Now we are talking.

There was a time when I was watching the final moments of Shanghai Express last night that I felt transported back to our first home in Dallas in the late seventies.  I felt as if it were Xmas break and I was watching the Late Late Movie on my old black and white.  It was such a warm, comfort food type of feeling.

Shanghai Express is miles better than Morocco.  Both were made by the same folks at the same studio and both star Marlene Dietrich.  Lee Garmes' photography is luminescent, especially the soft-focus close-ups of Dietrich, which, although still v much of a tradition with the gauzy, powdery Paramount style of the period, still, make Dietrich sultry as all get out.  Dietrich oftentimes has one hand on her hip, showing off her long elegant fingers and the way she speaks with her eyes in the close-ups is still deliriously sexy.  She ain't perfect.  A couple or few times you catch her looking in to the camera but for me that just multiplies the heat factor.  I like to think she is staring at her director (and lover), Josef von Sternberg, asking, "Can we really pull this off? Who is going to believe this?"

You need to ash, Grandma, ... 

Like a lot of good art the premise, the bones of it, is banal.  Shanghai Express is the story of a hooker with a heart of gold.  But everything else about this picture elevates and then obliterates the premise, turning the hooker with a heart of gold story in to a McGuffin.  Von Sternberg's use of montage at the beginning and end of the film are sublime.  I am still in wonder at how Clive Brook managed to give such an arresting performance giving the same line reading over and over again.  (Maybe it was the props? The riding crop and never-ending smokes?) I love how folks are always closing and opening carriage doors, raising and lowering blinds, making both transparency and privacy precious.  And I am not buying for one minute the prayer reformation.  I know I am wrong but I like to think Dietrich did it to get that fucking annoying Parson off her back.

I really treasure Hollywood entertainments, especially those made for grown-ups.  There is something so magical about the American cinema where great art and commerce safely intersect.  That is what the late Late Late Movie was all about.  In our modern times of anything you want whenever and wherever you want it we have lost something in the bargain.  At one of the crappest points in my life I had a chance to see Lubitsch's Trouble in Paradise (my all-time favorite film) at a rep house in the City twice.  It was right around Xmas time and each time I settled in to my seat I felt blessed and so lucky.  What a Xmas gift was I receiving! It seems we never unwrap our gifts anymore.  We have forgotten what gifts are, what makes things, life precious.

But despite our Future Shock, the truth will always out.  And great art like Shanghai Express will always glow.

"Meanwhile, the Most Influential

Who will fill Buckley's shoes?

Ms Lloyd has def struggled.

Conservative in Young America Is ... Dead-and She Has a Hard-to-Pronounce Name" (Spy Magazine July 1989.)

This is my second favorite season

Of Top Chef.  Because all the contestants have had success on the show before they all are genuinely hurt when they get eliminated.  There is a lot of yelling.  People are thrown under the bus in a flash.

It is still not as good as Season 2 when Marcel almost got his head shaven and one contestant was kicked off for hitting another contestant (Marcel? Prob.  I do not exactly remember.)

Hoo-ray!

I got my latest back issue of Spy today and it is a doozy.  It is their July, 1989, Summer Fun Issue.  Emily Lloyd is the cover star and I will have pictures for you soon.

Spy, even in their late 80s heyday, did not always publish the greatest feature articles every month.  For me, if the feature articles were good that was just icing.  I always loved the charts, Kurt Anderson's flawless intro essays, Review of Reviewers, their Mailbag, the letters to the editor, their letters to the New Yorker (at that time the New Yorker would not publish letters to the editor), their "stunts" (Spy published a New Yorker masthead, another thing the New Yorker did not do back then), their New York Times gossip column, their Hollywood gossip column, the Liz Smith tote board,  and on and on, etc, ... Spy was so brilliant, and pithy, yet so dense, cram packed with miles of text.  It was like a little book you got every month and if you loved it (as I did/do then/now) you wanted to devour the whole thing, savoring every word.  It could take you a month to read and digest the latest issue.

S'funny, one of Spy's most loved items was Separated at Birth.  I never really got it, I guess.  It was amusing sometimes, I suppose.  And I still, to this day, do not understand The Spy List but I am probably just over thinking it.

This Summer Fun Issue has some of my all-time favorite feature articles that I remember from back in the day, though.  The Boys Who Would Be Buckley (about young up-and-coming Conservatives, with a nifty tote board chart ranking the contenders in different attributes); The Ugly European (about rude, low or no tipping European tourists); and Twinkie, Twinkie, Little Suet-Filled Sponge-Cake Crisco Log, Now I Know What You Are (in which Spy elucidates just what a Twinkie is, how it is made, what is actually in one and then hosts a bake-off between six great New York restaurant chefs.)  Great stuff.

Now that I think of it, that should be a quickfire on Top Chef, make them make Twinkies in 25 minutes.

I just got the magazine today and all I have read so far is Review of Reviewers.  (Which is brilliant, they skewer Esquire, Lee Eisenberg, and J. Hoberman.)  I will be snacking on Spy in to the wee hours for the next few weeks.

