childhood favorites was a Don Knotts vehicle named The Reluctant Astronaut. (I loved everything about out space in those days.) This is a 60’s comedy about the space race. According to this movie, winning the space race was as important as winning World War I!

The only other space race comedies that I can think of are Jerry Lewis’ Way Way Out, and The Mouse on the Moon. But both of those were specifically about going to the moon. The Jerry Lewis movie was all about sex on the moon. The Mouse movie, being British, was all about hilarious international politics.  Amazon has a German DVD of the Lewis movie, which is funny because I thought he was supposed to be big in France. A lot of people seem not to like the Lewis movie. As I recall, it’s got some funny moments. But it is a sex comedy, and maybe Jerry Lewis isn’t really the best person to pull off a sex comedy.  The Mouse movie was a sequel to a Peter Sellers vehicle, and was actually based on a book. Terry Thomas, the English guy with the gap between his teeth, is in it, if you care…

The Don Knotts movie didn’t go to the moon; it was only about going into space. It was about the fear that had to be overcome to go there, and the pathetic disgraceful shame that would overcome that fear. As usual Don does a great fear schtick.

Leslie Nielson plays a real astronaut. This was back before he was know for being funny. Apparently he was funny at the time, but they just refused to film it. He’d previously played an spaceship commander in Forbidden Planet, so I’m guessing this was sort of step down for him. I swear up and down that for years I thought that his character in this movie was John Glenn. I mean, a fictionalized John Glenn, but actually named “John Glenn”. But I was totally wrong. Imagine that. His character’s name is Fred Gifford, not even Gus Grissom nor Frank Gifford.

One of the things I noticed while re-watching these Don Knotts movies was the strange way he gets the girl. At the beginning of the film, she hardly pays him any attention, certainly no romantic attention.  She treats him like a human being, which is more than he thinks he deserves maybe. But she’s definitely not interested in that way. Then it looks like he’s a big deal, and the whole town is celebrating him, and all of a sudden they’re officially an item. By the end of the movie it’s clear that he really isn’t a big deal, that he was just being used as a pawn by other people, and she marries him. Somehow I don’t see that working out for very long. And it happened in both The Reluctant Astronaut and The Ghost and Mr. Chicken. Now I realize that according to Aristotle every real comedy has to have a wedding or some other procession. But couldn’t they have just had a parade celebrating their reluctant hero? Or is this movie really trying to tell us that nebbishes only deserve unhappy marriages after they’ve survived their big life crisis?

Know any other space race comedies?

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The Ghost and Mr. Chicken Came to Dinner

Posted on February 10, 2011 by Lyle Verbilion

scary lampWhen I was a kid, there was this older kid named Ernie who introduced me to many great things. The board game Risk. The Mad Scientists’ Club (which I’ll get to some other time). And several groovy movies. Thank you, Ernie, wherever you are.

Ernie was very talented. One day I found him playing a strange sounding tune on the piano. It was the music from The Ghost and Mr. Chicken. In that movie, Don Knotts spends the night in a haunted house, and watches a pipe organ play all by itself. And there were bloodstains all over the keyboard. It was the most frightening horribleness and awfulness that he’d ever seen!

(The music was created by Vic Mizzy. He also created the theme music for the The Addams Family TV series and Green Acres.)

And Ernie was playing that same mad organ music! How cool is that!

Later on, we drew pictures with crayons. I drew a ghost outside on a hill. Which didn’t seem very scary. I asked Ernie to fix it,  and he turned it into a casket opening up in a cellar. And it looked scary. He was very talented.

So what culturally significant stuff did your childhood friends turn you onto?

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Alice in Underland

Posted on February 8, 2011 by Lyle Verbilion

Hungry HatsI liked Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland much more than I expected.

A grown-up Alice returns to Wonderland. It sort of recreates the original story, then one of Tweedle Dee’s poems, and adds some new stuff so it can be an even bigger special effects movie.

It might have come across like Spielberg’s Hook, which I enjoyed enough at the time, but which left an empty taste in my mouth as time went on.

But so far I’m still finding Alice pretty tasty. The art design was great, which is typical of Burton. The Tweedles were just about creepy enough. The bulbous Red Queen was marvelous. And I like how it looked reasonably like both the original Tenniel illustrations and Disney’s hand-drawn animated versions. Shouldn’t Humpty Dumpty have been around somewhere? The bandersnatch didn’t quite live up to my frumious  expectations, but the big bad monster at the end was totally fantastic!

Depp was a little depressing as the Hatter, which I think is a good thing. Alan Rickman as the caterpillar was  wonderful. But I was really excited when I realized that the most imperiously awesome Christopher Lee was the Jabberwocky!

Which brings us to one of the problems I do have with the movie. The creature is a Jabberwock, people.  The story about it is Jabberwocky. Every time they called the creature a Jabberwocky, it made my teeth hurt.

I really don’t understand what visiting Wonderland has to do with trade with China. Is Burton saying that China is our world’s Wonderland? Or, since she leaves her beaus in both Wonderland and England, is he saying that China is the Real World?

And how come it’s not called Alice in Underland, since they make a point of correcting Alice’s earlier mistaken name for the place? Go see for yourself.

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