VinceKeenan.com

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Mon, 12 May 2008 02:46:00 +0000

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.

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Wed, 07 May 2008 18:02:00 +0000

Miscellaneous: Links

Some sabbatical taker, I. My problem is that when I find the good stuff, I have to share.

Like this article on a guy who has convinced the city of Seattle that he’s Gary Busey.

Or Isabella Rossellini’s series of short films on the sex lives of insects. Maybe I’m susceptible to the accent, but these are hot. Also, about the snails? I had no idea.

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Tue, 06 May 2008 18:21:00 +0000

TV: Frank’s, For The Memories

I’m on deadline, meaning I’ll be taking a sabbatical for the next few days. Lucky for you it’s Sinatra month on Turner Classic Movies, so you have this widget to tide you over ‘til I return.

UPDATE: Initially I embedded the widget, but it starts automatically and I hate that. So you can find it here.

The High Society number with Bing Crosby is a favorite. TCM is also airing some of Frank’s TV specials on Sunday evenings at 8PM Eastern and Pacific. I’m waiting for his 1967 show with Ella Fitzgerald and Antonio Carlos Jobim, which airs May 18.

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Sun, 04 May 2008 22:54:00 +0000

Link: California Crime

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.

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Thu, 01 May 2008 19:06:00 +0000

Miscellaneous: I Got Plenty of Nothing

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.

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 20:11:00 +0000

TV: Today’s Mitchell And Webb Moment

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.

Interestingly, both pieces cite the original Night and the City. Which also earns a place on this list of the 20 greatest movie fight scenes. Hat tip to Bill Crider and, by extension, Walter Satterthwait.

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 20:18:00 +0000

Book: Matala, by Craig Holden (2007)

Craig Holden’s Four Corners of Night is a big, bruising heartbreaker of a novel. His latest, Matala, is short enough to be read in a single sitting and sharp enough to wound. It’s dark, sexy, twisted. Kinky in every sense, which I intend as a high compliment.

Darcy is a spoiled American girl fresh out of high school, sent on a European tour by her wealthy parents. Naturally, she gets bored at once. In Rome she falls in with Will, another American who’s grifting his way across the continent. Will, in turn, is in thrall to the older Justine, a veteran con artist who looks at Darcy and sees nothing but opportunity. The three of them agree to smuggle a package to Greece, and before the trip is over all manner of masks will slip.

Here’s the best way I can plug Matala. A meme currently making the rounds ask you to open the closest book. Turn to page 123. Find the fifth sentence. Post the next three sentences. (Yeah, I don’t get it, either.) No one has tagged me – what, you think you’re better than me? – but Matala was the closest book when I first came across it. I give you the result:

They had each other to keep them amused and happy and satiated. And she certainly felt all three of those things. Will had proved to a robust and durable lover, and Darcy did not feel disappointed in him except at the furthest edges of her desires.

Tell me you don’t want to read more.

Miscellaneous: Links

The AV Club’s exhaustive primer on my musical hero, Elvis Costello. King of America is a personal favorite.

Roger Ebert on Joe Vs. The Volcano. Via Bill Crider, a charter member of the JvTV fan club along with yours truly.

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 05:39:00 +0000

Book: Sleeping Dogs, by Ed Gorman (2008)

With the last major primary out of the way and the Democratic party’s electoral future clear – sweet Jesus, this campaign is gonna go on forever – this seems like an ideal time to recommend Sleeping Dogs, the latest from friend-of-the-site Ed Gorman. Ed, an immensely talented writer who’s done some time in politics, knows the territory and covers it well.

Political operative Dev Conrad steps into an Illinois Senate race in the closing stages. The incumbent, a good-enough pol with only a minor history of bimbo eruptions, finds himself in a pitched battle with a downstate “nut job ... (who’d) gone to sanity school recently.” Dev has to deal with campaign sabotage and the suicide of the man he’s replacing, not to mention his own doubts about the candidate he’s working to reelect. The action, as always with Ed, goes down smooth, and is punctuated by his bittersweet observations about life and culture.

Don’t just take my word for it. Bill Crider, Lee Goldberg and James Reasoner like the book, too. I might steer you wrong, but those guys? Never.

Movies: More Blast of Silence

Found: a few panels from Sean Phillips’s graphic novel adaptation of the movie that has altered the way I communicate. Thanks to GreenCine Daily.