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

The Oscar nominations were pretty ho-hum for me this year.  Three of the Best Picture noms are films I have no intention of seeing any time soon, if at all.  (Those would be True Grit, Black Swan, and The Fighter.)  I will be cheering for Colin Firth (he shoulda won last year), Annette Bening, and The Social Network.  I would not mind seeing Amy Adams win an Oscar, natch.  She is one of my faves.  I still have not seen Winter's Bone or 127 Hours and they are def on my to-see list.

My fave Oscar nomination story concerns James Franco.  The NYT arranged a phone interview with Franco to ask him what it would be like hosting an event in which he is up for a big prize, Best Actor.  Franco had to cut the interview short however, to go to class, at Yale, where he is pursuing a PhD in English Lit.  James Franco rocks.

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

TCM is naturally pulling out the big guns tomorrow for the last installment of Peter Sellers, their star of the month.  We get Being There, Doctor Strangelove, and Lolita.  But we also get a Boulting Bros satire, Man in a Cocked Hat, which I know v little about and will be dvr-ing tomorrow.

Sellers' performance as Quilty in Lolita has aged poorly, perhaps.  And when Adrian Lyne's godawful remake came out a decade (or two or whenever) ago Sellers' Quilty took a minor beating.  You know, the usual complaints:  Sellers is over-the-top, he is performing (gosh, what  was he supposed to do?), etc, ...  Those who complain are wrong.  Nabokov wrote the screenplay, for crying out loud.  The novel the film is based on is a comic, parodic novel with maybe the most unreliable narrator of all-time.  Quilty is supposed to be a mischevious, base quick-change artist.  Sellers nailed it.  A masterful performance in my eyes.  

One more Sellers note re Strangelove.  Sellers was supposed to play the Slim Pickens role, too.  He came down with a mysterious leg injury right before the Kong scenes were to be shot.

I will always love Strangelove, even if it is a little long and Kubrick cut the pie-fight scene.  Just shows to go you what male sexual frustration can lead to if not properly released or dealt with.

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

Simone takes Oscar home for good.  

Not all the films I saw this past weekend were bad.  I dvr'd Room at the Top off of TCM and it is a sooty little diamond.  Every part of the film is good.  The score is excellent, the performances are great (Simone Signoret won an Oscar for Best Actress and Laurence Harvey with his spot-on Yorkshire accent was a real revelation; I think I had only seen him in Darling before), the photography is phenomenal (Freddie Francis was the DP and I loved all the texture and grit and grime he gets out of those bombed out, factory filled Yorkshire villages), and the script and the direction really bring out the nuanced adult dramatic nature of this social-climbing story.  Jack Clayton directed and it is bloody obvious frame after frame what a massive impact this film had on British cinema and TV.  There was one scene where Renee yelled out, "That's like Hot Fuzz!" and she was totally right.  Those films have nothing in common other than they are both English productions with English directors but I imagine Edgar Wright, whether he thinks Room is daft and campy or a moving drama, knows Room at the Top v well, indeed, and cannot help but be influenced by it to even the slightest extent.  Great movie.  V highly recommended.

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

That is it for me, tonight.  Mwah, ... 

The four levels of illness

(The title is an inside joke.  Many of us at the Food Hole are having to take an excruciatingly long (eight hours!) computer course on food safety.  I did aboot four hours today and was doing alright until the dulcet tones of my female "instructor" started in on the four levels of illness.  I became glazed to say the least.)

But really I just want to hit on a few movies real quick.

I saw two Capra films o'er this past weekend and I still hate Capra.  I saw Platinum Blonde and Lost Horizon.  Re the latter film I pretty much concur w/ David Thomson's feelings.  Lost Horizon is "dopey", a bunch of drug store, half-assed religious claptrap that goes on entirely too long (and Capra axed 50 minutes off of the version you can see now!) and has an awful ending of swirling headlines and four English diplomats toasting Ronald Coleman in their stuffy club.  Blech.  I really was hoping that they would escape and Shangri-la be exposed as a cult.  No such luck.

Platinum Blonde is better.  And my flip response, I suppose, my Twitter or quick Facebook review would be:  Too much Loretta Young, not enough Jean Harlow! Thomson likes the film more than I do, for sure.  He likes the star, Robert Williams, who died right after the film was released.  But from my perspective, today, I think the hand-wringing about Williams' being seduced by the chi chi set, landing in a "gilded cage" (gosh, they say that a lot, gilded cage, it gets v annoying but quick), him becoming the Cinderella Man, & on and on, etc, ... does not  resonate with me.

Platinum blonde, indeed.

It was nice to see Harlow play a classy lady for once but Capra did not come close to capturing Harlow's raw, fun sex appeal.  Plus Capra insists on his corny ass bit player studio cut-ins that drive me crazy.

Also saw Morocco, starring Dietrich.  Did not like this much, either, but more than either of the Capra films.  You know, Lubitsch just did not have these sound problems, even back in 1930. Lubitsch was just way of everybody else in Hollywood at that time.  Dietrich's scene in the tux, kissing the girl full-on is still pretty cool to watch even today.

I saw a really excellent film, too, A Room at the Top, but that will have to be for another time, hopefully soon.

Kisses, ...

So it is Ladies' Night Oot tonight

The lovely Ealing star:  Joan Greenwood.

And my sweetie, Renee, is eating at a Burmese restaurant in Oakland tonight.  Crazy.

