I just had the coolest experience with a customer.

I was pulling up a wine stack, as I am wont to do around here, and a customer asked me where she could pick up her cheese platters.  She said she was working for Diablo Ballet, and that the Walnut Creek Food Hole had donated two cheese platters for a fund raising dinner for the ballet company.

I took her over to where the platters were, and then said, "You know, the Wife and I are going to see SF Ballet's Giselle tomorrow."

"Oh, how lovely," she said.  "I went to the Gala Opening last week!"

"You lucky duck," I said.

"Our company director got me the tickets.  It was marvelous.  It was my first gala."

"What fun."

Then she asked, "Who are you seeing tomorrow?"

I knew that she meant who would be playing Giselle tomorrow, and I said, "I think it is Sarah Van Patten."

"Oh, she was wonderful last week at the Gala!"

Sarah Van Patten

"I was kind of hoping to see Maria Kochetkova," I said, "But I think she is dancing tonight."

"Oh, well she is wonderful, too!"

She loaded the platters in to her basket, and we said our goodbyes, and I told her that I hoped she had a great time at her fundraiser.

Maria Kochetkova

I just loved that two strangers could have a conversation about the ballet and two ballerinas as if we were speaking about the Oakland A's players and chances this season.  It was a delightful treat.

The wife and I are v excited to see the ballet tomorrow.  It will be a splendid date for us.

And, here is a link to Diablo Ballet.

















Everybody have a wonderful and safe Super Bowl weekend.  I love you all,
Michael

TCM will be showing Dodsworth at 8:00 PM (EST) on Sunday, February 9.

And, I know Sundays are a riot of television riches right now, and all our dvrs are on the verge of catching fire, but do yourself a favor and make some room for this 1936 film, starring Walter Huston (John Huston's da), Ruth Chatterton, and Mary Astor.

Ruth Chatterton and Mary Astor in Dodsworth (1936)

Dodsworth, which is based on a novel by Sinclair Lewis and a play version of said novel by Sidney Howard -- Howard wrote the screenplay -- is about as bracingly fresh, adult, and sophisticated on the subject of marriage as any film you are ever likely to see.  And, in one very important respect the then recent reinstatement of a now no longer toothless Production Code certainly worked in the team's favor:  All those separate beds for Huston and Chatterton's married couple? Makes perfect sense.  There is no way that married couple sleeps together anymore.

Howard's script time and again brilliantly evokes the type of conversations that real married couples have.  There is nothing phony or artificial about the way Huston or Chatterton or Astor express their desires for marriage, happiness, or social standing.  And, Hollywood legend Rudolph Maté's use of deep focus, combined with director William Wyler's immaculate and meticulous scene blocking only enhance the drama; placing the viewer inside the film itself.

There are performances to die for here.  Huston, who did the Broadway Dodsworth role before the film, and Astor, in particular.  Astor has two moments in the film that are both so simple and understated, yet splinteringly evocative.  Ms Astor was never more beautiful, as well.

Dodsworth is a sophisticated and honest film for grown-ups about grown-ups.  It is as relevant today as it was in 1936.  And, it is organized and produced so perfectly that you can tell that every single member of the production team -- actors, writers, design, and technical crew -- absolutely gave it their all to make the finest film they could.

There are no spoilers here because I am recommending this masterpiece about as highly as I can recommend any film.  See it for yourself.  You will not regret it.




















All my love,
Ardent

2 quick things:

Am I the only one who believes that the most recent installment of Sherlock, entitled The Sign of Three, and which is the eighth "film" of the series, was their finest one yet?

The Wife and I practically wanted to applaud at its conclusion.  At home.  Moreover, I believe that Sherlock's absolutely brilliant best man speech will be talked about at weddings, and copied, or referenced/nodded to for the next ten years or more in both the US and UK.

Television on Sundays right now is sick with amazing greatness.

************

And, quickly, and completely unrelated to television or Sherlock Holmes, I would like to say that David Thomson's most recent book, Moments That Made the Movies, is vastly superior to his previous book.

Thomson picks about seventy moments from different films and writes around five hundred words on each one.  He touches on Don't Look Now, Pandora's Box, Chinatown, Citizen Kane, The Red Shoes, etc, and etc, ...