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 00:46:00 +0000

DVD: Blast of Silence (1961)

Remembering ...

You’d heard of this movie before, in whispered tones. Church voices. Blast of Silence. A gritty, low-down noir shot guerilla-style on the streets of New York. Back in the early days of scrounging together bucks to make films on the cheap. You’d never seen it. Figured you never would. But you catch a break when lips slip that it’s getting the Criterion treatment. Five star all the way.

You jump on it as soon as you have the chance. Grass don’t grow under your feet.

You watch it, this movie written and directed by Allen Baron. He even stars in it, playing Frankie Bono, a Cleveland hit man who trains in to New York over Christmas to take care of a guy. But Frankie runs into some people from his past, a girl. He starts thinking about his life. You don’t want to do that. Not with that life.

You know the movie’s not perfect. The plot gets a little convenient, and if he can’t see the ending coming you figure Baby Boy Frankie Bono may not be the sharpest cannon in the shed.

But you’re not watching this one for the story. No. You’re watching it for the mood. The feeling. The energy that Baron finds on the streets of your hometown and channels into every frame. In Harlem. In Greenwich Village, beatniks pounding their drums and their libidos ‘til everything’s raw.

Remembering ...

You read Lawrence Block’s A Diet of Treacle not too long ago, from the same time and set on those same streets. The movie takes you right there. In style, in attitude, you’re watching one of those old Gold Medal paperbacks come to life. Or as close as you’re gonna get.

Most of all, you’re grooving on that voiceover. Written by blacklisted writer Waldo Salt under a phony name. Delivered by blacklisted actor Lionel Stander under no name at all. Putting you in Frankie Bono’s head. Making you feel Frankie’s palms sweat. Or not sweat. You know the meteorology of Frankie’s hands is important. You can’t get enough of that voiceover, think that Dave Kehr had it dead to rights when he called it “second person accusative.” You start doing that voiceover all the time. You can’t stop. You understand why friends of yours lapse into it on the streets of Philadelphia after a showing at NoirCon. You wish you were there to do it, too.

You even dig the extra features on the DVD. Baron’s still around, still kicking, still feisty. You like the guy, Martin Scorsese crossed with George C. Scott from The Hustler. He had a nice career for himself in TV. He takes you back to the locations, thirty, then almost fifty years later. Shows you the ways the neighborhoods change. And the ways they don’t.

You don’t see the best extra, though. A short graphic novel adaptation of the movie by Sean Phillips, one of the genius bad-asses behind Criminal with Ed Brubaker. That’s because you punked out, rented the DVD when you knew you should have bought it. You’ll pony up now, though. You want to come back to it.

Remembering ...

You watched Murder by Contract a few months back, another hit man movie. Picked by another genius bad-ass, James Ellroy. Vince Edwards wandering L.A., starting to feel bad about killing. You remember Ellroy talking up Contract as the first movie to give you the assassin as existential hero. Yeah, maybe. But you think Silence is the first one to get it right.

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 07:07:00 +0000

Meaningless Milestones: Four Candles

Today marks the fourth anniversary of this blog. Three cheers and a tiger for me!

I had planned on writing an epic post detailing all that I’ve learned in four years of blogging, building it around a few simple rules. One of the first rules to occur to me was, “Never, under any circumstances, blog about blogging.” Thus rendering the post moot before I’d even written it. Plus, I am swamped. Things have been nuts around here, and only stand to get nuttier.

So instead, I’ll repeat the news. Today marks the fourth anniversary of this blog. Three cheers and a tiger for me!

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 20:07:00 +0000

Sort Of Related: Hollywood Station, by Joseph Wambaugh (2006)/Confessions of a Superhero (2007)

LAPD veteran Wambaugh is perhaps the master of cop fiction. He turns his attention back to his old department for the first time in 20 years – at fellow author James Ellroy’s urging – and it’s obvious the man hasn’t missed a beat.

Station has a plot of sorts, involving a pair of tweakers and some Eastern European thieves whose fates are destined to collide. But the bulk of the novel is devoted to the day-to-day of the police officers who work the still-mean streets of Hollywood. And quite the motley bunch they are: surfers and wannabe actors, single moms and wily veterans. Wambaugh makes no bones about his dislike for the federal consent decree that the LAPD has been operating under in the wake of the Ramparts scandal, but aside from a single chapter it never overwhelms the narrative. It’s rich, compassionate, funny and heartbreaking stuff. A TV series based on the book is in the works, but there’s no sense in waiting for that. I’ll be jumping on the just-published sequel Hollywood Crows ASAP.