So you think you had a pepperoni? Well, not like this.  So you think you had a calzone? Well, not like this.  March 2003.  Drinking Scotch that night at the Scottish pub across the street from the Great Am Music Hall, The City, CA.  Daddy put in his beer shift or cheese-monger shift, he cannot remember which.  Prob cheese-monger, lovers.  Daddy rode BART.  He knew he would have hour upon hour to kill, yet the pay-off, the show, the Scotch, the meeting afterwards with his soon to be future beyonce and her crazy best friend, her dot com computer savant lover, etc, ...

Sister of mine/Home again.

The BART ride was full of sweaty, lovely, optimistic fervor.  And I, Daddy asked, Will see them finally? What is it aboot that and bands, nothing quite like movies, that we become fouteen year old girls when it comes to bands, playing live, at yor club.  Yor club, some foreign entity is invading yor precinct, yor hood, yor, ... ya get it, ya?

The headphones for Daddy prob were Turbonegro in prep for the event that was aboot to happen.  Yet, it is poss, extr poss that it was Steely Dan that drove Daddy to the show on the BART train.

The smell of garlic makes me pumped up and enthusiastic.  At that Scots pub in the City they did a play production of Trainspotting, written by Welsh, himself.  It got lots of good notices.  Daddy is reading those notices right now.  How British, how pub-like, some of the best theatre in a fuking pub in the Tenderloin?

There is a walk.  A walk from the SHOPPING MALL BART stop & where our hero, Daddy has to go.  It is a walk Daddy is cruelly fam with.  It is a walk that tempts.  Perhaps twelve more blocks, Daddy sez.  Up to SexTown/North Beach, Lusty Lady, they always seem impressed and complimentary (tho not as complimentary as the ladies were to Sheephead singer, Chris Shephard [sp]) but Daddy chooses drink and literature instead,

Do you remember what it was like in the Spring of 2003?

Daddy buffered his soul & psyche w/ independent weeklies.  Daddy hunkered down in the darkest corners of the Edinburgh Castle (just 'cross the street from the TURBONEGRO show to soon happen.)

Y'know, Fincher wanted Costello's Beyond Belief, one of the greatest rok songs of all-time for Zuckerberg's walk home before he awfully ripped his ex to shreds.  I believe the studio pushed fuking NIN on him.  Gotta be hip! Gotta be young, shiny, bright! (I like the Wendy Carlos NIN version during the regatta-  still, Fincher talks aboot NIN when the Beatles let loose at the end.  He got Baby, You're A but nothing else.  Heck, Baby cost so much he felt OBLIGATED to rave aboot a mediocre score that shouln't e'er have occured.)

It is Raw Ramp, T Rex, one hour 'fore Pnut appears.

Where was I? Oh yeah, poring through the weeklies.  The weeklies spelling every motherfucking reason why an invasion of Iraq has got to be the worst idea possible.  I remember drinking Glenlivet (Harp baks) and learning aboot the terrible repercussions that such an invasion would entail.  


S'funny.  One of the most idiotic, delusional, and crassly political maneuvers of all our US history results in thousands of innocent Afghani & Iraqi dead.  (Hey, no big deal.  It is not us, right?)


Really, who cares, Daddy is going to the Big Show tonight.

(INTERLUDE:  KILLER BEACH, THEE MICHELLE GUN ELEPHANT!)  Ice cream!

He pours Keenan 05 Cab and sighs.

Daddy has suked up the Scotch.  He is ready to invade the mind that is Norwegian wood, dark metal, not really, really just pure rok n' roll.

Turbonegro make Daddy wait fore'er.  There is no opening act.  As Daddy waits he thinks of the darkness in the Scots pub.  All the politics become real.  All the politics  dissolve as the band finally after endless Pinter pauses appears.  Daddy had waited for hours.

The sweat smelled so good.  The kids that were not there were so envious.  There was pot smoking and laying down on crap beds.  There was Scotch just to catch up.  There were envious looks across the hall.  There were reasons that young folk could reasonably not give a shit aboot the motherfuking awful things that surrounded them at the time.

Man, it is not Daddy's fault.  Turbonegro have no agenda.  I am beginning to believe that I have no political agenda, either, sadly.

Reach up.  Whene'er you are confronted w/ something that gives you pause or hurts yor soul, STAND THE FUK UP, and say, You are wrong, my friend, ... 

As much as it pains me

To say, I told you so; well, I told you so. 

Olbermann was "fired" today and the Kabletown(Comcast)/NBC merger went through a few days ago, approved by the FCC.

The Fox News assholes are all drinking Cristal tonight, except Glenn, he's having sparkling apple cider.  

"I know it is the thought that counts

And boy, what a thought."  (An Xmas thank you note from Peter Sellers to his young son Michael.)

Molly 'neath the duvet.

I slept in until near ten today and it was the most rested, comfortable, and relaxed I have felt upon waking up in weeks.  The holidays are over.  Yes, I have inventory on Thursday and I have a whole wedding to fret aboot- I mean, be so thrilled aboot, but I feel fit, relaxed, and ready to take on near anything.

