Pop Culture, High and Low, Past and Present. One Day at a Time.
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Sunday, May 11, 2008
Miscellaneous: Surfacing
Coming up for air to weigh in on a few things ...
Spiderweb/Shooting Star, by Robert Bloch (1954/1958). Hard Case Crime revives the double! Two Bloch novels in one, both set in a Hollywood where the tinsel is not so bright. Shooting Star, about a one-eyed literary agent turned gumshoe investigating a cowboy star’s suspicious death, is creaky but fun. Spiderweb is an unmitigated blast. A showbiz wannabe is groomed into a phony psychic so he can work his way to the top of the movie colony. And you know how I feel about phony psychics.
Redbelt. David Mamet has described his latest as both a fight movie and a modern Samurai tale. It’s really about the code of the warrior. Mamet strikes an idiosyncratic tone here, blending a knotty, intellectual plot with Rocky-style uplift. A good chunk of the audience I saw the movie with didn’t get it, which I understand. I, however, was on its wavelength from frame one. I heartily endorse its philosophy, it’s got some great Mamet dialogue (“Everything in life, the money’s in the rematch”) and my favorite scene of the year so far, where Chiwetel don’t-call-him-Chewie Ejiofor trains Emily Mortimer.
Iron Man. Haven’t seen it yet. Yeah, I can’t believe it, either. But I could only squeeze in one movie in the last week, and Redbelt had better start times. Soon, though. In the meantime, Jeff Bridges was kind enough to post his photographs from the shoot on his dandy website.
World Cocktail Week. It runs through Tuesday. Get out there and do your part. I had the boys at the Zig Zag Café fix me a “lost” classic cocktail featured on their website, a Firpo’s Balloon. Ask for it by name and give your bartender fits.
My friend the czar of noir Eddie Muller has a terrific article in today’s San Francisco Chronicle on why the city by the bay looms so large in crime fiction. He interviewed 30 writers who live in the area, and the resulting piece explains the importance of community as well as touching on the struggles of the mid-list author. Go read it.
Interesting times here at Chez K. Lots of irons in the fire, developments on multiple fronts. I may even be able to talk them up soon.
What this means in the short term is work. Here’s how much: on Tuesday night, I had to pass up a free early screening of Iron Man. That was free. And early.
So I haven’t had time to post. Or even to read/see things to post about.
But I want to give you something for stopping by. So here’s a tip: head on over to the new Crime/Noir issue of Storyglossia, edited by wild man Anthony Neil Smith and featuring short fiction from the likes of Kevin Wignall, Vicki Hendricks, Megan Abbott and your friend and mine Ray Banks.
What, that’s not enough? Fine. I give and I give to you people and this is the thanks I get. Here’s more Mitchell and Webb.
If you’re not watching this show, you’re missing out. I have been known to talk about the Mets this way, and will start doing the same with movies.
Miscellaneous: Links, All-Brawl Edition
As a David Mamet fan, I can’t wait to see Redbelt. In an article he wrote for the New York Times, Mamet calls it a “fight film” and discusses a few cinematic battles and battlers that left memorable impressions.
Then, in the Daily News, Mamet calls Redbelt his tribute to classic film noir and mentions a few favorites.
Having trouble selling books? You could always write erotica. It’s working for novelist Rupert Smith. Can I just say that titling a gay porn version of an Agatha Christie country house murder mystery The Back Passage is sheer genius? Hat tip to Arts & Letters Daily.
Speaking of Ellroy, the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin has made their collection of kinescopes of The Mike Wallace Interview available. There are 65 programs from 1957 and ’58 online. They’re fascinating relics, with Wallace alternating between bullying his guests proto-cable news style and shilling Philip Morris cigarettes with their “man’s kind of mildness.”
Wallace talks to Frank Lloyd Wright, Salvador Dali, a panel of Nobel Prize winners. So who did I watch? Ellroy favorite Fred Otash, the Hollywood detective who dished dirt for Confidential magazine.
I also cued up the interview with stripper Lili St. Cyr. I had read that Lili had a “high pitched, Minnie Mouse-like voice,” and that’s certainly true. Lili talks about how show business is a “pantywaist profession” suitable for women only, and about her belief in UFOs, speculating on what men from Venus are like. Science has since supplanted Lili, as we now know that men are from Mars and women are from Venus.
Twice during the interview, Wallace quotes the stripper Sherry Britton. Who, coincidentally, passed away this week.
If you’re in the San Francisco area, you are obligated to attend this because I can’t: the North American premiere of a lost Grand Guignol play by Noel Coward. It’s directed by Eddie Muller, and the run begins tonight. Eddie told me a little about the play during Noir City, and it’s not to be missed.
Speaking of Eddie, here’s the program for the 10th Annual Noir City Festival, kicking off April 3 at L.A.’s Egyptian Theatre. If you’re in the Los Angeles area, you are obligated to attend because I can’t. I recommend the program on April 12, when you’ll have an opportunity to see Eddie’s short film The Grand Inquisitor with star Marsha Hunt in person, and on April 6, when Eddie will be screening Wicked Woman featuring the one and only Beverly Michaels.
Speaking of Wicked Woman, here’s the trailer again. The movie also stars character actor Percy Helton.
Speaking of Percy Helton, he’s also in this Japanese TV commercial in which Charles Bronson marinates himself in a cologne called Mandom. (Thanks, Tony!)
Speaking of ... OK, I’m out of segues. Here’s some other stuff.
At work last night, I saw this video highlighting Big Dog, a DARPA-funded robot. To quote a colleague, “We need to kill this thing and send it back to Hell. It can carry a gun and it sounds like it’s powered by angry bees.” To me, it’s just a $500 million pack mule. But it’s still probably the first step on the road to this world. Via BoingBoing.
Busy, busy, busy, so here’s a bunch of stuff at once.
A Diet of Treacle, by Lawrence Block (1961/2008). Hard Case Crime has reprinted some extraordinary early novels by Lawrence Block. But Treacle, originally published as Pads Are For Passion by Sheldon Lord, is the first that seems like a paycheck gig. It’s a sordid trip through the Greenwich Village beatnik world. Block paints the scene as peopled largely by posers and venal layabouts, a characterization I have no problem with. As always in a Block book, there’s fluid prose and vivid New York atmosphere to spare. But nothing much happens until the last forty pages or so. To be fair, those forty pages are pretty damn good, but Treacle is more a curio than anything else.