Wambaugh’s cops aren’t superheroes. As it turns out, his superheroes aren’t superheroes either. Some of the novel’s action takes place around the intersection of Hollywood and Highland, where people in costume pose for photographs with tourists outside Grauman’s Chinese Theater. Wambaugh spells out exactly how low-rent this spectacle is. According to him, many of the “performers” are meth addicts, and the police ID three similarly clad figures as Fat Elvis, Thin Elvis, and Smelvis.

Matthew Ogens’s offbeat documentary Confessions of a Superhero profiles four people who don capes to stay afloat in Tinseltown. The movie’s Superman, who identifies with his alter ego to an alarming degree, is a recovering addict who’s also the son of Academy Award winner Sandy Dennis – unless he’s not. Wonder Woman’s tale is all too common: the belle of her high school, she heads west to learn that she’s too “voluptuous” to book TV commercials. And wait ‘til you see what happens to Batman. Sometimes “only in L.A.” is the appropriate response.

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 23:11:00 +0000

Movies: Show Biz Sundays

If there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that Sunday evenings stink. That double whammy of disappointment, feeling you didn’t drain the weekend cup dry while dreading Monday’s return to the grindstone. I’ve always held that if aliens were going to invade, they should do so on a Sunday. Humanity would welcome the distraction.

The Chez K prescription for the Sunday blahs: show business melodramas. Plenty of color and movement to distract the eye – and no messy plots! Herewith, a rundown of an almost-month of Sundays.

Torch Song (1953). In the days before Mommie Dearest, when people made fun of Joan Crawford this is the movie they had in mind. Joan plays the Broadway legend who can’t stop giving her all no matter how much we beg her to hold back. In Joan’s first Technicolor feature, she dyes her hair crimson and lemons around in outfits so garish they permanently damaged my TV screen. With Michael Wilding as the world’s most insufferable blind man.

Enjoy the trailer, featuring some choice dialogue and a snippet of Joan’s big number in blackface (and blacklegs).

Alas, the trailer does not include the moment when Joan, still in blackface, yanks off her wig in a titian tizzy. Scarier than Pinhead, Jigsaw and Donald Trump rolled into one.

My Wild Irish Rose (1947). A St. Patrick’s Day perennial on TCM. Dennis Morgan stars as Chauncey Olcott, the tenor who invented stage Irishness. This movie is what is known in the old country as malarkey.

It’s A Great Feeling (1949). Morgan and Jack Carson came to my attention in The Hard Way, a backstage meller with a heart so black that it screened at this year’s Noir City. But to the extent that they’re remembered at all, it’s as Warner Brothers’ answer to Hope and Crosby. Here, Dennis and Jack try to get unknown Doris Day cast in their next project. It’s not a movie so much as a collection of skits with Warners stars like Gary Cooper and Edward G. Robinson. The best of the bunch is Joan Crawford’s scene. She erupts in fury, slapping both Morgan and Carson. When Carson asks why, she says, “I do that in all my pictures” and strides off.

When I say these movies have no plots, I’m not kidding. Absolutely nothing happens in them. Every problem is readily surmountable, with solutions coming in about the time it takes to warble a few bars. Which makes them the perfect way to ease into the long week ahead.

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 07:34:00 +0000

Movie: The Laughing Policeman (1974)

Flipping channels the other day, I stumbled onto the middle of The Laughing Policeman. After three minutes I thought, “It’s been too long since I’ve seen this. Time to watch it again from the beginning.”

Policeman is one of the great underrated procedurals, a movie with an unerring eye and ear for detail. Screenwriter Tom Rickman skillfully transfers the action of the award-winning Sjöwall/Wahlöö novel from Sweden to San Francisco. Walter Matthau leads the investigation into a massacre on a public bus, a task complicated by the fact that his own partner is one of the victims. Bruce Dern is the callous detective new to the detail who slowly breaks through Matthau’s shell.

Three random observations:

1. It was filmed in a San Francisco still in the shadow of the Zodiac killings. Tremendous location work. Every aspect of the city’s life at the time – hippies, political revolutionaries, Mitchell Brothers-style sleaze – is on display. For crime drama, nothing beats the city by the bay.

