THE MUSIC MAN (1962)

April 9, 2021

(VOD) Lest my prior JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR recommendation confuse matters, I was a reluctant musical fan. It wasn’t until I saw the film adaptation of THE MUSIC MAN that musicals really struck me, partially because I suddenly realized: ‘Oh, that’s what Conan O’Brien was riffing on in the monorail episode of THE SIMPSONS! You mean I can have both thieving, scheming hucksters and quippy, clever songs?!’

If you aren’t familiar with THE MUSIC MAN, I’ll briefly summarize: Harold Hill (Robert Preston) is a con-artist who frequents towns to sell musical instruments and lessons to all of the children, then plans to leave said town after receiving the cash but before the town realizes they have instruments but no instructor. However, this time he falls in love with Marian (Shirley Jones), the local librarian, as well as the town.

In case you doubt my love for the source material, my wife bought tickets to see a live production of it at the Goodman Theater for my birthday two years ago. We even trekked to downtown Chicago to join in a 76 Trombone march as part of the premiere festivities. (I still have my hand flag!) We had plans to see the perfectly cast Broadway revival with Hugh Jackman as Harold Hill and Sutton Foster as Marian last year, but …COVID. Fingers crossed for, uh, 2022?

I’ve watched Morton DaCosta’s adaptation of THE MUSIC MAN too many time to count. Whenever I see it in passing on Turner Classic Movies, I always take a moment to enjoy it. Sometimes two or even three moments.

I’ll freely admit this is a film that coasts by on its songs, Meredith Willson’s love of language, Robert Preston’s charm, and a cast chock-full of amazing character actors (including Buddy Hackett!). While DaCosta’s film adaptation of his production of AUNTIE MAME hits the spot, I can’t quite say the same for THE MUSIC MAN, even though I love it so. It feels rather slapdash at times and, while that may be due to the film needing a bit of a restorative love, I tend to doubt it as the props often look hastily cobbled together, plus the poor sound mixing, lazy framing and staging, and dull colors. That said, it succeeds as an enthralling musical adaptation despite all of those marks against it.

On the other hand, there’s a 2003 TV adaptation of THE MUSIC MAN which was part of THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF DISNEY and, while it has a similarly stellar (but woefully miscast) Broadway line-up including Matthew Broderick as Harold Hil, Kristen Chenoweth as Marian the Librarian, and Victor Garber as The Mayor, it’s sadly over-produced. While it looks more expensive than DaCosta’s adaptation, it’s poorly paced due to over-zealous editing and over-cramped camerawork (which feels like it might be the result of cropping it down to a 1.33 aspect for TV, but I could be wrong), resulting in the best numbers limping along without any charisma — partially because Broderick’s performance is too slight and tempered for Harold Hill, and THE MUSIC MAN without charisma is an empty rig.

In short, I’ll take a hastily assembled adaptation with the proper talent over an expensive, well-meaning but poorly cast adaptation any day of the week.

THE MUSIC MAN (1962) trailer:

Rock Island Opening (1962), just for fun:

Rock Island Opening (2003), just to be cruel:

THE SIMPSONS: Monorail (A far shorter song than I recall):

Ya Got Trouble (1962):

THE MUSIC MAN (2003):

THE LAST LAUGH/DER LETZTE MANN (1924)

April 8, 2021

(kanopy/VOD/YouTube) Sure, F.W. Murnau directed NOSFERATU, FAUST, as well as one of the greatest melodramas ever with SUNRISE: A SONG OF TWO HUMANS, but my favorite film of his is THE LAST LAUGH.

THE LAST LAUGH is an extraordinarily depressing story of a hotel porter’s fall from grace starring Emil Jannings, an actor exceptional at portraying broken characters. While the tale is simple, it’s not simply told, as Murnau puts forward all of his talents with his ‘untethered camera’ as possible. Briefly put: the aging hotel porter (Emil Jannings) loves his job, loves the limelight of the front door and accommodating the hotel’s guests. However, his boss deems him too old and re-assigns him to be a washroom attendent. Despite the very slight story, it’s an expressionistic marvel, pure cinema, with Murnau’s camera visually and emotionally gesticulating all over the place, eschewing title cards except for one which is displayed upon Jannings falling asleep in his newly anointed washroom attendent’s chair. (Yes, yes, one might construe the following as a spoiler):

“Here our story should really end, for in actual life the forlorn old man would have little to look forward to but death. The author took pity on him, however, and provided quite an improbable epilogue.”

The last fifteen minutes of the film consists of an orgy of food, montage, and lower-class well-wishing. Talk about having your cake and eating it too.