And then there’s that title. I dig that it’s a riff on Lewis Carroll, who always seemed like he Got It. But as a title, man, it’s strictly from Squaresville.
Stardust (2007). Why wasn’t this a big hit? High adventure with a noble hero, a fallen star, evil princes, wicked witches, and a swishbuckling sky pirate (not a typo), all of it served up tongue-in-cheek. Loads of fun.
Let’s All Kill Constance, by Ray Bradbury (2003). In 1960 Hollywood, an unnamed writer (c’mon, it’s Ray himself) is asked by a legendary star of the silent screen to figure out who left two “Books of the Dead” for her. If James Joyce wrote a pulp detective novel after mainlining Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon, Constance would be the result. I don’t know if I completely got it, but I did enjoy it.
Larry King Live. Last night, Larry was responsible for the single dumbest hour of television I’ve ever seen. I was on a treadmill at the gym, but as fast as I ran I couldn’t escape it. Larry had tag teams of celebrities talking up their picks in the 2008 presidential election. The dictionary may not agree with me here, but I’m making a new rule I expect Larry to follow. Newspaper editorial boards, political organizations, and elected officials can “endorse” a candidate. Samwise Gamgee and Kumar can only support the individual of their choice. I have spoken.
I’m on sabbatical. Posting every day during Noir City and then live blogging the Oscars has me fresh out of opinions.
And you know what that means. It’s Army of Lovers time! For the uninitiated, they’re a band made up of my first wife, my half-brother Nils, and the guy who handles my landscaping. And I ain’t talking about yard work. When I get swamped, you get ‘Crucified.’
PS. I don’t have to worry about traffic during this fallow period. It’s been through the roof thanks to Tuesday’s link from political superblogger Jonah Goldberg. Of course, he linked to that damn photograph of Pat Harrington as Schneider from One Day At A Time, which I only put up as a joke. All my deathless prose, and that picture gets all the glory. The irony would kill a lesser man, whereas it only leaves me curled up and weeping in the fetal position. Again.
4. Lunch at The Honeyhole, offering the finest sandwiches within Seattle city limits. The Chachi’s Favorite is particularly good.
5. See In Bruges, the feature film debut by brilliant playwright Martin McDonagh. A pair of hit men (Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson) hide out in Belgium, getting on each other’s nerves while awaiting instructions from their hair-trigger boss (Ralph Fiennes). A dark, moving comedy with a richly mordant Irish sensibility. Tell me that unrated trailer doesn’t make you want to see the whole thing.
6. Meet up with Christa, Marcus, Sue Ann and Kim of Seattle Mystery Books at my home away from home, the Zig Zag Café. I’m not sure I’m old enough for the conversation that followed, but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. A marvelous night in the company of good people. Don’t take my word for it: here’s Christa’s report. (UPDATE 2/11/08: And here’s Sue Ann’s.)
The AV Club is on a roll this week. Today they have a lengthy interview with Billy Mitchell, the putative villain of The King of Kong. I love how it came about: AV Club staffers ordered up a mess of Rickey’s Barbecue Sauce, probably as part of this article on B-list celebrity food products, and Mitchell himself called to confirm the address. Whatever Billy’s faults, the man knows service. A must-read if you’ve seen the movie.
Miscellaneous: Political Art and Science
The Washington State caucuses are on Saturday, and for once they matter. Within a span of 24 hours Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain were all in Seattle. It’s nice to be wanted. For several hours this morning I couldn’t think with the sound of news helicopters circling the Obama rally.
But I won’t be at the big shindig tomorrow, for three reasons.
1. I have a prior engagement. All those Saturdays when I have nothing to do, and now this happens. Great.
2. I still have nightmares about my experience at the 2004 caucus.
3. I don’t feel so strongly about my choice that I want to stand around a high school gym discussing it with strangers.
The AV Club on 20 pop culture obsessions geekier than Monty Python. I have mostly dodged these bullets. I confess to going through a Dr. Who phase in junior high. And I do have a Facebook page. But I have never thanked anyone for the add, and I never will.
I watched a documentary on the history of New York’s Grand Central that wasn’t as interesting as this video of 200 people frozen in the middle of the terminal. H/t to Andrew Sullivan.
Thanks to the internet, everything is now either overrated or underrated.
Miscellaneous: How I’ve Been Spending My Time
Jekyll (2007). This six-hour contemporary take on Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic – by Steven Moffat, who according to Rosemarie is responsible for the best Doctor Who episodes – gets more ridiculous and more entertaining as it goes along. It’s a field day for actor James Nesbitt. And Denis Lawson from Local Hero – fine, Wedge Antilles to you Star Wars geeks – makes a sublime heavy.
Billion-Dollar Kiss: The Kiss That Saved Dawson’s Creek and Other Adventures in TV Writing, by Jeffrey Stepakoff (2007). Stepakoff’s career in TV spans the everybody-gets-a-deal boom years of the ‘90s and the recent rise of reality TV. His book details the many ways that industry consolidation has affected the television business, from the stunted development of most writers’ careers to the neglect of entire demographics. Interesting material to consider in the midst of a writers’ strike.
Oscar nominations. They’re out, and here’s all I have to say: if “Falling Slowly” from Once doesn’t win Best Original Song, somebody’s getting a letter.
Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates (1961). A modern classic I am only now coming to. It deserves its reputation; I was well and truly staggered. Yates’s story of stultifying suburban life and how the lies we tell ourselves can poison others blazed a trail that novelists have been following for decades.
The Colbert Report. Tuesday night’s show, with “Stephen Colbert” dipping into Stephen Colbert’s family history and a closing Gospel number, is a must-see. Colbert has always walked a high wire, but the WGA strike has removed his net. He has yet to stumble.
Miracle (2004). I don’t know how I missed this movie about the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team. I’m a sucker for inspirational sports films, it acknowledges my alma mater as a college hockey powerhouse, and I revere Kurt Russell as the acme of American manhood. A recent mention from Kung Fu Monkey corrected my oversight.
Art in the Blood, by Craig McDonald (2006). Not too long after I raved about McDonald’s debut novel Head Games it was nominated for an Edgar, due presumably to my endorsement. I can also recommend this collection of interviews with some of the leading lights of contemporary crime fiction. McDonald knows how to ask questions, and includes a wide range of writers. Lots of insight to be gained here.
