Summer Block Busters; The Dark Knight

Went to see the Dark Knight a couple of weeks ago... just after NN-- as did apparently millions of other people-- now making this the biggest box office hit of all time. It was a huge mental impact, visually overwhelming, dark and twisted film.

Best movie ever? Not even close... probably not in my top 25. BUT I loved it.

Kathy over on G-spot has a great, J. Robert Parks review discussing some of the moral and political overtones that are being written, debated and discussed across the blogosphere both on the left and on the right.

The film also calls into question certain axioms of contemporary entertainment (and government): 1) that good always triumphs over evil, so just sit back with a cold one and relax, 2) that the good guys are always good and therefore free to break the law whenever they want, and 3) that those bad things good guys do have no lasting repercussions. Batman is equated at times with a burgeoning fascism and, at other times, with how ancient Rome suspended its democracy in the face of violence and never recovered. There’s also an amazing moment when Michael Caine talks about how he captured a bandit in Burma: “We burned the forest down.” Anyone who doesn’t connect that story to Vietnam and Iraq isn’t paying attention.

But the politics are convoluted enough that some conservatives can legitimately claim Batman as their own. The Joker would likely run wild if he were not confronted by the unstoppable force of Batman. And Batman only locates the Joker at the end by spying on every citizen in Gotham. And most troubling for leftists of a certain view is that the film shows how easy it is for good intentions to be overwhelmed by awful realities and how those awful realities must sometimes be fought with violence.

The night when we went to see it we talked a long time after about the privacy theme, and many of the other terrorism related metaphors, subplots etc. The thing that struck me most though was a scene that shows the triumph of the people's morality in the face of their own possible deaths. This one has not been discussed much-- but to me it was a huge message about progressivism and the people knowing better than both the bad guys and the good. Won't say more now at the risk of posting spoilers. But it was a great scene/subplot.

Don't forget to watch out for the cameo from Sen. Patrick Leahy. (A big Batman fan)

I also went to see Kung Fu Panada and laughed my ass off. What have you seen so far this summer? What did you think about The Dark Knight?

There's more...

Life Imitates Art

Film still from Franklin J. Schaffner's “The Best Man”—1964 from United Artists.

“The Walk Through”

As noted downpage, I assisted the gator-ific one and “Tokyo Terri” (one of my favorite commenters here and a damned hard worker for progressive causes on the internets in her own right) a little bit with their impromptu video “get” of Dr. Howard Dean for the “Unofficial Netroots Nation Podcast” down here in Austin.

One minute I was at our table watching Gen. Wesley Clark winding up his speech in rollicking fashion and the very funny Baratunde Thurston who bridged the speakers with some hilarious and pointed political stand-up, and the next minute, there was an advance person/assistant to Dr. Dean appearing magically in a puff of burnt Orange Netroot smoke, quickly informing T and Gator that “The Fifty-State Strategy Man” was now miraculously available for the interview—but...it would have to be quick and and an “on a dime turn-about” would be required as he was scheduled next at the podium to speak.

What followed was the “art-y” part. As the video camera being used was a relatively new-ish one, it was still in the process of being set-up which when under time constraints can only cause problems, thus, I volunteered my help with that, being an inveterate A/V geek and suddenly, we were off—out of the main hall and being led down the corridor where another very important person with a walkie-talkie awaited near a closed door. We were quickly ushered in, and then...an eerie feeling of dejá vu kicked in.

I don't know if you've ever seen the 1964 film “The Best Man”,, starring Henry Fonda (and if you haven't—you should. It'll be on Turner Classic Movies Aug. 24th @ 12 a.m. and on Sept. 3rd @ 12:15 a.m.) as the earnest, honest-to-a-fault “William Russell”, a clearly liberal candidate for president, with of course, the one tragic flaw—he'd been institutionalized for a nervous breakdown some time before, and it had also damaged his marriage. His opponent was Cliff Robertson's “Joe Cantwell”, a feral attack dog of a right-winger who'll stop at nothing to get elected—and he too, has a secret, as he'd apparently engaged in...ahem!, “The love that dares not speak its name” while in the army during WW2. The movie (Based on Gore Vidal's hit Broadway Play) is one of the best filmed treatments of the modern political game, focusing on the unseen glad-handing, horse-trading, hypocrisy, conventioneer-ing, and all manner of back-room dealing innate to the “game”. It was lensed in that stark “Manchurian Candidate” black and white style on location in the guts and bowels of the old Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles (where RFK would be killed a mere four years later), and the film is chock-full of these odd, shadowy back-of-the-building shots—tall unused ballrooms and long, echoing gray corridors, piping and ducts and all of the unglamorous building innards where the main characters skulked and plotted and met from time to time to measure each other like street-bred dogs facing off.

We were led through just such a labyrinth of rooms and corridors on our way to Dr. Dean. It was eerie. The rooms and hallways were a deep, stoney gray, with more echo than a Tommy James & The Shondells record. The occasional bark of a walkie-talkie could be heard as we were led left, right...Then left again and once again right to meet with and interview the former governor.

It looked exactly like that creepy, cavernous maze of rooms they shot “The Best Man” in. I kept waiting for the movie's director, to rise suddenly on the end of a big Chapman crane and yell “Cut!”. But this wasn't a movie. It was quite real.

We got to Dr. Dean, but of course the camera was balky and we missed that opportunity, but were granted a second chance after his speech, which came rather quickly.

He was ebullient, affable and as down-to-earth as could be. You couldn't help but notice his real fondness for the politically activated folks on the internet. He doesn't say “No” when people approach him—which for the thankless jobs of handlers and assistants, understandably makes them a little bit crazy. There are schedules and appearances to be maintained, and when you have a garrulous and open person like him to hold to the “every second counts” level of getting about, it can be difficult. (Bill Clinton is also notorious for this—even moreso in fact.) Nevertheless, good cheer was maintained and the interview went well.