The real big highlights for me personally were his thoughts on Mary Astor's stunning acting choices and execution in Dodsworth (I swear, I will write about Dodsworth tomorrow! I swear!), and his thoughts on Celine and Julie Go Boating.  Where he sums up a delicious cinema paradox for me that I have personally been dealing with for years now.

I quote,

"This film has not yet been put on DVD in America, and I like it all the more for that. So, it is hard to get at, elusive, difficult to see -- and its length has always put it in some box-office peril. Still, we should not not be deceived by the chronic availability of DVDs.  We need to know that there are unattainable things, or films that we must search for.  Or wait for.  There is no desire without that frustration.  The ability to dial up any movie on our computer or our inner eye may be useful, and it will surely come to pass, but it is one of the things that may drain away the quality of desire in the medium."

So flipping beautiful and right.  Thank you Mr Thomson.  Again.  (The emphasis in the quote is mine.  I hope he will forgive me.)

One of those movies that really can change your life.  Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974)

Mwah, ... 

Some folks I know

Went to the Laserium Dark Side of the Moon event at Chabot Planetarium last week.

That is not my gig anymore, and I am not at all meaning to pass any judgement on anyone who would attend such an event.  Firstly, because Dark Side of the Moon is a flipping masterpiece of Rock Art, and, secondly because, I have already done all the laser light show rock events that I feel I need to do.

(An aside, one of these "folks" is a committed Socialist gentleman named Alex, who I only know through my bestest friend, Nick C.  I call him Comrade Alex.  And I tried to point out to Nick C that he should mention to Comrade Alex that Pink Floyd are probably about as counter-revolutionary as a band can be.  I also am trying to get Nick C to push 60s Godard films on to Comrade Alex, especially since that not only is there a Maoist Red ethos and sympathy in those films, but also because Godard loves pinball.  Comrade Alex loves pinball, too.)

Anyroad, I would just like to point out that regardless of my feelings re Laserium shows, that Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd is an absolute masterpiece of writing, performing, recording, engineering, thematic structure, and just about any other test you could throw at a rock album.

The album is over forty years old now, but still is an essential document of an artist's statement on the perils and joys of living in a Modern Western Capitalist Society.  It still has hints of the pastoral themes that the Floyd embraced, but is as fresh and alive today as when it was recorded.

It is inessential to know how much of this brilliance was intended or accidental.  It just is.

All my love,
Ardent



























P.S.  Just saw (finally!) one of my new favorite movies of all time, Dodsworth, on YouTube.  More on this tomorrow or Wednesday.

As good as Rififi is,

And it is very good, I have to say that my favorite part of Criterion's new bluray edition of this classic Fifties heist film is the supplementary interview with the director, Jules Dassin.  Dassin tells two great stories, both involving his friend at MGM, Gene Kelly.

The first one concerns the annual baseball game that MGM would have with the folks at Twentieth Century Fox.  This apparently was a big deal.  Fox and MGM took the game very seriously, and went all out to win.  The captain of the MGM team, Gene Kelly, had just heard that Dassin had signed a deal with MGM and was eligible to play in the game.  Dassin was put in the outfield and was the star of the game which MGM won.  Dassin mentions too, how the studios would play in costume, essentially.  MGM wore baseball uniforms from the early part of that century that had been built by the costume department for past films.  The players all wore handlebar moustaches, as well.  When Dassin's agent heard about this he asked Dassin if he had signed the contract for MGM yet.  Dassin said he had.  His agent said, "That's a shame.  If you had held out until after the game, we might have gotten a bigger deal for you."



The other story takes place at the Cannes Film Festival of 1955.  Dassin by this time had been blacklisted in the United States and had found that the only country that would let him make films was France.  So he made Rififi which was a smash success and he even won a prize at Cannes.  At this point Dassin was already used to "vanishing" or hiding whenever he bumped in to old Hollywood friends, so as not to embarrass them because of the blacklist bullshit.  He was also used to seeing old Hollywood chums hide or vanish around him.  When Dassin noticed that his old baseball teammate and great friend Gene Kelly showed up at Cannes that year, Dassin immediately hid behind a bush.  Kelly saw this, though, went behind the bush, grabbed Dassin on to the pavement and embraced him, saying, "What are you doing?"