Do The Math, evolving from The Bad Plus’s blog into a music ‘zine, collects answers to a questionnaire in which jazz luminaries and critics name interesting TV themes, movie scores, hip-hop tracks and more. Who knew the music from The Price Is Right contained such harmonic depths?
So the New England Patriots make it to another Super Bowl, this time with a chance at a perfect season. It’s only appropriate on this day that we pause to remember a musical moment from the team’s not-so-distant past. In 1985, the Pats squared off for the NFL championship against the last team to flirt seriously with perfection, the Chicago Bears. Everyone remembers the Bears’ ‘Super Bowl Shuffle,’ as well as they should; talk about your harmonic depths. But the Patriots also had a song. I give you the overlong and grammatically incorrect New England, The Patriots And We.
Linking to this may be an attempt to jinx New England. I honestly don’t know.
It’s always strange to leap into a series in the middle. But considering the acclaim Red Cat has received, I figured it was time to meet Peter Spiegelman’s New York private investigator John March.
March is the black sheep of his family. Which is why he’s surprised to be hired by his own brother. David March is a successful financier. Also a married one. That doesn’t stop him from meeting women anonymously via the Internet for what are supposed to be meaningless flings. Unfortunately his latest paramour, a mysterious beauty who calls herself Wren, isn’t interested in going away quietly. Wren has worked out David’s identity and is threatening to expose his indiscretions. John’s job is to turn the tables and learn who she is. Only once he does, he also discovers that Wren isn’t interested in something as simple as blackmail – and that David may not be the innocent victim he claims to be.
I have one quibble about Spiegelman’s writing. Ending a chapter with a plot twist, then starting the next one some time later and filling in what happened after that twist, is a powerful device. Unless you use it in almost every chapter, as Spiegelman is wont to do. Then it becomes somewhat mechanical.
But that’s a minor complaint. Red Cat is smart, suspenseful, and full of sharp observations about family, marriage and New York. Particularly when it comes to categorizing every type of cold weather that plagues the city come winter. Red Cat is the third of the John March books, so I plan on doing some falling back of my own.
I watched it. All of it. From the truncated cartoon opening to the closing credits, which are sung. Yet another item I can cross off life’s to-do list.
The history of Otto Preminger’s unwieldy combination of head movie and counterculture farce, laid out nicely in this TCM piece, is more interesting than its plot. And that’s saying something. Jackie Gleason is a reformed mobster coerced by the country’s top kingpin “God,” (played by Groucho Marx in his final performance) to go into prison and whack his onetime best friend. He’s thrown into a cell with a draft dodger (Austin Pendleton, easily the best thing in the movie) who accidentally turns him onto LSD. Meanwhile, Gleason’s daughter and wife fall in with a band of hippies. Here, watch the trailer.
Some select highlights from the Chez K running commentary:
Me: I don’t know which thought is more disturbing, Carol Channing sleeping with Frankie Avalon or Frankie Avalon sleeping with Carol Channing.
Rosemarie: Please don’t talk to me.
And when the movie was over:
Rosemarie: Honestly? Twenty minutes in I was hoping the wind would knock the cable out so I wouldn’t have to watch the rest of it.
Me: You could have just walked away.
Rosemarie: No. I couldn’t. But I can still root for an act of God.
As bad as Skidoo is – and is it bad; I’ve seen episodes of The Monkees that make more sense and do a better job of explaining the ‘60s – it at least represents an honest attempt to come to terms with the times. Which is more than I can say for 1967’s The Love-Ins, which followed Skidoo on TCM. It stars James MacArthur as the least believable hippie in film history – he still has his Dan-o hair, for Christ’s sake – and Susan Oliver, the first actress to become famous for going green. At one point Oliver takes a massive dose of LSD – again with the acid! – and does a striptease during a protracted trip based on Alice in Wonderland.
Rosemarie: They spent too much money on this. The freakouts in Skidoo were better because they looked cheaper.
Let that be a lesson to prospective filmmakers out there.
Strike Stuff: The Golden Globes
The WGA makes it difficult for the awards show to go on. Note to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association: maybe the writers don’t want to help you out because you treat them so shabbily. Only one screenplay category, for adapted and original, with a mere five slots? No recognition of TV writing at all? And yet you split the lead acting categories into comedy and drama so you can pack the hall with A-listers, and nominate seven movies for best drama just ‘cause you feel like it? You’re lucky the Guild doesn’t picket you when there isn’t a strike.
TV: The Wire
The fifth and final season starts tonight on HBO. Slate digs up a suppressed closing scene. I think they should air it.
Miscellaneous: Links
The New York Times on free web-based videogames. This is how I’ve been killing time while riding out a cold. I particularly like 5 Differences, which works as a soothing art piece as well as a game.
2007 began with French toast and a visit from an oracle.
The French toast is easily explained. The only holiday tradition Rosemarie and I have is breakfast out on January 1, complete with Bloody Marys. Begin the year by treating yourself, and it sets the tone for the months to come.
After breakfast comes a logy feeling, followed by introspection. I decided to take a walk and found myself in an eerily deserted downtown Seattle. As I approached a corner I saw a man on the other side of the street. He looked like he’d been living rough, but he had a smile on his face directed at me. When I crossed the street he pointed to my cap. “A Mets fan! You from New York?”
I’ll talk to anyone who acknowledges my Mets cap.
His name was Andre, and he was a recent transplant from New Orleans. He told me how his telemarketing job led to a newfound respect for New Yorkers. (“They keep it real. They’re upfront, want you to get to the point. Southerners like me, we take our time to get where we’re going.”) He discoursed on his difficulties meeting women in Seattle. (“Everywhere they go, they travel in packs. It’s like Diana Ross and the Supremes all the time.”) Finally, he asked if I had a couple of bucks to spare. I told him he was truly a Southerner, because it took him a while to get where he was going. Then I gave him some money. He’d certainly earned it.
We separated at the corner. From the other side of the street, he called my name.
“It’s gonna be your year!,” he said. “2007 is gonna be your year!” Then he was gone.
Of course, nothing can live up to that kind of introduction. 2007 may not have been my year, but it could have been much worse. In February, a vortex of illness and misfortune sucked in family and friends alike. The volume of incidents was staggering, but ultimately nothing fatal or permanent resulted. Several projects were delayed by the prospect and eventually the reality of a WGA strike, but my life wasn’t thrown into complete upheaval like so many others’ have been.