2. In 1973 and ’74, Matthau consecutively appeared in Charley Varrick, Policeman, and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, which as some of you know is the Official Vince Keenan.com Greatest Movie Ever Made™. That’s a stupendous streak of winners. Especially since Matthau’s acting wasn’t stylized. No matter what side of the law his characters were on, Matthau played guys who worked for a living.

3. I think the title was meant ironically.

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 21:34:00 +0000

Movie: Daisy Kenyon (1947)

It’s one of the latest releases from the Fox Film Noir Collection. It’s directed by Otto Preminger, who made Laura. It’s got shadowy photography and a plot that’s twisted in every sense.

But trust me on this. Daisy Kenyon is not noir, no matter what the box says. Daisy Kenyon is melodrama. Pure melodrama. Uncut melodrama. Schedule I grade melodrama.

And as such, I couldn’t get enough of it.

Joan Crawford – who else? – plays Daisy, a Manhattan graphic artist who insists on paying her own way even though she’s also the mistress of high-powered attorney Dana Andrews. She’s on the verge of ending their relationship when she meets a veteran (Henry Fonda) shattered by the death of his wife and his experiences in Europe. Daisy awakens something in him, and soon she’s forced to choose between her two suitors.

Sound straightforward? Take my word for it, it ain’t. Nothing is straightforward with Otto Preminger. There’s always a welter of perversions and neuroses beneath the polished sheen of his movies.

Dana Andrews, a Preminger favorite, is at his best here playing a blithe charmer whom Rosemarie described as “Bill Clinton and Eliot Spitzer combined.” Competition for Daisy’s affections and a pro bono lawsuit he takes only to demonstrate what a swell guy he is reveal the hollowness of his life to him. They also expose the deep fissures in his marriage; his high-strung wife (Ruth Warrick) is taking out her frustrations with her husband on their younger daughter, in a subplot that still startles.

Fonda gives an atypical performance as a man whose demons have stripped away his internal censor. His unflinching honesty in word and emotion teeters between charming and unsettling, with the balance tipping toward the latter once Andrews comes back into the picture.

If Fonda is stretching here, Joan Crawford is playing Joan Crawford. Again, I have no problem with that. 42 at the time of Daisy Kenyon’s release, Joan is at least 12 years too old for the role; the noir cinematography by Leon Shamroy isn’t used to establish mood, but to hide the leading lady’s age. Watching Joan at this stage in her career isn’t about seeing her disappear into a character. It’s about bearing witness to a woman trying to stop the hands of time with every weapon in her arsenal. Always a mesmerizing spectacle.

For every aspect of Daisy Kenyon that’s dated, like the divorce proceedings that take up much of the third act, there’s another that remains bracingly fresh and adult. Throw in some well-produced extras that feature several members of the Film Noir Foundation and you can’t go wrong. Noir or not, Daisy Kenyon is a movie that gets under your skin.

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 06:07:00 +0000

TV: Today’s Infotainment Break

There’s a real post coming up, I swear. Witty, impassioned, the whole shebang. In the meantime, here’s a clip from my new favorite show, That Mitchell and Webb Look on BBC America. It’s the kind of educational program that’s all too rare these days. Here, Dave and Rob explain how cheese is made.

Oh, yeah. I should probably say it’s NSFW.

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 20:42:00 +0000

Miscellaneous: Stuff

A reminder to my vast SoCal readership: Noir City begins this weekend. Go.

Tonight, Turner Classic Movies salutes Richard Widmark. On April 20, the network will do the same for Jules Dassin.

UPDATE: Screenwriter William Goldman recalls his one encounter with Widmark.

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.

The L. A. Times considers James Ellroy and the movies.

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.

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 20:53:00 +0000

Book: City of the Sun, by David Levien (2008)

Another day, another screenwriter’s novel. And as it happens, another good one.

With Brian Koppelman, David Levien has written several entertaining movies, among them Rounders and Ocean’s 13. His first foray into crime fiction ventures into some truly dark territory.

In suburban Indianapolis, 12-year-old Jamie Gabriel disappears while on his paper route. Over a year later, the police are no closer to finding him and the marriage of his parents Paul and Carol is on the verge of collapse. Out of desperation and resignation the Gabriels hire Frank Behr, a brooding ex-cop with a tragic past. Behr’s investigation will yield reasons for them to hope – and to despair.