Jules Dassin (using the stage name Perlo Vita) in Rififi

Rififi is a genuine heist classic, and comes highly recommended by me.  The thirty minute no dialogue robbery sequence is worth the price of admission alone.







All my love,
xxxoooxxx,
Ardent

Way back in the day,

When I was in college, and had a small part in a production of Twelfth Night, I remember once after a dress rehearsal that our director (and my friendface friendie), Scott S said, "As loath as I am to tell you folks that this production needs to be Louder Faster Funnier, as I look over my notes I find those three words appearing repeatedly on every page.  This production needs to be Louder Faster Funnier."

Which in a very roundabout way is how I felt about watching The Trials of Muhammad Ali last night. Certainly it should not have been Louder Faster Funnier, but I could never imagine watching a massively praised Ali documentary and be left wondering, "Should have been much longer, and needs more boxing."

It was illuminating to learn about the inside workings of the Nation of Islam in the Sixties.  And, it was great to get the story on Malcolm X's break with NOI, and his subsequent assassination.  (Ali himself said at the time that Malcolm X should of expected to be rubbed out, but vehemently denied that anyone in NOI had anything to do with it.) And, you know, I guess I had never realized the true Separatist Mission of NOI before.  Eventually Malcolm X was making inroads to be closer to MLK's methods, and had converted to being a Sunni.  Even Ali was coming around to an integrated non violent solution, a la MLK.  All that stuff was great, and the inside baseball explanation how the Supremes went from a 3-5 Ali defeat to an 8-0 thrashing was good stuff, too.

The problem is that the film ended pretty much right after the Supreme Court decision (Ali by TKO? He won on points?), and completely ignored his comeback and all the great fights of Ali's in the Seventies, and his crushing defeat in the Eighties that effectively ended his boxing career.

This documentary got a ton of great press, and I was very eagerly looking forward to it, but I know now that the true comprehensive and complete documentary of one of the Twentieth Century's greatest athletes and Civil Rights pioneers is still out there waiting to be made.

It could still happen.












-Ardent

It is Steve Coogan's world, and we are all just living in it.

Note:  Over the coming weeks I will be writing about the Oscars, giving you my personal, sometimes very idiosyncratic, picks on who or what should win (whether they were nominated or not), and then give you my opinion on who is likely to win from the nominees.  Today I am going to speak about Steve Coogan.

There is a very funny moment near the end of Michael Winterbottom's film, The Trip, which stars Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, essentially "playing" themselves.

As the two actors tuck in to a large English breakfast, Brydon asks Coogan to just what lengths he would go to for a BAFTA award.  Then, Brydon ups the stakes:  "Best Actor.  Academy Award winner, Steve Coogan."  Coogan eventually concedes that he would consider letting his child suffer through a brief bout of appendicitis  -- the child would recover fully -- in order to win Best Actor.  Of course, they are joking.  (Right?)

Naturally, Coogan did win a BAFTA television award for his performance in The Trip.  (The film version that I am referring to is actually an edited version of a British television series.) And, he won a couple more BAFTA TV awards last year for resurrecting his Alan Partridge character in Alan Partridge:  Welcome to the Places of My Life.

But, now is the big time, and perhaps we should check on his daughter's health, because Coogan is not only up for some big time BAFTA film awards but he is up for some Oscars, as well.  He is not up for Best Actor, but is up for Best Adapted Screenplay (with his co-writer, Jeff Pope), and, because he is one of the producers, Best Picture (Philomena), too.

Philomena was certainly one of my favorite films of last year, and I think it is deserving of its nomination.  And, I am very proud of Coogan for bringing this story to the cinema, and assembling a great team (Stephen Frears directs and Dame Dench is up for Best Actress again -- rightfully so) to get it done.  But, I am also just as proud for him for his performance in another film that is getting absolutely no mention at all this awards season, which is What Maisie Knew.

Which is why if I were King Academy Award, I would give the Best Supporting Actor Award to Steve Coogan for his performance in What Maisie Knew.