And then, in September, the Mets collapsed, going from prohibitive World Series favorite to missing the playoffs entirely. I hold Andre responsible for that. He shouldn’t have talked up the team’s chances so early in the year. But what did he know? New Orleans doesn’t have a baseball team.
Still, it’s not like 2007 was wanting for personal accomplishments:
I went back to my old neighborhood in Queens for the first time in ages and discovered that not only can you go home again, but odds are the local restaurants will have improved dramatically.
I started a running list of jazz musicians that sounded interesting. By the end of the year not only had I listened to all of them, but I’d seen several of them live.
I changed my physical appearance. I let my hair grow and switched to contact lenses. I no longer look like Frank Grimes. Now I look like a second-string orchestra conductor, or an English professor at a state college who blows tenure by sleeping with one of his students. I consider this a marked improvement.
Most importantly, I ventured into new areas. I landed a writing job that is challenging and a great deal of fun. I can’t go into any detail yet. (Let me put it this way. I’m game to tell you about it. There. I don’t think that violated any NDAs.)
The job is one of the reasons why I can’t wait to ring in 2008. I also want the WGA strike to end, so that a lot of good people can go back to work and I can pick up where I left off. And there are other exciting possibilities in the mix.
The other day Rosemarie said, “2007 was your rebuilding year, like in football.” Of course, 2006 was technically a rebuilding year for the New England Patriots and they made it all the way to the AFC title game. In 2007, they went undefeated in the regular season and are on the verge of making NFL history. It’s always nice to have something to shoot for.
Happy new year, everybody. May each of you, in your own way, sign Randy Moss in the off-season of your lives.
Tell ya one thing I will look back at: the year in this blog. Here are the entries that generated the most interest.
Coming in at number one are the posts I’m most proud of, namely my coverage of Noir City Seattle in July. Every night for a week I’d see a double feature of classic noir, then come home and write the films up. I never miss a chance to work on deadline. The Noir City posts are here and here, with a brief follow-up. I hope I get a chance to do it again in 2008.
On the same subject, my half-baked attempt to answer the question, “What is noir?”
But what drove the most traffic to this site? Amidst the thousands of words I cranked out in 2007, what served as the brightest beacon on the rough seas of the internet?
This photo of Pat Harrington as Dwayne F. Schneider on One Day At A Time.
The Year In Review: In Which The Year Is Not Reviewed
The first installment of my 2007 recap was here earlier today, but I took it down when I realized I was never going to write the other installments. I have neither the time nor the inclination. I am officially retiring from the “best of” business. Which is too bad, because my year-end movie list might well have been the only one to have included Shoot ‘Em Up.
We did see Enchanted, as referenced below. (I know some of you were wondering.) I liked it, and can say with great certainty that Rosemarie liked it even more.
We also caught up with Paris, Je t’aime on DVD, which is like an entire meal made up of amuses-bouche. “Collective” films are typically spotty, but this one has a good hit-to-miss ratio. It helps that each short is five minutes long, so the successes leave you wanting more while the misfires don’t go on too long. Each director’s assignment was to tell a love story in a different neighborhood in the City Of Lights. Leave it to the Coen Brothers to set their film entirely in a Metro station and consist of bad things happening to Steve Buscemi. Other favorites include the efforts by Alexander Payne, with its great performance by character actress Margo Martindale; Isabel Coixet, which initially seems like a send-up of French cinema but soon reveals the coeur beneath the sangfroid (hey, I took French in high school); Sylvain Chomet, finding fresh uses for both mimes and the Eiffel Tower; and Christopher Doyle, whose bizarre film is either pure fancy or a complicated allegory for the French experience in Southeast Asia. I honestly don’t know.
Ever read a book and think the target audience consists of ... you? McDonald’s debut – named one of the year’s ten best crime novels by Eddie Muller in the San Francisco Chronicle – is about the intersection of pulp fiction, Hollywood and politics. Naturally, I ate it up.
Hec Lassiter is the last of the Black Mask boys, still cranking out two-fisted fiction in 1957. He’s being profiled by young poet Bud Fiske for True magazine when a real-adventure comes their way: they wind up in possession of the stolen head of Mexican general Pancho Villa, which is being sought by Yale University’s Skull & Bones Society for use in its secret ceremonies. Hec and Bud square off against intelligence agencies, ancient revolutionaries and homicidal frat boys. McDonald weaves plenty of real-life figures into the tale. Orson Welles, Marlene Dietrich, John Ford, Ernest Hemingway, Senator Prescott Bush. Even the senator’s grandson makes an appearance.
The plot moves at a hell-for-leather pace and is basically an excuse to mourn the passing of an era of American manhood and pay tribute to old-fashioned storytelling. Personally, I’ll never see Touch of Evil the same way again.
TV: Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project (2007)
The best observation in this HBO documentary about the insult comic comes from Penn Jillette:
“(Rickles) had this quality of ... pleasing the audience was the most important thing in the world. Not in his life, in the world. But he would not compromise in any way to please them. A very complicated, very important idea. In a certain sense, the definition of art.”
The documentary is a must-see for fans of old-school showbiz. John Landis, who directed, met Rickles while working as a production assistant on Kelly’s Heroes. But there’s no mention of their other collaboration: 1992’s Innocent Blood, in which a sexy French vampire preys on Pittsburgh gangsters. Rickles plays a Mob lawyer-turned-bloodsucker. Also in the cast are Anthony LaPaglia, future Oscar nominees Angela Bassett and Chazz Palminteri, and half of The Sopranos. It’s great, trashy fun.
TV: This Week’s Reason Why I Don’t Watch CNN
I went back and forth about posting this photograph. It’s outside my bailiwick, the image isn’t the best, and it’s in questionable taste to harp on a typo in the midst of sad news. But I mentioned it over at Bill Crider’s blog, and now I feel it’s my duty.
Here’s Wolf Blitzer reporting on Wednesday’s shooting incident ... in Obama, Nebraska.
It’s a fast-moving story, they’re under pressure, I get it. But I still can’t believe this went on the air. Is the network using an election season macro? Any word beginning with ‘O’ auto-completes as Obama unless it’s changed to Oprah or Orange?
Update: The photo is now also up at Leavenworth Street, a blog devoted to Nebraska state politics.