But I couldn't help but notice those surroundings on our way to interview him. There was no magic, donut-stuffed green room or make-up people wielding puffs and powders and the like. It was furtive hustling about, no glamour. You run, you brief one another—it is on the fly. Big gray rooms and chugging forklifts. Echoing halls and harsh fluorescent lights. Barking, squalling walkie-talkies and the crispy sound of handlers necks snapping from repeatedly whipping downward to check watches and back up at their person.

What you see up front on CNN and MSNBC, the talking head perfectly centered before a green screen where a DC backdrop is popped in is the end result.

The guts is all the rushing to and fro through cavernous hallways, past kitchens and loading bays.

Got a chance to experience a little bit of the political game up close...back rooms and all.

Amazing stuff. And real.

There's more...

I Love The Man in the Hat

So, the 4th and what looks to be truly the last, Indian Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is out. (not yet here in Japan-- but presumably back home in the states and elsewhere.) I love movies, everything except horror films. Art movies and Pop-block-busters, I love it all. And I must admit I have a soft spot for Indie, including his hat and whip. Not sure what that says about me but I have thoroughly enjoyed the franchise. Didn't much like the one with the guy who ripped people's hearts out, but I loved the other two. There were so many classic lines, especially in #1 and #3. Some of my favorite movie bits of all time come from these films.

So, did you go see it? What did you think? It didn't get panned, and I am hearing that there is some fun stuff good for all ages in the film. I am looking forward to hearing that soundtrack again and seeing my favorite man in a fedora kick some bad guy butt.

Here's what the New York Times had to say about it. Other reviews are here.

What summer blockbusters are you looking forward to?

There's more...

Suzanne Pleshette—R.I.P.

My heart broke a little bit when I heard this news yesterday. (via Norwegianity)

Suzanne Pleshette, the husky-voiced star best known for her role as Bob Newhart's sardonic wife on television's long-running "The Bob Newhart Show," has died at age 70.

I had a major crush on her back in the day, fueled partly by the fact that any woman attracted to Bob Newhart would have to find me irresistable.

You and damn near anyone with half a sex drive, Mark. Suzanne Pleshette wasn't a mega-Hollywood star, but she was in her youth a simply ravishing-looking woman. She was the classic LowerManhattanite dark-haired, swarthy beauty I fell madly in love with in my youth.

When did I fall in love with her? During my early teens when here in New York City there was a weekday afternoon TV institution called “The 4:30 Movie” on the local ABC affiliate. They did theme weeks. There was ‘Martin & Lewis Week”, “Frank Sinatra Week” (with “Robin & The Seven Hoods” and “Von Ryan's Express”), “Monster Week” (featuring Godzilla movies), and...my favorite of all, “Steve McQueen Week”, which would show “The Great Escape” and ...

...The McQueen/Natalie Wood “topical” weepie “Love With The Proper Stranger”, along with “Nevada Smith”, one of the most violent westerns ever filmed.

These two movies featured two of the archetype LM beauties—the aforementioned Wood, at her ripest and most beautiful in “Stranger”, and the delectable Pleshette in “Nevada Smith”. Steve McQueen week would wreck me—for one because of his cool which I idolized and tried to emulate (along with 90% of the male population) to no end, and also because of the two raven-haired lovelies Wood and Pleshette.

Pleshette played the humanizing and ultimately doomed Pilar, to McQueen's vengeance-sweating Max Sand and one viewing of her was enough to mess me up for years. Maybe they used bronzer or lit her just so, but my God, she was just so perfectly beautiful in that movie.

I was done. I was in love.

Between her, and Natalie Wood (who some would say Pleshette was the “poor man's” version of) McQueen week left me a crush-addled mess. “Musical Week” on the 4:30 Movie was the death-blow, in my seeing the coal-haired Dorothy Dandridge for the first time in “Carmen Jones” and officially beginning puberty with an M-80 blast of hormones.

But I never forgot Pleshette. I fell in love with her again when she was on Newhart in her mature, smoky sensuality—making me wonder “How the fuck did a dweeb like Newhart's Dr. Hartley end up with her?”

I chalked it up to psychologist mind-control his character used.

Kept a soft spot in my heart for her all these years. That olive complexion. The sexy turn to camera during the Newhart show's opening theme (lovingly titled “Home to Emily”—her character). And now, yet another, one of the last—of my boyhood crushes is gone.

It's funny how people you see on a cathode ray tube or a celluloid screen can so affect you when you're young. Make you damn near fall in love with them. And you realize when you grow older that they do too. And because they're much older than you are, they eventually die before you do, and break your heart a little bit.

But you keep them in your heart still—the living and the passed on.

My list of boyhood crushes:

Mary Tyler Moore (in her Dick Van Dyke and MTM show days)
Natalie Wood
Barbara Eden (in her bad girl, dark-haired “Jeannie II” guise)
Dorothy Dandridge (from “Carmen Jones”...have mercy!)
Tracy Reed (from the all-Black ABC sitcom version of “Barefoot In The Park”)
Denise Nicholas (“Room 222”)
Nichelle Nichols (Star Trek, baby!)
...and of course, the lovely, lush-voiced Suzanne Pleshette.

And with that, a little part of my heart goes. R.I.P. Suzanne.

Any folks from your youth you fell in love with the same way? Feel free to share your memories in comments.

UPDATE: For the old New York movie heads
Classic openings and closes for those memorable movie shows.

WABC's 4:30 Movie


WOR's Million Dollar Movie


WOR's 8 O'Clock Movie


Enjoy!

There's more...