A clip:

The full film via YouTube (it’s in public domain, but there are restored editions out there that are worth your hard-earned cash):

THIRD GIRL (1966)

April 7, 2021

This was the second-to-last Poirot book I had yet to read and, well, it’s perfectly fine. Sadly, that’s a bit of a disappointment because it features crime author Ariadne Oliver as the sidekick, and she’s is always a lot of fun when she pops up. While her presence in it is far more prominent than most of her prior Poirot appearances, and she has a number of clever quips and turns, she’s missing a bit of the depth that she had in say, HALLOWE’EN PARTY.

Concerning Poirot, he’s surprisingly foregrounded and often spends far too much time in his head chewing over the mystery, which I found unusual for a late Poirot book. If it weren’t for the counter-culture facets and drug use, I’d even suspect it of being a previously-discarded draft from the 40s or 50s.

Yes, THIRD GIRL feels a bit padded and routine, but the resolution to the mystery is quite satisfying, except for one potentially creepy aspect that I can’t reveal without spoiling matters. You’ll know it when Christie inserts it into the last few pages.

At least it’s not the last Ariadne novel I have left to read: she’s featured in ELEPHANTS CAN REMEMBER — the final Poirot novel I have left to read — as well as the Poirot-less THE PALE HORSE, currently collecting dust on my over-stacked to-read table.

https://www.agathachristie.com/stories/third-girl

THE DIVORCEE (1930)

(VOD) When most folks hear Norma Shearer these days, they probably think of THE WOMEN (if they recollect her at all), but while she was a star well before THE DIVORCEE, it’s THE DIVORCEE that turned her from a conventional leading lady into an unconventional one, one proudly willing to tackle sensitive material. (It helps that she won an Oscar for her role.)

THE DIVORCEE is based on a Ursula Parrott’s novel EX-WIFE — it shouldn’t be confused with the lost 1919 silent film THE DIVORCEE, which was based on the 1903 play LADY FREDERICK — and centers around a love triangle between Jerry (Norma Shearer), Ted (Chester Morris), and Paul (Conrad Nagel). Paul loves Jerry, but Jerry marries Ted. Paul gets drunk and, while driving a party of their friends home, gets into an accident, viciously scarring friend Dorothy’s (Helen Johnson) face. Paul feels terrible guilt and marries Dorothy. Ted cheats on Jerry, so Jerry returns the favor by sleeping with Ted’s best friend Don, and informs Ted that they’re even now. Ted becomes outraged and divorces her.

Jerry moves on, living her best life by traveling and partying, while Ted becomes an alcoholic, and Paul re-enters her orbit, still married to Dorothy. Lessons are then learned by all, roll credits.

If it sounds like I’m dismissive about the end of the film, it’s because it’s meant to be dismissed. THE DIVORCEE is a pre-code film, which means that it didn’t have to adhere to the increasingly strict Hays Code of on-screen moral representation that penalized, well, practically every Hollywood production from the mid-1930s into the 1960s. While it’s possible THE DIVORCEE could have been made under early Hays Code regulations, it certainly wouldn’t be so frank about infidelity. That said, the closing is laughably moralistic, and undoes all of the fine progressive groundwork of the prior 80 minutes, but I find it hard to believe audiences of the time would have been fooled by it.

While the film has some clunky visual exposition — specifically the opening shot that looks like they opted to film a high school theater rendition of the novel — a fair amount of Robert Z. Leonard’s work is stellar, especially whenever Jerry and Ted are in a tight two-shot. (The moment when she plots her next step after confronting him about his infidelity, the smoke in the party room rolling behind her head simulating angry steam, is pitch-perfect.)

Not a trailer, but an excerpt:

SPONTANEOUS (2020)

April 6, 2021

(epix/Hulu/Paramount+/VOD) Yep, this is a repeat recommendation! (Here’s the original recommendation.) I often read the source material of a film afterwards, but that’s usually concerning dusty films from the 40s; rarely do I seek out source material for a modern film because many modern literary-to-film adaptations simply aren’t that interesting. (The last great book/film pair I can recall is probably GONE GIRL which was checks notes seven years ago?!)

However, I just finished reading the source material — Aaron Starmer’s novel of the same name — and I -love- both versions. To summarize both real quick, just in case: the senior year students in a traditional American high school start spontaneously combusting, BLEAK HOUSE-style. (Sorry, spoilers for a 150-year-old novel.)

The novel is denser and woolier than the film, but the film has a cavalier, high-energy attitude that the book lacks, and it doesn’t get so bogged down with the details. The film feels like a very concise reinterpretation of the novel — vast sections of the last third of the book are dropped or merely given lip-service in the film — the focus here is more on Mara and her end-of-youth relationship with Dylan — who is has far less back-story in the film — but that’s okay because the film is about Mara’s agency and her graduating to adulthood. Yes, writer/director Brian Duffield (writer of the previously recommended UNDERWATER) bumps up Mara’s quirkiness, but in a way that feels organic for Katherine Langford (KNIVES OUT), while still preserving her fuck-up demeanor (although it does significantly ramp down her drug use for some reason).