Video: Farewell, Something Weird
PopMatters (via GreenCine Daily) brings word of the impending demise of Something Weird Video. I’ve watched a lot of the company’s titles over the years and while the movies themselves may have been disappointing, the presentation never was. Keeping these oddities in the public eye is valuable work, and Something Weird did it well.
I wrote about two of SWV’s burlesque films with Bettie Page here, and their Barry Mahon double bill here.
Miscellaneous: An Open Letter To The New York Times
Dear Editors,
It is with heavy heart that I inform you that the paper of record’s readership is not funny.
For the duration of the Writers Guild of America strike, you have replaced the Sunday edition’s normal round-up of the best jokes from the week’s late-night shows with reader offerings from the paper’s Laugh Lines blog.
I am begging you, as a longtime subscriber, to kill this feature at once. Leave the space blank until the strike ends. Failing that, give it to Frank Rich so he can make additional tortured comparisons between the current number one movie at the box office and the failings of the Bush Administration.
As a product of the American public school system, I am loathe to rain on anyone’s creative parade. But the truth must come out. The comedic efforts of Times readers are uniformly terrible. They’re obvious, too long, and have overly elaborate punchlines. The consistently poor nature of these jokes has led to a new Sunday ritual in my household. I read as many of them as I can aloud before my wife beats me unconscious with the rest of your publication. I am beginning to believe that the truly humorous people of our great nation take USA Today.
The situation reached a nadir this past Sunday, when you saw fit to run an item about an “articulate hound” in “a dog-on-the-street” interview saying good things about “Bark Obama and Mutt Romney” but opining that his favorite presidential candidate is “Joe Bite ‘em.”
I say without a trace of exaggeration that I have read Bazooka Joe comics that are funnier than that. I will provide examples upon request.
Comedy is best left to professionals. I implore you, for the good of the Republic. Take this feature. Please.
Miscellaneous: The November Stuff-I-Didn’t-Get-To Post
... will be fairly thin this month. I’ve got projects stacked up like jets over O’Hare, so naturally the ol’ internet homestead is going to suffer. And letting the site lie fallow for a few days always prompts those “you must go on, I cannot go on, I’ll go on” thoughts, even after almost eight hundred – Mother of God! – posts.
Then there’s content. It helps to have stuff to write about, and lately I’ve come up short in that department. In the past six weeks I’ve read a slew of recent crime novels and found most of them disappointing. No names; as I’ve said many times before, if VKDC is about anything, it’s about love. Several of these books have been nominated for awards or were written by authors whose previous work I’ve enjoyed, so maybe it’s me being cranky.
Or maybe it’s not. I read a review by John Williams late last year and haven’t forgotten this line about contemporary crime writers:
“These are writers happy to work within the crime field, extremely genre-literate in a post-Tarantino kind of way, but there’s a sense that for the most part they’re knowingly catering to a minority audience of crime buffs.”
I’m in that minority audience, and the last few well-regarded crime novels I read felt insular, airless, uninteresting. As if they were written for people who would appreciate all the in-jokes and cleverboots references. People like ... well, me.
Pop culture has become so specialized that at times I feel inundated by like-minded voices. And I’m not the only one who’s noticed. New York Times columnist David Brooks wonders why popular music isn’t, you know, popular any more, and turns to Steven Van Zandt for answers. (Please tell me there’s an audio file of the bookish conservative that even liberals can pretend to love talking rock with Silvio Dante. Please.) In a recent review, Variety critic Todd McCarthy noted:
“... ‘Enchanted,’ in the manner of the vast majority of Hollywood films made until the ‘60s, is a film aimed at the entire population – niches be damned. It simply aims to please, without pandering, without vulgarity, without sops to pop-culture fads, and to pull this off today is no small feat.”
I suppose what I ultimately want is to be seen as more than the sum of my niches. I want a return to the days of the generalist. Think I’ll start by going to see Enchanted.
Not that the month was a total loss. I did enjoy Park Avenue Tramp, a 1958 novel by Fletcher Flora recently republished in Stark House’s A Trio of Gold Medals. It’s a strange book, paced like an opium nightmare. Not a whole lot happens, and what does is obvious from the outset. But Flora’s rich psychological descriptions and his compassion for his doomed characters keeps you reading. It’s a novel that’s haunting for its failures as much as its successes.
And then there are the brilliant posts I just don’t have time to write. This month I watched The Deal, the incisive 2003 film from the writing/directing/acting team behind The Queen that examines the relationship between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown when they were both plotting to restore the Labor party to Downing Street. I also saw Johnnie To’s dazzling Election (2005), about the brutal campaign between gangsters to take control of a Hong Kong triad. And it occurred to me that both films make potent parallel arguments about the sacrifices needed to acquire power and the greater ones required to maintain it.
But I’ve got to go back to work. So you’ll have to check out the movies for yourself.
On the plus side, my cable company – I’ll take a page from Ivan at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear and call them Bombast – regularly adds movie channels. You just can’t watch them unless you ask, even if you’re paying for them.
A few months back two new stations appeared at the high end of the dial, taunting me with their listings. If I flipped them on, a message told me to call Bombast to subscribe. Which irked me no end, because I pony up for their “platinum premium” package. As far as I’m concerned, that means I should receive a jewel-encrusted remote every time a new channel is offered. This weekend we finally called, and learned we were supposed to be getting these stations all along. They were activated in the blink of an eye, and we’re now spending less per month on the “emerald elite” plan or whatever the hell it’s called.
I marked the occasion by tuning in one of these stations to watch Cops and Robbers, not only based on a Donald E. Westlake novel but scripted by him as well. Two New York cops (Cliff Gorman and Joseph Bologna), fed up with the pressures of the job and the city, decide to exploit their positions and pull a ten-million dollar heist during a ticker-tape parade to honor returning astronauts. Westlake being Westlake, problems ensue.
It’s an odd duck of a film, one of those laugh-to-keep-from-crying comedies thick on the ground in the 1970s. Aram Avakian, who would direct a similarly offbeat caper movie the following year with 11 Harrowhouse, keeps it all on an even keel. Tough guy character actor John P. Ryan is terrific as the Mafia middleman with a bowling alley in his house, complete with pin monkey. The bogus soul title song by Michel Legrand, on the other hand, is unforgivable.