I am not quite sure where I should begin.  I am going to stay away from the recent wingnut act of domestic terrorism and politics overall.  As I have expressed here before:  I have become so cynical about public service and our public servants.  It is entirely possible that you could count on two hands (or one!) all the true public servants in the US today.  Bernie Sanders comes to mind, George Miller another, and then my mind starts to wander, ...

I will start w/ TCM.  Their star-of-the-month this month is Peter Sellers.  Now, I have a v odd relationship with Mr Sellers.  I am in immense awe of his talent.  It could have ne'er happened due to Sellers wracking mental problems and his plain evil-ness, but I like to imagine an alternate bizzaro world for Sellers.  One, in which he won a bushel full of Oscars, a Knighthood, and his rightful place on the dais next to Sir Larry, Gielgud, the Beatles, and other sterling 20th century English talents.

Could never happen, though.  Sellers was a truly sick, fucked-up, evil SOB if there ever was one.  I became obsessed with Sellers after reading Roger Lewis' excellent biography, The Life and Death of Peter Sellers.  I bought the book on a whim at the now, sadly deceased, wonderful Cody's bookstore on Telegraph in the mid-nineties.  As odd as it seems, that a 'hatchet-job' movie star bio could change my life, personally, and move me profoundly, that is exactly what happened.  Lewis was certainly not the first to tell the story of an artists' life almost exclusively through criticism of an artists' work but his book made me a devout believer in that style of criticism or biography.  There are numerous other examples of, roughly, this style of book, which I consider absolute must reading for anyone serious about post-war performing arts.  Par example, another Lewis "bio", The Real Life of Laurence Olivier; Greil Marcus' books, Mystery Train and  Lipstick Traces; Magic Circles by Devin McKinney; Ian McDonald's Revolution in the Head; and two by Peter Conrad, his stunning, The Hitchcock Murders, and his Orson Welles "bio", Orson Welles: The Stories of His Life.  Lewis' book moved me so because I could identify with some of the core hatefulness and insensitivity in Sellers life.  I am not an evil or fucked-up person, thank you very much.  But, bloodcurdlingly, sometimes did I think, as I read, "There but for the grace of God, go I."  


After reading Lewis' book, which by the way, was made in to an ambitious, sometimes entertaining, but ultimately underwhelming HBO film, starring and spear-headed, produced by the v fine, Geoffrey Rush, I immediately sought out Sellers early, seminal, mostly black and white, performances in English feature films.  I raided Reel Video and another video shop in downtown Berkeley to watch many of the films that the book alluded to.  Many of the VHS films I saw were obv "bootleg" versions, taped straight off the telly.  I saw, I'm All Right, Jack (a fab, Boulting Bros stitch-up of English trade unions); The Ladykillers, natch, (an English Technicolour classic, which the Coen Bros mangled beyond belief, quoting Preston Sturges in a frickin' Ealing Studios remake!); a couple of the patently awful Goon Show movies (the Goons just do not work on film or TV); The Dock Brief (a good film and a fine performance from Sellers); the Mouse That Roared (a travesty of a film, Sellers aping Guinness by playing over a half-dozen roles, as Guinness had done in the superb Hamer directed, Ealing Studio release, Kind Hearts and Coronets) which still mystifies me as to being popular in the US and thus a springboard towards Sellers' forthcoming international fame, plus Sellers played his first love scenes, which fucked him up forever, Sellers "fell in love" with every single movie love interest the rest of his career; Tom Thumb (awful); and the joyful, anarchic, classic, The Running, Jumping, Standing Still short (the film that cinched the deal for the Fab Four to hire Lester as director of A Hard Day's Night.)


After working my through those, I still had a list of films, unavailable to me at the time, that I had to see:  The Millionairess (saw it on TCM within the last couple of years, it is terrible, Sellers was so in love with Ms Loren, that all his best talents were used to seduce her or entertain cast and crew on the set when they were not shooting); Mr Topaze (still have not seen, Sellers directed); Two Way Stretch (saw it on TCM within the last couple of years, Sellers is amazing in this v fun picture, yet was forever resentful of Lionel Jeffries' performance as Sidney Crout, one of the most over the top, yet spot-on, affecting performances I have ever seen); Only Two Can Play (saw it on TCM within the past couple of years, the film is based on a Kingsley Amis [Martin's da] novel, it is an excellent British comedy and Sellers' performance is one of his best); The World of Henry Orient (saw this also on TCM, a Hollywood film shot in New York, directed by George Roy Hill, a Hollywood version of Heavenly Creatures [before that film was made!], that is one of my all-time fave movies, even my sweetie, Renee [not a huge Sellers fan, by any stretch], loves, and Sellers becomes Oscar Levant, super-highly recommended); Up the Creek (still have not seen); Carlton Brown of the F.O. (have not seen yet); The Battle of the Sexes (have not seen); Your Past is Showing (will see soon, dvr'd a couple of days ago); Beat the Devil (one of my all-time faves, Capote wrote it, Huston directed, it stars Bogart, Robert Morley, Lorre, Gina Lollabrigida, and Jennifer Jones, Sellers dubbed Bogart's voice [Bogart had to be looped due to his jaw being broke  part of the time the film was being shot] and all of the non-English speaking Italian and North African actors); Heavens Above!; and Never Let Go.