Sadly, Mara’s best friend Tess (RIVERDALE’s Hayley Law) is significantly dumbed down in the film, which is perhaps the only misstep the film makes, but otherwise it’s an extremely smart, visually inventive and refreshing take on a coming-of-age tale. I’m hoping it’ll find an audience post-COVID, because it has all of the hallmarks of a great cult film. And, if you like the film, pick up a copy of the book.*

  • I’d like to note that I picked up a used copy of the book, and the previous owner of the book took the effort to use typewriter whiteout tape — not actual whiteout — to obscure not only every swear in the novel (Mara swears approximately every other page, and it’s a 355 page novel) but also any physical sexual moment, including full paragraphs about self-stimulation. I can’t wrap my head around it — Mara’s utterances and the sex is the least disturbing part of the novel — but at least the presumed kid that asked to read the book got to read it?

GODZILLA VS. KONG (2021)

April 5, 2021

(HBO MAX/VOD) Please indulge a bit of back-story: as a youth, my parents would occasionally take off for a day-long trip (yes I knew what that meant and no, please don’t point that out to me — they’re my parents) that would dovetail with WPXN’s* Godzilla marathons, and I’d fire up the popcorn popper and melt down some butter — no microwave popcorn for me! — and hunker down for hours of monster madness.

I can’t say I’ve been too keen on the recent Godzilla films — too much human drama, too much forced artistry, too little monster fisticuffs. (Also, US re-appropriation of what was created from a US nuclear bomb still seems squicky to me.) That said, damn, from the opening of GODZILLA VS. KONG, it broadcasts that it’ll be a different monster movie, and it delivers throughout.

It’s everything I loved from my youthful days of WPXN viewing, -and- it has Rebecca Hall as the lead! It’s big, dumb wrestling fun, and the use of Kong is smartly integrated. That said, I do squirm a bit at the bad science, considering how much bad science is being thrown about right now, but I was shocked at how much I enjoyed this. I really hope the Warner Bros. 2019/2020 films are re-released to proper theaters because, holy hell, I should be watching this on the largest screen possible.

  • I may be wrong about that network — it’s been literal decades.

JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR (1973)

April 4, 2021

(VOD) I’ll be blunt: I’ve never been an Andrew Lloyd Weber fan. While I respect him and his work, a lot of it comes down to my high school years as a cellist, having to play the mind-numbing Phantom theme over-and-over-and-over again, as well as filling in at pit orchestra during our production of JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT. Also, seeing an ad for CATS during every commercial break while I was watching STAR TREK or THE BOB NEWHART SHOW in syndication didn’t help.

Despite all of that, and despite the fact that I am not religious, I unabashedly love the original JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR score/film adaptation. It’s exactly the sort of coke-fueled crazy big swing I love from the 70s and, while I’ve seen a few other adaptations of it, as well as one stage production — there’s one stage production I really wanted to hatewatch that one of my favorite theater critics, Emma Couling, ripped apart, but I missed it — I keep coming back to the 1973 production and I think we all know why:

Carl Anderson as Judas is amazing. Yeah, Ted Neeley is pretty good, but Anderson completely outclasses him. Every number without him leaves you asking: ‘When’s Judas coming back?’

Secondly, the goddamn shimmy in Superstar! All of the choreography in the penultimate number is amazing, but perhaps nothing more than the arm shimmy.

I can watch this musical all day. It’s worth noting that it’s directed by Norman Jewison who, despite his surname and directing this and FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, is not Jewish , but always knew exactly what sort of flourish to bring to his adaptations.

Superstar:

2015’s production of King Herod’s Song, featuring THE YOUNG ONE’s Rik Mayall (RIP):

I’d be remiss to mention that I definitely watched MR. SHOW’s -Jeepers Creepers Semi-Star- parody well before I watched any proper version of JESUS CHRIST SUPER STAR, but it still holds up as a great parody, and with an astounding cast of extras!

Trailer:

SHOOT ‘EM UP (2007)

April 3, 2021

(VOD) I’ll preface this entry by saying: this is not a great film, but it is a gonzo film.

SHOOT ‘EM UP came out at the tail end of the early naughts stream of batshitcrazy action films — films that dispensed with anything like plot or narrative and just immediately leapt into a bunch of crazy stunts — which popped around the time of THE TRANSPORTER, then hit a high note with CRANK, then ended around the time that SHOOT ‘EM UP and CRANK 2 was released, when more gritty vengeance action came back into vogue. (I’m no action film expert, so my apologies if I’m painting this time with broad strokes.)