Miscellaneous: Lessons Learned About Myself
Any movie universally hailed as “a humanist masterpiece” will bore me off my ass.
Miscellaneous: Links
A great, epic Washington Post article by Neely Tucker about the ‘70s P.I. show Mannix, its absence on DVD, and the role that it plays in the lives of its fans and cast. I’ve never seen a minute of Mannix myself. But Ed Gorman doesn’t think too highly of it, and his word is enough for me.
Allan Guthrie, a man who knows a thing or twelve about noir, lists 200 essential novels in the genre.
It’s not a festival if you only go once. Earshot Jazz continues, so we ventured out for another show.
Fred Hersch is one of America’s premier jazz pianists. He recently wrapped up what sounds like an extraordinary series of duet concerts with some of my favorites like Brad Mehldau and Ethan Iverson, and his latest album Night and the Music is a gem. He took the stage in Seattle with bassist Ben Street and drummer Nasheet Waits for a set that included some Ornette Coleman, a mini-tribute to Wayne Shorter, and original compositions that aren’t afraid to be lyrical.
Does it sound like I have any idea of what I’m talking about? Because I don’t. Not really. I’m still at the low end of the jazz learning curve, looking forward to making my way up.
In an unusually active month of concert-going, I’ve seen jazz performers ranging in age from late-20s to a still-spry 80. That’s one of the things I love about the form; if you can bring something to the party you’re more than welcome, no matter how young or old you are. It’s a life’s work.
That openness, I’ve realized, is true of other things that interest me. Like crime fiction. And baseball; plenty of the players from my childhood extend their careers in the game as coaches, scouts or managers.
These pursuits also share a healthy respect for the past that never shades over into reverence. ESPN’s TV coverage of the Joe Torre story mentioned Wilbert Robinson as one of the only other people to manage both the Yankees and the Dodgers, even though in Wilbert’s day the Yankees were in Baltimore and the Dodgers in Brooklyn. The cocktail world, one of my other passions, also has that sense of tradition. There’s nothing like a forgotten drink rediscovered by a contemporary bartender.
Chalk it up to premature old man-ism, but I like things where the current practitioners recognize that they are only temporary custodians of their art. Stop worrying about creating something new, and maybe you can create something good.
Miscellaneous: Halloween Links
Tony Kay compares the Rotten Tomatoes scary movie list with his own. At Shoot the Projectionist, results of a month-long horror film survey are in. And Jim Emerson offers a great list of four overlooked scary movies on DVD.
Still coming down off that New York high. I had to watch Quick Change again to remind myself of how city life actually works. So, while I’m getting my feet back under me, a grab bag of sorts ...
I miss Dunkin Donuts. Their absence in this part of the country has led to a donut-shaped hole in my heart. Which I suppose technically is two holes. I should consult a cardiologist.
When in New York, visit Death & Company. Order some rye cocktails. Tell them I sent you. I’m trying to build up a reservoir of good will.
I saw The Darjeeling Limited on the trip and liked it a lot. So much so that I watched Hotel Chevalier, the short film billed as part one of Darjeeling, as soon as I got home. Chevalier looks great and has some charming moments, but on the whole I didn’t think it added much. Maybe it was seeing them in the wrong order. Now, in a reverse of the original plan, Chevalier will be included when Darjeeling goes into wide release this weekend.
I just double-checked. There are definitely no Dunkin Donuts around here. Damn.
Fred Kaplan went to see Martial Solal at the Vanguard the day after we did and raved. The promised recording of his appearance there will be something to behold.
Apparently, I’ll watch anything on a six-hour flight. Like a deeply disturbing episode of Super Friends. Mr. Mxyzptlk, the criminal imp from the Fifth Dimension – does he know Marilyn McCoo? – imprisons some of the Super Friends in a fantasy world based on The Wizard of Oz. Superman becomes the Tin Man, Aquaman the Scarecrow, and strangest of all, Wonder Woman is transformed into the Cowardly Lion, padding along the Yellow Brick Road in oversized cat feet and a leotard. It was like a fetish video for children. I didn’t know whether I should inform a stewardess or order a copy.
The last two episodes of Mad Men were worth waiting for. What a fantastic debut season.
In honor of the upcoming World Series – Boston and Colorado? Who saw that coming? – here’s an article detailing the history of the bullpen car.
God, I could really go for a donut right about now.
The hiatus is over. Time to document the trip home. And this time I’m serious.
I visit New York at least once a year. I see friends and family, take in shows, absorb all that the city of my birth has to offer. But there’s one thing I hadn’t done, and that’s return to the Queens neighborhood where I grew up. This time, I made it a point to do so.
Here I am in front of the apartment building I lived in when I was a kid. The building looked the same, although it seemed larger in my memories. The pavement leading to the front door used to be bright pink, like the slab of gum that comes with baseball cards.
A cemetery dating back to the colonial era is around the corner. Naturally, it haunted me. I still on occasion see this headstone in my dreams. To this day I have no idea who A.M. is.
Next stop, the church where I was an altar boy. I knew it was small at the time. We always heard that the diocese ran out of money during construction, so what was intended to be the basement ended up being the whole shebang. I don’t believe it, but it’s a good story.
The corner pharmacy where I bought my first paperback is still there, as is the local pizza parlor. The movie theater where I squandered my youth is now a health club, but there’s a much nicer multiplex just down the street.
I used the Museum of the Moving Image, located blocks from my old home, as an excuse to visit the neighborhood. Truth is, the museum would have been worth the trip by itself. It includes some terrific interactive exhibits. I went into a looping booth and rerecorded Humphrey Bogart’s dialogue from To Have and Have Not. His readings were better.
Rosemarie and I are both unafraid to do touristy things in our native town. We rode the Staten Island ferry for the first time, a feat that now means I have set foot in all five boroughs. We also ventured to Top of the Rock, the new observation deck in Rockefeller Center, which may offer the best views - and elevators - in the city.
As always, I went to the movies at every opportunity. I jumped at the chance to see what’s being billed as the definitive cut of Blade Runner on the big screen. I stepped out of the theater directly into Times Square, and for a moment I wasn’t sure the movie had ended.
We also caught We Own The Night, an old-fashioned New York crime thriller that takes full advantage of the city’s locations. There are several terrific set pieces: a fraught sequence in a stash house, a car chase in rain-soaked Queens that’s as good as action scenes get, a final exchange between two brothers that damn near killed me.