Onata Aprile and Steve Coogan in What Maisie Knew

Although, unfortunately for Mr Coogan, if I were King Academy Award I would give the Best Adapted Screenplay Award not to Coogan and Pope for Philomena but to Nancy Doyne and Carroll Cartwright for What Maisie Knew and have them share that award with Tom Stoppard for his screenplay for the HBO miniseries, Parade's End.

What is actually likely to happen is Jared Leto will win  Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Dallas Buyer's Club, which is perfectly fine by me; and either Terence Winter (The Wolf of Wall Street) or John Ridley (12 Years a Slave) will win Best Adapted Screenplay.  Right now I am leaning towards Ridley for the award, but that could change right at the last minute.

************

This household loves ourselves some Steve Coogan, and part of me would like to see him do something outrageous if he wins an Oscar.  But, I do not think he stands much of a chance in either category.  And, he was very well behaved at the Golden Globes, too, sharing the stage with the real Philomena.  In any event, I think Mr Coogan's daughter, Clare, can rest easy, and make the trip to Hollywood with her Da.












Mwah, ... 

This one is for Renee

The DVR Might Explode

Sundays right now are just an unbelievable bounty of riches.  Renee has a program she is recording, and then, there will be Girls, True Detective, Sherlock, and Downton Abbey.

What? You did not really think he was dead, did you?

Downton Abbey has been an enormous guilty delight so far.  I adore Lady Mary and Lady Isobel walking around their rooms like wraiths, so wracked with grief over Matthew's death.  All the Abbey team need to do now is add some Smiths songs underneath.  (And Abbey directors! Please stop shooting profile shots of Lady Mary -- Michelle Dockery - -because as much as I love her, she has got to have one of the most unflattering profiles I have ever seen on film.) The whole gramophone scene last week was too much campy goodness.  Downton is great right now.

Girls last week was meh to me.  The Wife was much more impressed.  I did like that they threw a nod to Orange is the New Black, though, with Jessa's "romantic encounter" at the rehab clinic. And, Withnail was in it.  (I will write about the whole nudity controversy next week.)

Sherlock starts tomorrow, and I am definitely looking forward to that.  I read in the NYT that Watson is getting married (!) Interesting.

True Detective is a new series on HBO, and it is fantastic.  The Wife and I both love it despite it being yet another brooding serial killer psycho drama.  It stars Matthew "El-eye-vee-eye-en" McConaughey and Woody from Cheers.  More importantly it is directed by  Cary Joji Fukunaga, who directed one of my most favorite films of the last five years, Jane Eyre.

McConaughey is on absolute fire right now.  He has always been one of my favorite actors, but now he is picking superb projects, and delivering fantastic results.

If there are future seasons of True Detective (trust me, there will be) there will be an all new cast and a different mystery in a different part of the country.  The current one is set in Louisiana.  And McConaughey plays a mopey weirdo detective from Texas.  (Shocker!)

All my love,
Ardent

The Invisible Woman,

Which is directed by and stars Ralph Fiennes, is a meticulously nearly perfect creation.  It is absolutely gorgeous to behold, and the very first shot of the film, which holds just long enough on the coast of England to remind you that there are still parts of this beautiful world that still look as they did over a century ago, is a marvelous way to start the picture.  Then Felicity Jones walks in to the frame, and we are all pulled back in to the reality that we are watching a movie, a period film.

In addition to the lovely cinematography, the film is also masterfully edited, with a phenomenal use of sound effects that remind us that urban life has always been noisy.  The original score is very good, and was used in an extremely smart way.  Fiennes obviously knows what he is doing as a director, and has done a great deal of good work here.  There are some very fine performances, too.  Ms Jones has her moments, as does Kristin Scott Thomas and Tom Hollander, but the real star for me was Joanna Scanlan as Mrs Dickens.  And, Fiennes is still an extremely beautiful man, and looks ever so handsome in Victorian fashion.

Jo Scanlan is also great in Spaced, In the Loop, and The Thick of It.

The problem is that the film is an absolute crushing bore.  They have spent so much time and effort on a story that Renee and I had little or no interest in.  There is no story there.  The script is by Abi Morgan, who has her CV filled with good things (The Hour, Shame) and bad things (The Iron Lady, The Invisible Woman).