The last two mentioned I finally saw.  Heavens Above! is a near great Boulting Bros picture that stitches up the Church of England.  It should be essential viewing for every motherfucking rightwing religious asshole in the United States.  (Even though I know they would not get it.)  The premise of the film is that in a northern England boom-town, booming due to a huge pharma company establishing itself there, promoting a new "wonder drug" that works as a sedative, stimulant, and laxative all at the same time, a new Vicar is installed accidentally.  The Rev John Smallwood that the town was recommended has been mixed up with another Reverend of the same name.  Sellers plays Smallwood and he is transcendent, literally, ha ha.  A large chunk of Mike Myers' career seems to have taken off from Sellers' Rev Smallwood.  Smallwood comes in to town a true disciple of Christ.  He shares the vicarage with the notorious free-loading family that all the town despises.  He inspires the wealthiest woman in town, and the largest shareholder in the pharma company, her son being in charge, to give away all her wealth to offer free food and products to the citizens of the town.  And Sellers is so perfect, so serene, so glibly "above-it-all", truly a Christian.  (Rereading Lewis' thoughts on Sellers' performance, I am once again confronted with my personal [and I am not the only one] American irony disability.  Lewis believes that Sellers is v gently satirizing the clergy in the CofE.  I do not see it that way at all forty years later.  And I do not give a tinker's damn whate'er Sellers' intention was.  Once the art is released it takes on a life of its' own, it belongs to all of us and it is up to us to draw our own conclusions, and get in touch with how the art makes us feel personally.  I understand there are many v learned people out there who disagree with me, who are disgusted w/ the affective fallacy.  They are free to disagree.  They are wrong but they can think what they want.)  


Of course, all this good Christian behavior absolutely starts to cripple bidness in the village.  And once the bidnessmen start to hurtin' then Smallwood must go.  Lewis hates the ending of the film, thinks it is somewhat of a punch line to a not so great joke.  I think the ending is fine.  


As great as Heavens Above! was, the real treat for me was a day later when I watched Sellers  infest my living room with unctuous slime in Never Let Go.  Never Let Go is not a good film.  We do not give a shit about our hero, a cosmetics salesman, who loses his job when his Ford Anglia is stolen, and his unending quest to retrieve his car and prove himself a man to his wife & kids.  The wife & kids do not give a shit, either.  His wife threatens to leave him if he finally confronts Sellers one-on-one and we never see the kids, really.  Of course, after Sellers is vanquished, and some heart-rending time peels away, his wife shows up, presumably to salve his bloody head wounds.  Richard Todd plays the salesman, provoking the question very early on, "Is this really the person I am supposed to care about for the next two hours?" 


Sellers was hired to play Todd's role.  And it was a big deal at the time, 1963, that this would be Sellers' first dramatic role but Sellers talked them out of it.  He & Todd switched.  Sellers became Meadows, the chop-shop "entrepreneur" who runs a "reputable business", according to Meadows.  Sellers runs roughshod over the entire picture.  To use a cliche, he chews up the screen.  Sitting in my home with plenty of light and my sweetie reading Anthony Bourdain's latest book and Molly (our cat) running helter-skelter all o'er the house, I recoiled and winced and groaned and shuddered whenever Sellers was on screen. The worst I felt was when Sellers crunched that baby turtle 'neath his shoe.  He is Meadows and Meadows is so loathsome and slimy, so unhinged and crazy violent, so full of himself and his crap notions of politeness and good taste.  Lewis states in his book that Sellers should have played both roles.  Lewis is so right.  Like Lewis, I cannot even imagine what Todd could possibly bring to the Meadows role, yet, I know that Sellers would have really got in touch with all the insipid, pathetic, vulnerable qualities of the salesman.  And we know he could bring the violent crazy to Todd's role for the showdown.  


But here is the creepy thing aboot Sellers (and perhaps the motivation behind Sellers wanting to play Meadows.)  Here is a quote from Lewis' book, The Life and Death of Peter Sellers:  

"Asked by an interviewer whether the complete identification with his performances affected his home life, he first said, 'Not at all' (meaning that he himself was what he was); then he added:  'My wife is aware of it, though, especially when it's a nasty part, as in Never Let Go.  I was sort of edgy with her while we made the film.  Then, while I was making The Millionairess ... I was very serene.'

Oh, well, that's all right, then.  Edgy? When he saw Anne calmly leafing through a magazine he flung a vase at her; he ripped a chromium towel rail off the bathroom wall and bent it into shapes; he smashed the pictures in the bedroom; he did his emptying-milk-bottles-on-the-floor bit.  Another evening, he tore up his wife's best frocks, because he didn't like it that people complimented her on her appearance.  He plucked apart a mink hat and snapped a string of pearls.  (He later decided that 'pearls were for tears' and wouldn't allow Britt to possess any.)   Anne became a prisoner, as Michael records:  'As long as she was in the house and giving him her undivided attention, then Dad would be content.  If he was working in the studios he would ring three of four times a day to check her movements.  If she left the house even to go shopping she would be subjected to interrogation.'