The main point of our trips is to see people. We added some new ones on this go-round. Our nephew and his charming new bride relocated to the city recently and are throwing themselves into life there with an enthusiasm that’s a joy to behold. Even better, another nephew was there visiting for the first time as an adult. It was a treat to spend time with people experiencing New York with fresh eyes and boundless hunger.
My friend Mike – he of Mets Fan Club and proud member of the Islanders Blog Box – came into town for dinner. The plan was to have a beer while coming up with a place to eat. We didn’t know the bar was having trivia night. By round three, The Sinatra Group had earned a comfortable lead and dirty looks from the regular competitors. We stayed to the bitter end and emerged victorious, thus fulfilling another of my lifelong dreams: to hold an oversized novelty check.
The regulars expect us back next Tuesday. They’re in for a long wait. They will look for us at the quiz night ... but we will not be coming.
Celebrity sightings were sparse, but the one we had was a good ‘un. We were leaving a restaurant as John Slattery, who’s been dazzling as louche agency head Roger Sterling on Mad Men, came in. Rosemarie said, “He gets the same billing at lunch that he gets on the show. ‘Special Guest Appearance by John Slattery.’”
I have a few more photos up at my Flickr page. And I’ll leave you with one more, of me recreating a scene from David Mamet’s The Spanish Prisoner at the actual location in Central Park.
Zoom in on my eyes. You can see the panic, can’t you? Oh, I’m bringing it, baby. Next trip I’m going up for a role on Law & Order: Criminal Intent. And another dream will be fulfilled.
Actually, I’m on a spiritual quest, one encapsulated by a question from the hardboiled fiction list Rara Avis: whatever happened to rye?
The answer divined from some of Manhattan’s finer bars confirms what I already knew. Rye is making a comeback. It’s used in any number of cocktails, many of which are named after neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Red Hook, Greenpoint, Bensonhurst, Bushwick, Park Slope. Apparently, this is something of a tradition for New York bartenders, as all rye cocktails are seen as descendants of a drink called the Brooklyn. It contains rye, dry vermouth, Maraschino liqueur, and Amer Picon. That last ingredient is the tough one to get ahold of, but it’s worth the effort. Even if you have to stash it behind the rocker panels.
In other news, we seized the opportunity to see Romance & Cigarettes. The musical written and directed by actor John Turturro was orphaned by its studio, so Turturro is distributing it himself. It’s a truly odd duck of a film featuring a stupendous cast and some singular moments, like Christopher Walken’s take on ‘Delilah.’ The limited initial run has been a success, so who knows? Maybe it will be coming to a theater near you.
And then there’s the real reason for the trip. Xanadu on Broadway. Sure, I have people to visit here, business to transact. But there’s also a stage version of the movie on the Great White Way.
I’ve seen the film countless times. I think of it as the cocaine simulator. You want to know what riding the white horse does? It makes you think that Xanadu is a good idea.
The show’s a hoot, even if you’re not way too familiar with the source material. And it’s allowed me to fulfill another lifelong dream. I have now seen a cast member from The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (and Tony Roberts as Warren LaSalle) sing and dance live. I love New York.
Greetings from New York City. My first post from the road almost came in the wee hours of the morning, but I couldn’t get decent internet access at Sea-Tac Airport. Our red eye flight east was delayed due to weather. Takeoff was pushed from a hair before midnight to three AM. It’s strange to have a normally bustling superstructure all to yourself. Most of the other passengers decided to go to sleep, the automated announcements echoing off the walls not disturbing their slumber. Rosemarie and I ended up commandeering an empty section of terminal and playing charades using the longest titles we could think of. Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me, If It’s Tuesday It Must Be Belgium.
Fortunately, the delay didn’t throw a crimp into our evening plans. We were reasonably bright-eyed and technically bushy-tailed when we went to see Martial Solal, one of the world’s foremost jazz pianists, celebrate his eightieth – eightieth! – birthday with one of a week’s worth of solo shows at The Village Vanguard. Solal is only the second performer honored with a run of such sets. (Fred Kaplan has a great summary of Solal’s career. It was Kaplan’s review of NY1, an album Solal recorded during a lonely run at the Vanguard after September 11, 2001, that sparked my interest in Solal’s work.)
The show was an absolute joy, a celebration in every sense. Solal toyed with a battery of standards – “Body and Soul,” “Tea for Two” – with the energy and ingenuity of a man half his age, but also with the ease of a performer who no longer has to prove himself. It was like eavesdropping on a master noodling on the piano in his study, playing for his own amusement. Occasionally I could glimpse a small smile creeping across Solal’s face, vanishing as soon as another notion occurred to him. “I tried to play ‘Cherokee,’” he said at one point, shrugging helplessly. His rendition of “On a Clear Day You Can See Forever” was infused with the memory of a lifetime’s worth of clear days. Quite the memorable start for our trip.
Here’s one for the Bill Crider video collection. A movie that probably had too much influence on me finally gets the DVD it deserves.
Alligator was a huge favorite of mine when I was a kid. A perfect blend of genuine shocks and tongue-in-cheek laughs, it somehow made the idea of a giant mutated reptile living in the sewers under Chicago plausible.
At some point I noticed that this movie and another cable TV staple, Piranha, were written by John Sayles. And that Sayles was also responsible for more ... grown-up fare. But he applied the same attention to detail, no matter what kind of movie he was making. From Sayles, I learned that craft counted regardless of genre.
The new DVD was a chance to watch Alligator for the first time in ages. Not only does the movie hold up, it’s better than I remembered. I appreciate the casting a lot more now. Comedian Jack Carter as the obsequious mayor, Henry Silva as a great white hunter brought in to get the gator. Robin Riker, playing the Midwest’s most fetching herpetologist, looks enough like Lindsay Lohan to give the proceedings some contemporary resonance. And Robert Forster is the man as the troubled cop who first realizes what lurks below.
The disc features an interview with Sayles, who explains how he folded a sociological critique into a monster movie (not a horror film), as well as a commentary track with Forster and director Lewis Teague that makes it plain everyone involved with this movie knew exactly what they were doing.
Miscellaneous: Overhead Conversation of the Day
Concerned Citizen #1: The government, they tell you they’re sending all that money to Iraq, but you know these guys are just lining their pockets with it.