There are a few plot developments that strain credibility, and the ending is a lot to swallow. But I went along with it, because Levien knows how to power through a story. He also peoples it with a strong gallery of characters. Not just Behr and the Gabriels but the range of criminals responsible for Jamie’s abduction, all of whom are given some shred of humanity.

In a recent essay, ESPN’s Bill Simmons names Rounders as one of the only classic sports films of the past decade. Which raises the question: is Rounders a sports movie? Feel free to respond in the comments.

A few years ago, Simmons did a two part Q&A with Koppelman and Levien. Glad to hear that my reaction to Rounders is fairly typical. First time around you can take it or leave it, mainly because the poker scenes leave you in the dust. But for some reason you’re compelled to watch it again, and the lingo makes more sense. By the third viewing, you’re completely on board. And that ending is still ballsy.

Music: Brad Mehldau Trio: Live

I have reached some kind of jazzbo milestone. The new album from the trio – Mehldau on piano, Larry Grenadier on bass, Jeff Ballard on drums – was recorded during an October 2006 run at New York’s Village Vanguard. Rosemarie and I were at one of those shows. Which means that could be us you hear applauding. Only I didn’t applaud. I snapped my fingers beatnik-style and then requested “Freebird.”

Listen to the album. You won’t be disappointed.

Miscellaneous: Folding Links

The New York Times profiles Mad Magazine’s Al Jaffee, complete with interactive gallery of his fold-ins.

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 21:58:00 +0000

Jules Dassin, R.I.P.

It was just last week that we lost actor Richard Widmark. Now comes word that Jules Dassin, who directed Widmark’s best film Night and the City, has died at age 96.

Dassin led an extraordinary life. He started as an actor in New York’s Yiddish theater – his name may have sounded French, but he was Julie Dassin from Connecticut – then moved to the other side of the camera. In the wake of the blacklist he went to Europe and managed to maintain, even reinvent his career. His greatest success was probably 1960’s Never On Sunday. Dassin would end up marrying the movie’s star Melina Mercouri, and both would be nominated for Academy Awards. Mercouri would go on to become Greece’s Minister of Culture.

But it’s Dassin’s impressive body of crime dramas that will earn him a place in cinema history. Name a subgenre and Dassin not only contributed to it, he helped define it. The prison film (Brute Force). The policier (The Naked City). Two landmark noirs, Thieves’ Highway and Night and the City. During his European sojourn, he would direct a pair of essential heist movies, Rififi and Topkapi. An amazing string of films.

Ed Gorman and I talked about Night and the City in the wake of Widmark’s death here. And here’s a vintage Dassin interview. Via GreenCine.

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 22:23:00 +0000

Movie: Jar City (U.S. 2008)

IFC Festival Direct showcases foreign and independent films that will see limited theatrical release in the United States. For less than the price of a ticket, you can watch first run fare on demand. In other words Jar City, one of the best movies I’ve seen in months, may already be on your cable box waiting for you to press play.

An intense Reykjavik detective (Ingvar Sigurdson, whose superficial resemblance to Eliot Spitzer give things an additional contemporary charge) investigates what looks like “a typical Icelandic murder, messy and pointless.” But the crime is the gateway to a larger mystery dating back decades and touching on police corruption and scientific research, with a solution unique to the country where it’s set.

Baltasar Kormákur’s script, based on an acclaimed novel by Arnaldur Indridason, is a marvel of engineering, deftly weaving in a subplot about the detective’s pregnant junkie daughter and deploying an intricate structure that sneaks up on you. There are extraordinary shots of the Icelandic landscape and a haunting soundtrack of male choral music. Watching this movie is a reminder that there are countless American mystery novels crying out to be adapted in such a bracingly effective way. Act fast: Jar City is available on demand through the end of March.

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 21:05:00 +0000

Richard Widmark, R.I.P.

One of the last links to the classic age of film noir has been severed with the passing of actor Richard Widmark at age 93.

Regular readers know that Widmark was a favorite around here. Watch his landmark performance as cackling psychopath Tommy Udo in 1947’s Kiss of Death today and it still feels breathtakingly modern; Widmark, with his utter disregard for generating sympathy and his wealth of telling detail, seems to be inventing an entirely contemporary style of acting before your eyes. There’s his turn in Samuel Fuller’s Pickup On South Street, as a pickpocket up to his jittery eyeballs in a Communist spy plot who responds to appeals to patriotism with, “Don’t wave the flag at me.”