Once, she tried to have an hour or two to herself-she came back to Chipperfield to discover the contents of the drawing room in fragments.  Porcelain had been ground into the carpets, the tables and chairs were matchwood, unread leatherbound classic novels were ripped to confetti, and cushions were disembowelled.  Then Sellers started on Anne herself.  'My headboard and my parents' bed were separated by a thinnish wall,' Michael told me.  'I remember my mother pleading with him to stop-to stop hitting her and to stop threatening more and more violence, I learned later.  What I learned was that he wanted to kill her.  He was in the middle of making Never Let Go.  He made me sit down and watch that film.  I was frightened by that fight scene between Meadows and Richard Todd-he assured me that there were plenty of crew members standing by to prevent the swinging chains and winches from actually hurting him.'"

Well.  There but for the grace of God, goes not I, blessedly.  

Renee and I have a little joke.  After watching so many "genius" life stories or reading about those insanely, freakishly  talented artist-folk, Renee is thankful that I am not a genius or an immense talent.  Yes, I know, there are good soul genius freaks out there, but they seem to be in the minority.

Before I finally end this week long project I would like to discuss one last sellers film,  Your Past is Showing:  The Naked Truth.  It is odd, before I actually saw the film I had always thought the film was simply called The Naked Truth.  And that is  the title on the U-certificate, The Naked Truth.  Yet, when we get to the title card it reads Your Past is Showing, no mention at all of The Naked Truth.  Whatever, I briefly mentioned this film in one of my Spy magazine posts.  It is a delicious, naughty little film.  Sellers plays "Wee Sonny" MacGregor, a British TV star, who is definitely not from Scotland but from Eastditch (and you dare not say anything bad aboot Eastditch to him.)  Wee Sonny is a miraculous talent who plays numerous roles on his sketch/game show format program.  He, like another big shot and a spoiled, pretty golddigger are being blackmailed by publisher, Dennis Price (of Kind Hearts and Coronets fame.)  Price is the publisher of The Naked Truth magazine.  (Or is he? He really only threatens to publish.)

All three blackmail victims attempt to end Price's life.  Sellers' machinations are the best, though, because as Wee Sonny he has access to costumes, makeup, and his superb acting talents.  Sellers gets to play a half-dozen roles, basically.  And he is sterling in this fun comedy.  If you get a chance you should watch it.

And ... (lowers hand in front of his face) ... Scene.  


I will recline supine in the hugs of Ella Fitzgerald singing Rodgers & Hart (and Veuve Yellow Label.)

See you at Morton's on Monday.

Sellers and his second wife, Britt Eklund.

I have barely yet dipped

In to the three amazing books I received for Xmas.  I am the farthest along in The Last Boy, a biography of Mickey Mantle.  Thank you, Mum & Da.

Eight Oscars, how many do you got?

Oh, Ingrid.  Notorious, indeed.

Anna May Wong.

Renee gave me two books, both of the large coffee-table variety.  I willn't link to the Edith Head book.  You can see it advertised on TCM.  The Edith Head book is ripe w/ lush, gorgeous photographs, natch.  And I love that Head herself had such a distinctive style of her own.  Stanwyck, no matter what studio she was working for, would be dressed by no one other than Head.  And how can we not mention Bette Davis' "wardrobe malfunction" that made for one of Head's finest creations, the cut armpit dress that Davis wore in her legendary All About Eve party sequence.  (And oh yeah, she designed Monroe's dress for that scene, too.  [I am sorry, but Monroe was better in black and white, damnitt.])  Anyhoo, I am just aboot a quarter through that book.  (Banton is a drunk wreck she's always apologizing for and she is finally on her own, beginning to make her name.)

The second book she gave me was by Will Friedwald, who writes about music for the Wall Street Journal, of all places, A Biographical Guide to the Great Jazz and Pop Singers.  I have only read one entry.  I started with Ella Fitzgerald.  The book is comprehensive but written in the language and style of a layman such as I.  It is a fabulous treat.  Who knew I had owned the worst of the essential Fitzgerald songbooks, the Cole Porter one.  I learned tout-suite when I bought the Rodgers & Hart songbook on iTunes.  I am not sure I can describe the luxurious, blissful feeling I felt when I heard it at last.  Or how thrilled I am when I listen to Lullabies of Birdland, with its' ice rink organ and Ella losing her mind at the mic.

I have only scratched the surface with Ella.  Jeez, what happens when I hit Torme next? Or Sarah Vaughn? Or Holiday? Or, ...

THE first, first, first, first lady of song.

The Commerce Comet.

I love you all, mwah!

Ella Fitzgerald....Lullaby Of Birdland (Live version,Newport 1957)

There must have

Been reasons why I did not see The Social Network in a theater but I cannot recall them now.

Anyhoo, I saw it over this past weekend.  The movie is great, the first scene is amazing.  The Howard Hawks-like speed w/ which characters speak is invigorating and thrilling to watch.  The script by Aaron Sorkin is smart, spiked w/ sour wit, and still always moves the story forward.  There are good performances all over the screen but my favorites are Andrew Garfield, Armie Hammer (as the Winklevoss twins), & Rashida Jones.