Concerned Citizen #2: Yeah! They’re getting rich. Like Hal Burton. Dick Cheney’s buddy. Burton’s getting it all!
Miscellaneous: The September Stuff-I-Didn’t-Get-To Post
Lonely Hearts. The sordid tale of Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck, who murdered at least a dozen women in the late 1940s, was told in The Honeymoon Killers and Deep Crimson. Now Todd Robinson, grandson of one of the Long Island detectives who brought the pair to justice, recounts the case from their perspective. His low-key but gripping style honors the memory of his grandfather, played by John Travolta. I was concerned about Salma Hayek as Martha Beck, a fearsome woman who weighed over 200 pounds. But Salma finds her own ways to be fearsome.
The Wounded and the Slain, by David Goodis. Don’t be fooled. This isn’t a pulp novel about a couple getting caught up in murder while on vacation in Jamaica. It’s a brutal portrait of a marriage in crisis that cuts to the bone.
The Secret Sex Lives of Romeo and Juliet. You think you know how bad a sexploitation version of the Bard’s classic filmed in the style of Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In – complete with repeated references to “beautiful downtown Verona,” women hollering “Sock it to me!” during sex, and cutaways to lame one-liners – can be. Then you watch the movie. And you realize you had no idea.
Sports: That’s What I’m Talking About
After the Mets collapse, what I needed was a game like last night’s instant classic between the Rockies and Padres to, as they said at Faith and Fear in Flushing, restore my belief in baseball. (I should have linked to FAFIF long before now. Some excellent writing to be found there even if you’re not a Mets fan.) Seeing Mets castoffs like Heath Bell and Kaz Matsui playing with fire was odd, but it allowed the healing to begin. I figured the Arizona Diamondbacks, who smoke-and-mirrored their way to the best record in the National League, would win the pennant. But I’m revising that opinion. Whoever makes it out of the Rockies/Phillies showdown, sure to be a corker, will be in the World Series and give the AL champ a run for their money.
In Mets’ downfall news, ESPN’s Bill Simmons was so moved by the team’s collapse that he created an entirely new level of losing to describe it. What did he call it?
(T)he guys over at (hardboiled/noir mailing list) Rara-Avis are always saying that if there’s a happy ending, it can’t be noir. Do you go along with that? If not, or even if so, what’s your take on what Noir is?
Steve’s not the only one to put this headscratcher to me. At a Seattle International Film Festival noir double-bill earlier this year, I chatted with my friend and game-show competitor, critic Tom Tangney. Tom said, “What’s with you noir guys? I thought you were all about the downer endings but in a lot of the movies I’ve seen, things work out OK.”
Solving the what-is-noir riddle accounts for a hefty slice of the traffic on R-A. It gets brutal at times. Lives have been lost. Worse, feelings have been hurt. You think I’m going to wade into that contentious debate here?
OK, I will.
The safest play would be to punt, to Potter Stewart the question and say I know noir when I see it. I’m not a purist when it comes to definition. There are some who insist that “noir” can only refer to the original canon of authors published by the Série Noire line in France, or films made between 1940 (Stranger on the Third Floor) and 1958 (Touch of Evil). I don’t want to watch a movie like The Money Trap or Memento and think, “Jesus, that’s as noir as can be. Too bad it didn’t come out in ‘52.”
The recent explosion of noir films on video clouds the matter further. Steve’s question was prompted by two titles in Warner’s Film Noir Classic Collection Volume 4. Over the weekend I caught up with another movie in the set, 1955’s Illegal. Politically ambitious D.A. Edward G. Robinson discovers he sent an innocent man to the electric chair. He resigns, hits the skids, then reinvents himself as an unscrupulous criminal lawyer allied with the crime boss he was once determined to bring down – until his former assistant is indicted for murder.
Entertaining? You bet. Noir? Not really. Sure, it has its share of noirish elements, but it’s the second remake of the 1932 melodrama The Mouthpiece. The first remake, 1940’s The Man Who Talked Too Much, is about two lawyer brothers squaring off on opposite sides of a case. I’d say every iteration of this movie belongs in your video store’s “Hambone” section – a genre to which I am also partial. So why include it in a film noir collection?
A definition I picked up at Rara-Avis is known as The Bludis Heresy, after author Jack Bludis, who coined it. It states that hardboiled fiction is about characters who go into a cold, unfeeling world with no illusions, while in noir those characters are doomed to be crushed by said world. Or, as Bludis puts it with admirable economy:
Hardboiled = Tough Noir = Screwed
I like that a lot.
Eddie Muller, a man I always listen to on this subject, said that all noir stories are about “people who know what they’re doing is wrong, but they do it anyway.” He also said that the genre’s ethos was perfectly encapsulated by Walter Neff’s explanation of his actions in Double Indemnity: “I killed him for money and for a woman. I didn’t get the money ... and I didn’t get the woman.”
So what do I think?
I think noir, by definition, is about losers, the perpetual short-stickers of life. I think fate plays an active role. Look no further than Detour. Tom Neal, the poor bastard, never stood a chance. In the movie and in the real world.
It’s not darkness for its own sake. Too many contemporary writers branded with the noir label seem to wallow in misery, to enjoy torturing their characters. Noir is not about bad things happen to marginally good people. It’s about poor decisions boomeranging back with a vengeance.
True noir shouldn’t end on an upbeat note. But I’m willing to give the movies some leeway on that score. The powers that be in the business have always been reluctant to send the audience out feeling blue. Besides, happy endings, unlike Tolstoy’s happy families, are not all alike. At this year’s Noir City screening of Nightmare Alley, I heard some grousing that the closing scenes went too easy on Tyrone Power’s Stanton Carlisle. Sure, if hitting rock bottom is to be preferred over the long plunge down.
The French may have given the genre its name, but noir is a fundamentally American invention. Which is as it should be, because noir’s message cuts straight to the heart of the American dream. In a nation obsessed with winners, there are bound to be losers. And not only should their stories be told, they’re invariably more interesting.
Recently at The Rap Sheet, editor J. Kingston Pierce marked the 100th anniversary of the limerick craze that swept London by calling for five-line poems with a crime fiction theme. You know me. I can never resist a challenge.
Two of my efforts are now up at the site. Be warned: they’re completely ridiculous, and I take the name of the great Ogden Nash in vain.
I knew this day was coming. My own personal greatest movie of all time,