You just do not care about the people in this picture, and you never really get a sense of just how talented and important Charles Dickens was as an artist.  And, where is the comedy and panache and irony that made Dickens' books so special in this script?

The Invisible Woman is, in the end, a beautiful dud; a gorgeous failure.













-Ardent

Hmmm, on balance, I would

Have to say that The Wolf of Wall Street is not quite good.

There is a lot of really good stuff in it, but it is way too long (one-hundred and seventy-nine minutes), and it contains some insanely gratuitous nudity, and for stretches veers towards Mommie Dearest camp-lite.

It is, like American Hustle as well, what I call a Pop Film.  It is a collection of Set Pieces without a really solid coherent satisfying believable through-line.

Sometimes the scenes, the set pieces, can be so good that you do not really care, and you begin to appreciate the film more as a Revue Film.  Five Easy Pieces is like that for me.  And, oftentimes these Pop Films are righteously over the top and deliriously camp.  They tend to have lots of sex in them, too.  Or, at least a sexy sensibility.

"Leo, I got us some Lemmon ludes!"

Whatever.  The fact is that there are about ninety minutes that could be cut from this film.  If it had been perhaps even more helter skelter, and bewildering, and incomprehensible, but still contained all the great scenes that I loved (everything with Matthew McConaughey -- the film desperately cries out for more McConaughey -- and the sales meetings; the breaking the fourth wall stuff; the great scene on the boat with the FBI agent) then I dare say The Wolf of Wall Street might have become a personal cult fave.

Still, there is enough camp-lite and big time stars doing insanely dopey things that the film probably will become a decent sized home video cult classic for certain types of folks, and Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio devotees.

Just not me.

The Wife liked it more than I did.

























Ardent

Happy New Year everyone!

And, here is a New Year's present for you! The finest concert film ever made, directed by Jonathan Demme, and starring Talking Heads! Play this at your party tonight, and you will truly be burning down the house.

Absolute ruddy brilliance.

All my love,
Mwah, ...













Happy New Year!

American Hustle

Was quite good, and the Wife and I both enjoyed it.  Plus, seeing the film on Xmas Day with a packed house made it even more fun.  (It sounded like one person tried to applaud when the credits began to roll, saw it was not on, and gave up.)

It is a film I think I would like to own, and Renee said she would like another crack at it, just so she can try and work out some kinks in the somewhat convoluted story line.  The film is kind of a mess, and seems rushed.  I think it definitely could have used an edit job, and I wished it was funnier.

"Christian, honey, there is something in your beard."

There were certainly some very funny moments in the picture.  I just wish they had gone more in the direction of, say, Lubitsch or Hitchcock.  More laughs.  More Champagne.

As a critic and viewer I am toughest on this genre than any other.  And, I have been personally searching for my personal Holy Grail of this type of film.  Moreover, now, I think I have made it even tougher after seeing American Hustle.  I want a major Hollywood production, loaded with star power that is an adult sexy thriller of a film, and is perfect all the way through, that truly merits applause in the theater.  Carlos is close.  Body Heat.  Chinatown.  But, like I said, after seeing this latest attempt, I think now I want the film to be really funny, too.

American Hustle came pretty dang close, though.

I would like to say that as much as I admire Christian Bale's formidable acting talents, I kind of have a hankering for him to start doing more comedies and 'personality actor' roles.  I am a little over the beards and the accents, and the massive weight fluctuations.  I would like to see him play Christian Bale in a movie, I think.  That is sort of what he did in Velvet Goldmine.  I want more of that.

************

Sorry I have not posted in a while. You know I love you all.  It has been a long crazy busy hectic holiday, natch, and I still have one more holiday to go, me being in the wine biz, and all.

My folks get in town today for the weekend! That is going to be a lot of fun.





Ciao!
Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year!
Ardent

Day 4 (Conversations with Nick C)

I am working seven days straight until I am off on Xmas Day.  This is day four.

Nick C and I have come up with another great idea.  What if we could hire surrogates to fill in for us in social situations? That way if I wanted to have a presence at a party that I did not personally want to attend (because I wanted stay home and watch movies, or whatever) then I would!

