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MEDIUM COOL (1969)

January 7, 2021

(DVD/YouTube) Apologies in advance for the lengthy entry — please bear with me.

I moved to Chicago to attend film school, specifically Columbia College Chicago (not to be confused with NYC’s Columbia College). Back in the 90s, Columbia College Chicago was known as a film trade school: folks who worked in the industry taught you the basics to become another cog in the industry, and you were immediately able to get your hands on a camera, sit behind an AVID deck, rig lights, etc., as opposed to say UCLA or NYU, which taught you film history and theory for two years before you could shoot a single frame of film.

Freshmen CCC film students were required to enroll in FILM TECH I, and your first exercise was to shoot a three-minute silent film in Grant Park, an iconic Chicago space carved out in the mid-19th century, and was never to meant be touched by developers’ hands. It’s also basically Columbia College Chicago’s backyard.

Grant Park also happens to be the location of the protests that occurred during 1968 Democratic National Convention, the time and place of Haskell Wexler’s (best know as the Oscar-winning cinematographer of ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOS NEST, WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?, IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT) hybrid fact/fiction documentary MEDIUM COOL, a film primarily concerned with the ethics (or lack thereof) of documentaries and photographic/filmic journalism, but whose captured footage of the DNC protest turned the film into an evergreen historical document.*

If you aren’t familiar with the events of the 1968 Democratic National Convention, here’s a primer.

(If you can’t view it, basically: a peaceful protest was turned into a bloody warfield by Chicago cops abusing their authority, all approved by the first Daley mayor.)

I didn’t see MEDIUM COOL until about a year into my CCC education, but I was still shell-shocked to see it, shot in the very same field I filmed a terribly pretentious, very slight short film. I admit, I felt a bit dirty, despite the fact that yes, it’s a public space but, after watching MEDIUM COOL, it felt like hallowed ground (even if it hosts Lollapalooza and the Pitchfork Music Fest every year).

Watching the events unfold yesterday (January 6th 2021), witnessing folks storming the US Capitol, watching a coup so dumb it felt like Christopher Morris penned it, immediately brought me back to when my wife and I travelled to DC for the Women’s March in 2016 which was definitely a clusterfuck of a protest, but still: it was a peaceful, indelible protest.

It made me recall all of the times I’ve seen protests in the news, and how when I was in D.C. my mind blurred into all of the prior D.C. protest footage I’ve seen in film and news over the years. It was a surreal moment then, and seeing a locale turn into the shitshow of domestic terrorism we witnessed on the 6th, of cops simply opening the floodgates into the US Capitol, allowing these racist, seditious assholes run rampant through the building, looting it as if the Patriots just won the Super Bowl, fried my brain.

To say we haven’t resolved the issues that spurred the police abuse in 1968, events that occurred ~fifty years ago., would be an understatement. But this is why MEDIUM COOL exists: to visually document historically important events, to reflect on them, and to force the viewer to reconcile the events in the film with the events in their current lives.

Trailer:

The full film:

“The whole world is watching.”

METAL GEAR SOLID 3: EXISTENCE (2006)

December 11, 2020

(YouTube) You may be thinking: wait, METAL GEAR SOLID 3 (MGS3 from here on out)? That’s a video game! I’ve played it! It’s not a film!

Surprise! METAL GEAR auteur Hideo Kojima released a three-and-a-half-hour non-interactive version of MSG3 as part of the METAL GEAR SOLID 3: EXISTENCE (MGS:E) limited edition version of MGS3. While Kojima insists that it isn’t a film — partially because I suppose folks have assumed he’s always wanted his games to be films instead of games, due to the extraordinarily lengthy cut-scenes he utilizes — but let’s call a spade a spade: it’s a film. Nowadays, folks don’t hesitate to discuss the influence of video game camera and storytelling techniques on films — I had the gall to do so when I wrote about ENTER THE VOID a few months back — but MGS3:E was one of the first non-full-motion video games that I can think of where the creator tried to take their game, repurpose it, and sell it as non-interactive entertainment.

You probably won’t be surprised to hear that the end result is extremely clumsy[ 12/9/20, 5:16 AM Almost verbatim what I said ~14 years ago.]. A lot of that boils down to the fact that Kojima has historically been an aspirational-but-graceless storyteller (see: MGS1 & MGS2) often riffing off of works he likes instead of weaving something new. For what it’s worth, it feels like with MGS3, Kojima finally started figuring out how to write proper character arcs, and even managed to pen a heartfelt ending, but if you rob the view of the interactive efforts it took to get from point A to point B, well, you end up with a lot of dull flailing.