This is a film where the lead, Smith (Clive Owen), is introduced sitting on a bench, chomping away at a ridiculously large carrot Bugs Bunny-style, watches a pregnant woman in dire straits, clothed in The Bride yellow, walk down an alley. Smith sees a man gleefully follow her, brandishing a gun with a grin.

I’m going to leave the rest of the scene here because, while I’ve previously tried to type it out, it’s too dense. I will say: this is probably the first gunshot umbilical cord removal ever seen on film. Also, ingenious use an oil pan, and showcases that even carrots can be a deadly weapon.

It only escalates from there.

While this was filmed in the mid-naughts, it’s really a 80s cartoonish action film that is self-aware, and somehow got a number of amazing actors: the previously mentioned Clive Owens (probably only here because of CHILDREN OF MEN), Paul Giamatti (clearly loving his role), and Monica Bellucci, who probably should’ve bowed out because there’s not enough for her here, but she still gives it her all.

It’s a very dumb, very masculine action film, but cripes, the set-pieces are divine. Again, it’s not great, but it’s deliciously gonzo.

BUG (2006)

April 2, 2021

(epix/VOD) One of the few screenings I was able to catch last year before lockdown was a special 35mm screening of William Friedkin’s BUG, featuring actor Michael Shannon and writer Tracy Letts for a post-film discussion. Before both became relatively big names, they worked together on Letts’ lurid, often horrific, small town stage plays, such as BUG and KILLER JOE. Both film adaptations arguably wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for Friedkin as, according to Letts, Friedkin hounded him to adapt BUG after seeing it on the stage, and Friedkin also volunteered to take on KILLER JOE, requiring that Letts write the screenplay for each film.

A quick summary: Agnes (Ashley Judd) is a troubled waitress who works at a gay bar in a small Oklahoma town who drinks and snorts away her loneliness. One night she meets a fresh face, Peter (Michael Shannon), who reluctantly says he’s a freshly discharged solider. The two get to bonding, and before long he’s crashing in her ramshackle hotel room. What follows is an expertly balanced grimy, disturbing tale about abuse, paranoia, mental illness, and co-dependence.

While I’d previously seen BUG a few times via DVD, and several years later I’d attend a production of it at Steppenwolf — Letts and wife Carrie Coon are members, and Coon played Agnes in that production — nothing compares to seeing a print of it in a sold out theater full of fans and fans who dragged their unknowing friends to it.

Friedkin ramps up the claustrophobia, leans more on the characters’ perspectives, and tightens the screws with some manic editing and montage work, making it far more effective on a big screen than viewing at home. Also, when watching a film as gonzo as BUG, the audience’s emotions roil through the theater, amplifying some of the more absurd moments the film throws at you. At the screening, after a particularly confusing array of images and sound that are followed by relative silence, someone simply shouted out ‘WHAT THE FUCK’ and the theater burst out laughing because how the hell else do you react to BUG?

Sadly, chances to view BUG under my 2020 conditions don’t roll around too often, so don’t wait as it plays just as fucked up on a small screen. Arguably, thanks to being in lockdown, the horror of it may play more effectively when one watches at home after a year of lockdown.

There’s a trailer and, while it doesn’t ruin anything exactly, it’s best to go in knowing as little as possible.

HOW THE UNIVERSE WORKS (2010-Present)

April 1, 2021

(Discovery+/fubo/Science Channel)? This will definitely date me, but one of my formative memories is of being dragged out of bed by my father in the middle of the night to see Halley’s Comet. See, I loved reading about space, and this was a once-in-a-lifetime event. We drove out to the middle of nowhere — easily done when you live in Vermont — but, when he set up my telescope, I refused to look, scared of peering into the unknown. I was too young to have an existential crisis but, upon finally squinting through the telescope’s lens and seeing the burst of light in my telescope, well, it made me feel very small and very alone and very scared, but also in awe of the universe.

Now that I’ve technically grown up, practically every night I reinstill that cosmic feeling by letting this show lull me to sleep.

HOW THE UNIVERSE WORKS features an assortment of cosmologists, astrophysicists, theoretical physicists, and other scientists (including Michio Kaku) who discuss the theme of the episode, say, about new discoveries regarding the moons of Saturn, or expound on neutron stars, but more often than not it’s concerned with black holes. While they’re excitedly chatting away about their life’s work, or while Mike Rowe is narrating some connective tissue to help viewers understand the concepts, the show throws a bevy of impressive space CGI at you.

It’s been running for nine seasons now, although a fair amount of the recent seasons consist of three pre-existing hour-long episodes wrapped into one, which makes it perfect for half-awake background viewing.

It’s worth nothing that there are a ton of smaller clips from the show available via YouTube. Science Channel has even conveniently assembled an entire playlist of them, which should make for quality background viewing for you, too.