And then there’s his Harry Fabian in Night and the City. It was only last month that I saw it during a Widmark double bill at Noir City. It’s a movie that only grows in my estimation with each viewing, largely because of Widmark’s brave, spare work in the lead role. Performances don’t cut any deeper than that one.

The New York Times obituary features some terrific quotes and a great sense of the man’s life. Richard Widmark will be remembered, and missed.

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 21:59:00 +0000

Book: The Kind One, by Tom Epperson (2008)

Heading to California to make a name for yourself is perhaps the quintessential American story. Tom Epperson’s version is a pretty good one. He and childhood pal Billy Bob Thornton went west to break into show business. After kicking around for a hard ten years, they finally broke through with their script for One False Move, still a first-rate crime drama.

Los Angeles as a city of last chances and fresh starts looms large in Epperson’s first novel. It’s 1934, and “Two Gun” Danny Landon has a crease in his head where he was struck by a lead pipe, a severe case of amnesia, and a reputation as a tough guy that doesn’t sit right with him. He works for L.A. kingpin Bud Seitz, whose ironic nickname provides the book’s title. Bud gives Danny a choice assignment as bodyguard for his latest girlfriend Darla, a singer who is nowhere near as tough as she pretends to be.

It’s a classic noir set-up. Anyone familiar with the genre will quickly surmise who Danny is and be able to predict the fates that befall him, Bud, Darla, and the neighbors drawn into Danny’s orbit. But the characters are so well drawn that you won’t mind one bit. There are echoes of John Fante and Nathanael West here; Epperson writes with real feeling for the place and time, his story as rambling and expansive as the California landscape. I was more than happy to amble along with him.

Miscellaneous: Links

Gene Weingarten spends a grim 24 hours in the opinionscape of blogs, talk radio and cable news. Biggest surprise to me: you can now use “douche bag” as a pejorative in the august pages of the Washington Post. Oh, and pundustry, pundustry, pundustry. Read the article and you’ll know why I did that.

And the Los Angeles Times sets out in pursuit of John Hughes, the mystery man of 1980s cinema.

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 21:06:00 +0000

Movie: Married Life (2008)

The theater where I saw Married Life didn’t even have a poster for it to hang outside. So I’m putting one up here, because I want to get the word out about this movie. It’s worth tracking down.

It’s based on the 1953 novel Five Roundabouts to Heaven by John Bingham, the former MI5 operative who served as the inspiration for John Le Carré’s George Smiley. (Sarah Weinman reviews Bingham’s literary career here.) The adaptation by Oren Moverman and director Ira Sachs sets the action in 1949 New York and Connecticut.

Chris Cooper’s longtime married man finds himself falling for a fetching war widow (Rachel McAdams). He’s certain his sweet, trusting wife (Patricia Clarkson) would be destroyed by divorce, so he decides that the only humane solution is to poison her. The whole sordid story is told by Pierce Brosnan, playing a lothario friend of Cooper’s with his own designs on McAdams. Brosnan looks rakish as all get out in period duds and narrates with silken menace. If ever a man was meant to do voiceover, it’s him. He should provide it for movies he’s not even in.

There are some taut Hitchcockian suspense sequences, including a dandy involving a bathtub. Noir strings are plucked, but softly. Sachs is more interested in dark comedy and shrewd observations about the deceptions that go into marriage, happy and unhappy alike. It’s said that 90% of a film’s success is dictated by the casting, and that’s certainly true here; all four leads are terrific. Make an effort to see this one.

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 20:23:00 +0000

Miscellaneous: Linkstravaganza!

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.

Via Neatorama, an espionage story told entirely through Google Maps.

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.

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 08:31:00 +0000

Book: Pictures At A Revolution, by Mark Harris (2008)

Harris’s book is an essential read for any serious film fan. Which surprises me, because I had doubts about its premise. Subtitled Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood, it follows the quintet of titles nominated for Best Picture of 1967, from development to awards glory. As if the Oscars are any indication of quality.

But Harris, an Entertainment Weekly contributor, knows his show biz and merely uses the awards as a framework for a larger story. 1967 was a transformative year in the movie industry. The old guard was still in power, but a new cinematic culture driven by European filmmakers was beginning to take hold. The five movies that ended up in the Oscar derby reflect that tension, and Harris meticulously researches their histories. The nominees are:

Bonnie & Clyde. Easily the contender that has held up the best. My favorite tidbit: 16 year old Texan Patsy McClenny served as Bonnie’s double because Faye Dunaway couldn’t drive a stick. A few years later, Patsy went to Hollywood and became Morgan Fairchild.