That said, it’s still a noteworthy attempt, and has helped mold his current storytelling sensibilities into something more subtle and interesting via DEATH STRANDING. (Well, subtle for Kojima.) While it’s a narrative best experienced with the interactive core it was built for, this effort is still a fascinating curio.

If you’d like to read more about METAL GEAR SOLID 3: EXISTENCE, check out my initial write-up from waaaay too years ago.

http://thenewgamer.com/content/archives/metal_gear_solid_3_snake_eater_film

The full ‘film’ can be viewed at:

THE LIFE OF REILLY (2007)

December 2, 2020

(YouTube) Charles Nelson Reilly’s one-man show. Yes, most folks know him from the ‘funny’ (a.k.a. best) episodes of THE X-FILES. People with too much time on their hands know him from the best episodes of MILLENNIUM. Game show dorks and people like me also know him from TV schlock like HOLLYWOOD SQUARES. However, he was far more than that — he was one hell of an individual, a queer pioneer. He made his own space in his own way, and THE LIFE OF REILLY features him regaling us about his life, his trials, tribulations, and trailblazing in his own words, on the stage for one last time.

“The things we go through when we’re young… it’s amazing.”

For reasons beyond me, it’s not available to stream or buy, either digitally or physically, so I feel no compunction about sharing the link below.

The film, as a YouTube playlist (better than nothing! Think of it as a series of vignettes.):

THE GHOST & MRS MUIR (1968-1970)

November 27, 2020

(YouTube) Ah, the 60s, the heyday of high-concept TV shows! As you might surmise from the title, this is a belated TV adaptation of the novel/film, starring Hope Lange — in her first recurring TV role — as Carolyn Muir, and Edward Mulhare as Captain Gregg, the pirate captain who haunts the house that the widow Muir has moved her son, daughter, and moppet pup to. To inject a bit more conflict, Charles Nelson Reilly — also his first recurring TV role — is Captain Gregg’s very nervous great-grand-nephew Claymore Gregg, who is reluctantly renting the property — Gull Cottage — to Mrs. Muir.

The show was the brainchild of Jean Holloman, who also penned the epic melodrama MADAME X (1966) and, apart from the inclusion of Reilly and one more kid, the show hews pretty close the source material(s), centering mostly around the tension (albeit less sexual and more about sharing a space) between Mrs. Muir and Captain Gregg. However, it’s been modernized a bit — Carolyn’s already an established writer, she wears pants, and she takes no guff. That said, they needed to ramp up the conflict, which usually meant random folks and guest stars would drop by, and hijinks would ensue.

It only lasted for one season on NBC, but then ABC picked it up for a second season — handsomely pairing it with THAT GIRL and BEWITCHED, but it still failed to catch on and ABC canceled it after the second season.

I won’t pretend that the show is brilliant, but it’s a comfortable oddity, admirably performed, and perfect for a lazy long holiday weekend. I don’t believe it received an official US DVD release — my copy consists of bootlegs acquired from eBay — but nowadays the entire series can be found on YouTube.

Pilot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8YDacElh-0&list=PL7rmJN-Yze4q4rrOE9YE7k8_12LbTWhpp

HE & SHE (1967)

November 12, 2020

(YouTube/DVD) A whip-smart, tightly-wound gag machine that was well-ahead of its time.. A precursor to THE BOB NEWHART SHOW (1972) in that it allowed autonomy for the childless couple (Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss), and also encouraged them to pursue their own interests and, at the end of the day, they respected each other for doing so, often in bed.

It’s also a direct inspiration for THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW, especially Jack Cassidy’s blowhard performance portraying the superhero that Richard Benjamin’s character created.

If you want to pick up a copy for yourself, you can do so via the excellent preservation site modcinema.com (I’ve ordered more than a few items from them — they’re doing fantastic work.):

https://www.modcinema.com/categories/3-made-for-tv/197-he-she-tv-series-3-disc-1967-dvd

MARY HARTMAN, MARY HARTMAN (1976-1977)

November 3, 2020

A breakout daily satirical soap conceptualized by Norman Lear, but shaped by Gail Parent, Ann Marcus and Joan Darling, focused around a severely dysfunctional family and their titular wife, Mary Hartman (played by Louise Lasser), whose life of constant stress and anxiety and insecurity builds to a crescendo of a nervous breakdown. It’s a severely intelligent, often hilarious, self-critical melodrama about domesticity, consumer culture, American media & existentialism that’s just as relevant now as it was when this was first broadcast.