The surrogate would be obliged to inform everyone at the party, show, family gathering, what have you, that he (or she.  Why not a female surrogate for me to emphasize my more feminine leanings!) would be portraying the part of Michael Spitler for the evening.  Of course, the surrogate would have to live with me for an extended time, a training period, so that they could successfully convey the true spirit of me whenever they subbed for me.

I think this is a brilliant idea.

Have a great Saturday, everyone!

Mwah, ... 

Day 3 (Duck droppings)

I am working seven days straight, right up until Xmas Day when I will be off.  This is Day 3.

Thank you very much, driftglass.  You really nailed it.

Honestly, I was going to let this whole Duck Dynasty poop pass until I woke up to Fox News this morning.  My gosh, they are acting like this backwater redneck hillbilly preacher man is being sent to a gulag in Siberia.  They keep screaming about the First Amendment.

Folks, this ain't a First Amendment issue.  The network, A&E, can fire, suspend, or near pretty much do  whatever the hell they feel like to this homophobic racist moron.  Tough for him.  You can squawk about the hypocritical nature of A&E raking in the cash from the hillbillies and then pulling the rug out from underneath them  (they knew who they had hired.  He had been saying shit like this for years), but no body is denying anyone their Freedom of Speech.

But, let us back track:  Fox News (and the rest of Wingnuttia) has gotten its panties in a twist over this, yet they only ever talk about the gay stuff.  They do not ever seem to mention this:

"I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person. Not once," the reality star said of growing up in pre-Civil-Rights-era Louisiana. "Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them. I'm with the blacks, because we're white trash. We're going across the field ... They're singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, 'I tell you what: These doggone white people' — not a word!"

Robertson continued, "Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues."

Arguably, that is even worse than the rote know it by heart Leviticus bullshit about homosexuals! No wonder Fox News is not talking about that.

(There is an idiot GOP "Public Servant", however, who has compared Robertson to Rosa Parks. Favorably.  So there is that.)

Jeez Louise! UGH!












mds

Much of The Temptress (1926),

Starring Greta Garbo, is deliriously dopey.  But I love it anyway. I love it because of the swooning racy sexiness of the opening sequences, which were shot by the original director Mauritz Stiller; and because Garbo literally consumes the audience through the screen.  This was a new type of eroticism, and audiences ate it up.  She became one of the biggest stars in the world after the picture.

Garbo in The Temptress (1926)

Stiller was Garbo's very strict mentor.  He was the one who got caps for her teeth, and insisted she lose weight.  Louis B Mayer hired both of them from Sweden as a package deal, but it was really Garbo he had his eye on.  As soon as he possibly could, Mayer had Stiller removed from the director's chair for The Temptress, and replaced him with Fred Niblo.  The crew and cast were particularly cruel to Stiller on the set, and there was a definite language barrier problem.  Stiller was crushed, and returned back to Sweden post haste.  Two years later he was dead.

Garbo, of course, stayed and became Garbo.

The Temptress, as silly as it is, (bullwhip duels, dam building in the Argentine, Jesus in a Paris cafe) still comes highly recommended by me.  Heck, it is worth it alone for Stiller's amazing risque banquet sequence, which gives new meaning to the phrase Upstairs Downstairs.

Garbo

And, if you are interested in checking out Stiller's work, watch his 1920 Swedish silent masterpiece, Erotikon, which I have discussed, at length, in this space before.

Finally! I got to see Twenty Feet From Stardom last night.

And, I would strongly urge anyone who is reading this now to change their viewing plans for this week, and make some time for one of the best films of 2013.

It ain't perfect.  But, it is worth it alone for the video above.  That is Merry Clayton's isolated vocal track on Gimme Shelter.  She was pregnant, and rousted out of bed to take a couple of passes for the Stones' song.  She wore her pajamas to the session, with her hair in curlers, wrapped in a Chanel scarf.

In the film version, they include the Stones whooping in the studio to get her ready for her second take, and you gotta love Mick's whoo! during Clayton's pass.

Ms Clayton blew the fucking doors off that studio that night.  Mick who?











Mwah, ... 

NOLA, Tom Waits, Ellen Barkin, Down By Law, and Jim Jarmusch