In fact, my favorite storyline in The Social Network is that of the "Winklevi".  I love how they are set up as WASP Supermen.  What is the quote, "I am 6' 5", 220 pounds and there are two of me"? The twins are uber-privileged, part of a dwindling old-money American aristocracy, who are first shown lapping their crew competition and then towering over a gawky, socially awkward Zuckerberg.  We never see the twins win anything again.  They always come up short, yet try to remain gentlemen.  Cameron Winklevoss finally snaps when his Harvard crew loses the big race in England.  There is something so correct and perfect and honest and lovable about the twins that goes against most traditional class-struggle movies or arcs, whathaveyou.

I am not rooting for Zuckerberg in this film.  It is brilliant that Sorkin found this class-turnabout in this Facebook story.  Zuckerberg is not likeable.  He is so socially awkward, so narcissistic, so loathesome, so condescending, etc, ... My skin crawls when Eisenberg asks Rashida Jones' lawyer out for dinner.  And the scene where Zuckerberg keeps trying to pull his ex-girlfriend away from her friends,  to "talk alone, for a minute" (everyone in this splendid script is seeking a private conversation at one point or another, yet so many are connected to this extremely non-private social network creation), well, folks, I have been there before and it is chilling and uncomfortable to watch.   Rooney Mara as Erica plants her feet firmly in the ground and tells him off.  Good for her.

I am not going to ruin the ending.  It is brilliant like the rest of the film.  But everybody involved here seems to have nailed it.  It had to be perfect to succeed and that is v dangerous territory to be playing around in.  The Citizen Kane references are correct.  Not in any way related to the film itself re how it looks, how it was shot, etc, ... but that they took on a media giant by telling his story as a big-budget Hollywood entertainment (and they weren't v nice to their "hero".)  People as talented as Sorkin and David Fincher had to be anxious and excited to tackle this remarkable real-life, real-time story:  One of the most socially awkward, icky guys around, who has  no friends at all creates frickin' Facebook.  Sorkin & Fincher dived in and nailed it.  Good for them.  


Actually, now that I think about it, there may be another way this film is like Kane.  There will be arguments over the decades about who was more integral to The Social Network, Sorkin, the screenwriter, or Fincher, the director.  Personally, I am in the Sorkin camp at this early juncture.  Just like I am in the Kael/Mankiewicz/Toland camp re Kane.

Winklevi & Zuckerberg.

P.S.  One more thing, it was so lovely to hear a real Beatles song in a movie.  I am sure they had a pay a mint but it was worth it.

How perfect was it

Molly & my latest two of my latest three prizes.

Fran.

The other prize, a 3l Buehler Cab 2007.

Review of Reviewers, Henry "Dutch" Holland the author.

That I saw the fun fun fun nasty Sellers film, The Naked Truth that I got two more delicious issues of Spy in the mail (& one more still coming!)

I am working on an epic

Post, mostly aboot Peter Sellers and Roger Lewis.  That post is still nowhere near for publication, frustratingly.

In the meantime, I would strongly urge you to read two articles in the most recent Atlantic magazine.  One is by Caitlin Flanagan (normally not a big fave of mine), entitled, The Hazards of Duke (splendid title! Give that intern/copy writer/editor a raise!)  The article, actually a review of a frickin' PowerPoint that Duke student, Karen Owen, "shared" w/ three of her friends, and has thusly become a lightning-rod for feminists; the execrable, Megyn Kelly at Fox News; and others is essential reading.


But so is the article/review right after it.  That is called Hard Core and it is by Natasha Vargas-Cooper.  This article/review is about how pornography is stripping bare the notion that men and women are the same, that a heterosexual "contract" for sex is ultimately a bust.  My ears were buzzing as I read because not just a week ago I gleefully listened to Fran Lebowitz talk about how facts are facts, much as we would not like to admit it, women are different than men, especially when it comes to sex.  The article is crucial but was the tiniest bit creepy to me personally.  Ms Vargas-Cooper in her article, quotes Martin Amis (from Yellow Dog!), Susan Sontag, & Pauline Kael.  


Uh, those are three of my all-time favorite authors and I still believe that I am one of the dozen or so on the planet that thinks Yellow Dog is a good novel.  


The Atlantic is still good.  Not as good as it was even a few years ago but it is like Spy in the sense, that for me, I always go to the back pages first, looking for Sandra Tsing Loh or reviews like these two I have mentioned here.  In Spy, I always went straight to Review of Reviewers.  

Karen Owen, part of her infamous PowerPoint.

Plus, maybe that means I will get a Tsing Loh review/article next month.

Here it frickin' is:  The PowerPoint. 

I will keep this short

and hopefully on point.

I wonder what will be the turning point.  I wonder what it will take to bring respect and civility to our nation's broad political discussion.  I wonder because I do not think what happened in Tucson yesterday will be the turning point.  Judging from the political football that is 9/11, I am starting to take the sadder, much more cynical view that there may never be a "civil" period again in this country in my lifetime, that inflamed partisan politics will, have become the new permanent status quo.

The Sheriff will take a beating for sure.  O'Reilly will call him a pinhead, no doubt.  But I have such empathy for him.  There is nothing wrong to suggest that in Arizona, perhaps the rhetoric is pitched too high.  Ms Giffords campaign this past fall was particularly nasty and her HQ was vandalized.  And Ms Giffords, of course, appeared on Ms Palin's infamous (and repulsive) "Target (crosshairs)" list.  The Sheriff was friends with Giffords and Judge Roll.  Senator Kyl, other GOP Reps and Senators, the awful blowhards on Fox News would be wise to save their breath to cool their porridge.  