The show nailed its tone out of the gate, as you can see with the infamous ‘Waxy Yellow Buildup’ series opener:

(I really wish SHOUT! featured a longer clip, as the first half of the premiere is amazing. The show quickly picked up its pace, but kept its oft-putting, absurd sensibility, well before it was fashionable.)

It’s worth noting that MARY HARTMAN was a full-blown phenomenon, at least for its first year. If you’ve read the first TALES OF THE CITY (1978), you know that characters planned their days around the broadcast. Lasser was brought onto SNL to do a Mary Hartman bit, which allegedly resulted in her being banned from the show for erratic behavior.

The show was too smart, burned through too much plot, was too emotionally grueling and controversial to have any proper longevity, and it wrapped when Lasser bowed out at the end of the second season which, doesn’t sound like much, but those two seasons consisted of 325 half-hour episodes over the period of under two years.

If you’d like to read more about it (instead of watching all 325 episodes like I have), here are two great places to start:

https://tv.avclub.com/mary-hartman-mary-hartman-combined-soap-opera-satire-1798242393

https://eastofborneo.org/articles/from-a-waxy-yellow-buildup-to-a-nervous-breakdown-the-fleeting-existence-of-mary-hartman-mary-hartman/

In typical Lear fashion, a spin-off was born based on one of the odder characters, Barth Gimble, as FERNWOOD 2 NIGHT, and then reborn as FERNWOOD FOREVER, both tongue-in-cheek takes on local late night programming which are probably better remembered today than MARY HARTMAN is.

PROFIT (1996)

November 2, 2020

(DVD/YouTube) PROFIT has the dubious honor of ushering in the modern era of asshole male anti-heroes, despite the fact that practically no one watched it which resulted in it being cancelled having only aired four episodes (four more were aired on the late, lamented — at least by me — Trio channel, and are available on the very out-of-print DVD).

That said, critics loved it, despite the fact that the lead character — Jim Profit, yes that’s his name — is a cutthroat corporate man, willing to do anything to get ahead. The storytelling engine has him crushing a fellow employee (or just someone in his way), then celebrating by opening up a hilariously dated virtual reality app and shattering their poorly rendered 3D likeness.

On top of this, he has severe mental issues: he killed his father, slept with his mom (well, step-mother), and every episode ends with him climbing naked into a cardboard box to sleep.

While you might think that this would be played as a soap, no, it’s played straight as straight as can be, often with grizzled narration from Profit himself, occasionally even addressing the audience. It helps that Jim Profit, played by Adrian Pasdar, could turn on the charm in a way that few other TV anti-heroes have managed. (Gandolfini excepted, of course.)

At the time, there was nothing like it on air, which sadly seems to be why FOX briefly flirted with the idea of rebooting it. (Given the state of the world right now, it appears they’ve wisely realized that’s a terrible idea.)

I’m not going to say PROFIT was a great show, but it did have a lot of fantastic — albeit absurd — character work. Also, just about anyone reading this probably has loved one of the shows that creators John McNamara (THE MAGICIANS, JERICHO, BRISCO COUNTY JR.) or David Greenblatt (EUREKA, GRIMM, SURFACE) have been heavily involved with. (Also, both worked on ANGEL.)

While the entire series is difficult to find, the 90min pilot is available on YouTube, which should give you more than enough of a taste for the show.

THE OLD DARK HOUSE (1932)

October 6, 2020

(hoopla/kanopy/tubi/VOD/YouTube) It’s an early James Whale pre-code piece, directed after FRANKENSTEIN (1931) but before THE INVISIBLE MAN (1933), and the progenitor of the classic ‘overstuffed featured players haunted house’ film genre.

It’s based on J. B. Priestley’s BENIGHTED novel — I’m not familiar with the novel itself yet — but the film excels as the same sort of trapped room psychological horror/thriller that’d become extremely popular — even routine — a decade or so later.

As always, Whale and his cinematographer Arthur Edeson (one of Whale’s regulars, who also shot FRANKENSTEIN and THE INVISIBLE MAN, but also CASABLANCA (1942)) play with visual planes, and maximize the height of the titular house.

THE PEANUT BUTTER SOLUTION (1985)

August 31, 2020

(tubi/YouTube)? Bonkers Canadian nightmare fuel for pre-teens that’s surreally entertaining for adults. Best if you go in blind, but if you must watch the trailer, it paints the film (well, TV film) as something simple and naive, but no, it is not that. Not that at all.