Doctor Doolittle. The only one of the five I haven’t seen. A critical and commercial flop, it’s widely seen as having bought its nomination. Harris recounts the campaign in detail.

The Graduate. I saw this week I graduated from college and didn’t get it. Perhaps it captured a moment so perfectly it was lost on those of us who weren’t there. Or maybe it was me. Director Mike Nichols tells a great, sad tale about meeting Ava Gardner – at Ms. Gardner’s insistence – for the role of Mrs. Robinson.

Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner. Harris won me over with his treatment of this Stanley Kramer movie. Yes, it was square at the time, a middlebrow take on race relations that stacked the deck completely. But, Harris asks, why shouldn’t films that speak to middlebrow audiences get a little love? Sadly, Kramer felt he was being overshadowed by the young turks. The section in which he embarks on an ill-fated college tour to talk to “the young people” is one of the best in the book.

In the Heat of the Night. Spoiler alert: it takes home the prize. Truman Capote, fuming that the adaptation of his book In Cold Blood wasn’t in the running although many expected it to be, called Heat “a good bad picture.” It’s also the one I’ve seen the most. It was a fairly important movie for me growing up, because it was the first time I became aware that the crime genre could be used to address other issues. I still like it. I plan on watching it again. Harris has me ready to watch them all – except for Doolittle. Nothing’s getting me anywhere near that train wreck.

I can think of five other 1967 movies I would rather see nominated for Best Picture. Sergio Leone’s The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Two by Stanley Donen, the comedy Bedazzled and the romantic drama Two For The Road. And a pair with Lee Marvin, The Dirty Dozen and my personal choice, Point Blank. Your picks?

And now I present, in its entirety, my favorite story from Harris’s book. Mike Nichols is in pre-production on The Graduate.

With nobody yet cast, Nichols returned to Broadway and spent the fall of 1966 at the Shubert Theatre, directing Alan Alda, Barbara Harris, and Larry Blyden in THE APPLE TREE. Nichols brought in Herbert Ross to help stage the numbers and could at least take comfort in the fact that somebody else’s movie was in bigger trouble than his own: After six months, Ross was still working on DOCTOR DOOLITTLE for Arthur Jacobs and was increasingly grim about the ordeal. “He was dividing his time,” says Nichols. “He’d come to New York and he’d work, say, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and half of Monday, and then he’d go back to Los Angeles and the movie. One week he flew off, and we were rehearsing the next day, and suddenly he comes strolling back across the stage. I said, ‘Herbert, what happened?’ And he said, ‘We’re postponed for three days. The giraffe stepped on his cock.’”

G’night, everybody!

noreply@blogger.com (Vince) — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 20:57:00 +0000

Miscellaneous: A St. Patrick’s Day Memory

St. Patrick’s Day has never been a big deal in the Keenan household. “You don’t have to wear green,” my father says every year. “People can tell you’re Irish just by looking at your face.”

This, by the way, is now more true than ever. At a wedding we attended over the weekend a Polaroid was taken of every couple. When ours developed I said, “Jesus, I look like I went to Fordham and work for the Queens DA.” Rosemarie shook her head. “Your tie’s too flashy. You look like you handle public relations for the Mets.”

I grew up in a neighborhood that to this day has a reputation as an Irish enclave. When I was in third grade my teacher Sister Patricia, knowing that both of my parents were Irish immigrants, asked if I had any records at home that would be appropriate for St. Patrick’s Day.

Come March 17, I arrived at school with a copy of a Dermot O’Brien album featuring “The Merry Ploughboy,” “Johnson’s Motor Car” and other rebel songs that recounted the exploits of the IRA and Sinn Fein.

I presented the record to Sister Patricia. She scanned the song list, turned beet red, thanked me for bringing it in, and handed it back. The cultural portion of the afternoon consisted of her leading the class in a sing-along of “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.” That’s what I get for trying to help.

Enjoy the day, wherever you are, and raise a jar for me. Another thing I learned growing up is that Jameson’s is typically viewed as a Catholic whiskey while Bushmills is Protestant. Personally, I prefer a drop of Powers meself.