But who believes that will happen?

Saw Machete last night.

I liked it v much, indeed.  It is pulpy, trashy, purposely bad (prob should be considered camp-lite, as opposed to being truly camp) and immensely fun.

I have a couple of observations and questions.  Why did they use a double for Lindsay Lohan so much of the time? Was she not showing up? Was she loaded and coul'n't work on certain days? Was she just impossibly double booked and Rodriguez could only get her for, say, one or two days? Was she in jail? Did Rodriguez use the double on purpose to emphasize his B-movie ethos?

And, staying with Ms Lohan, considering how she is one of the most over-exposed celebrities in history, I find it just a wee bit odd that she would not do the nude scene.  Have not we already seen Ms Lohan naked, so to speak? Have not we been forced to glimpse at every inch of her very soul already? I just find it odd.  I am most certainly not pining for a peek at Ms Lohan's private parts.  She means nothing to me.  She is an afterthought.  And, honestly, in Machete, she is an afterthought, too.


Some things I especially liked in Machete:  How a couple of times after someone has been killed the v recently deceased body vanishes the next time there is a shot where a dead body should reside; the B-movie editing, particularly during action sequences; the attractive but not actress/model types who play the nurses at the Network hospital; the whole, "It is a fact," intestines set-up was hilarious; and I thought the music was brill, as well.  

Pahlmeyer Jayson bordeaux blend.

The amazing tiny tiny chicken Renee made with spaetzle and broccolini.

Renee also made a terrific boeuf bourguignon with gnocchi.

The Rodriguez who has done Planet Terror, Sin City, and Machete reminds me v much of John Carpenter.  (Both Carpenter & Rodriguez often do the music for their films, as well.)  But I prefer Rodriguez.  Rodriguez has a better "eye", his films are much funnier than Carpenter's and they are paced waay better than Carpenter's films.  Carpenter is obv an influence, though, and I suspect Rodriguez is a huge fan.

The holidays are frickin' over! I will be posting much more frequently now.  Love you all, mwah!

The Thick of It S01E06 (2 pf 2)

The Thick of It S01E06 (1 of 2)

The Thick of It S01E05 (2 of 2)

Here we go, yet another

BCS trap game for Big Game Bob & the Sooners.  The Sooners are 2 touchdown favorites today & you know the UConn kids will be pumped up to knock off a good but not great Sooner team.

The Sooners must not turn the ball over early in the game & let UConn e'en think that they are in this thing.

The Sooners end the Big XII as champions, again.

All due respect to UConn but I want a blowout today.  I want OU to pulverize UConn and see the Sooners finish in the AP top 5.

Boomer Sooner!

Mercy, MERCY, mercy

So, here is the good stuff:  We will get to the Spy magazine deliciousness when I have been able to digest it.  In the meantime, I have two films to discuss, first, The Major and the Minor.  This was Wilder's first film directing & he co-wrote it w/ Charles Brackett.  The preposterousness of the premise of the script fairly shimmers on the page (& screen), yet I do not care.  This is the most delightful, wonderful, Lubitsch-inspired jewel of a Hollywood film.  What jolts me is how Wilder's mentor, Lubitsch, remained so uncynical in his art, how Lubitsch always kept the Champagne flowing.  Let us take a brief look at Lubitsch's life:  He was a famous German jew actor and director that had to flee Germany due to Hitler's rise to power.  His wife cheated on him & his daughter nearly died on a ship right before WW2 broke out.  And he ne'er got cynical like his amazing protege did.  Amazing.  

I love the European theatre come-ons; the little sister smoking, knowing much better, Ginger Rogers' Mum playing her Mum; it is a perfect Lubitsch copy, in the sense that it is just a copy & not the real thing.  

What happened to Wilder? Where did he get so ugly & bitter? Lubitsch, ne'er in his lowest points e'er got bitter or cynical or ugly in his art.  

Winona, young & beautiful.  I was in a band bearing her name.

Then there is Fran.  Fran Lebowitz is my new favorite person.  I know I know, I guess I should have read her books.  I checked on Amazon & since there is a new movie oot aboot her all her books cost a thousand dollars each, which means: Very soon her books will be published w/ her most recent picture on the cover & a mention of the Scorsese film, Public Speaking.  In the meantime, I would just like to say:  I could listen to that woman talk forever.  No one in the media talks aboot books anymore, or authors, I mean, really.  

But, the best thing she said was aboot the AIDS endemic in the 80s.  She says, Not only did we lose thousands of amazing artists, but we also lost their (our) audience.  

She is right.  She would know, working for Warhol, in the early Interview days.  When AIDS happened, it removed a slice of critical thought & appreciation & passion that has crippled us since.  In many ways, the best of us, critically, have soldiered on, knowing deep in our hearts, that those who have passed on, knew better, know better than us.

And that is a sad thought.  

Yet, we must move on.  Demand the most from our artists, ne'er let them slide by on fame or celebrity.

I am not one who believes there is a difference between "art" & "pop".  They are all and the same.  

Happy New Year! I LOVE YOU ALL!

Review of reviewers, nothing might have made me more who I am.