Posted on November 11, 2015 at 8:00 am
Director Aron Gaudet is the son of a “greeter,” one of the volunteers in Maine who make sure that every soldier coming through the airport gets a warm showing of appreciation. He told me, “We started seeing these parallels, too, all of these people going off to war are concerned about mortality and so are the older people who are greeting them.” This is a lovely film, and very appropriate for Veteran’s Day.
Posted on November 10, 2015 at 3:17 pm
A column by Michael Hiltzik in the LA Times about 700 “lost” Paramount films caught my attention. The first paragraph mentioned one of my favorite movies, “Alias Nick Beal,” with Ray Milland as Satan bargaining for the soul of a politician played by “Gone With the Wind’s” Thomas Mitchell. And then it mentioned a film I’d never heard of, written by one of my all-time favorite screenwriters (and later a director as well), Preston Sturges, a master of wisecracking screwball comedy (“The Lady Eve,” “Sullivan’s Travels,” “The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek”).
The film is “Hotel Haywire,” originally written for Burns and Allen, and then rewritten when they were not available. It was directed by Arthur Archainbaud, apparently his only credited film.
Fortunately, I live just outside of Washington, DC, which means that the Library of Congress is practically my neighborhood library. I love their Motion Picture and Television Reading Room, which has the nicest and most knowledgeable staff any movie lover could ever hope for. They have been inestimably helpful to me many times. It took them about ten minutes to track down the film at their Culpepper, Virginia storage facility and arrange for it to be brought in for me to watch.
It’s not a classic, but it was a lot of fun, partly because it was a rare lead role for Spring Byington, who usually played the mother of the main character (“Little Women”). In this, she plays the wife of a dentist (Lynne Overman) who is very caught up in spiritualism and horoscopes, as practiced by a charleton known as Dr. Zodiac Z. Zippe (Leo Carrillo). The dentist plays a prank on a friend by slipping a frilly camisole into his pocket, but the friend outsmarts him and puts it in the dentist’s pocket instead. When the wife finds it, instead of asking him about it she consults Dr. Zippe, who ends up advising both husband and wife in a manner that creates as much chaos as possible, especially after he hires some out-of-work vaudevillians as his “detectives.” Oh, and there’s also the dentist’s daughter, who wants to marry her boss’ son. And it all ends up in some door-slamming, who’s in what room shenanigans in a haywire hotel.
I hope this film, and the other 699 Hiltzik wrote about, will all be available soon, via streaming or DVD. Until then, we have the Library of Congress, and I will try them on another lost gem soon.
Posted on November 9, 2015 at 3:23 pm
The only new show to make it to my DVR series list is “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” co-created by its sensationally talented star, Rachel Bloom. Each episode is a full-on original musical that takes place mostly inside the head of its slightly demented heroine, Rebecca, a Harvard and Yale-educated lawyer who walked away from her type-A career in a New York City law firm to move to West Covina, California, where her boyfriend from summer camp lives.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ctFmXGm_yEIt has a tremendous cast of singers and dancers, most with Broadway experience, including Donna Lynne Champlin, who plays Rebecca’s new friend, Paula, Santino Fontana (from the Broadway “Cinderella”) as a bartender who for some reason he cannot understand is drawn to Rebecca, and Vincent Rodriguez III as Josh, the object of Rebecca’s obsessional affection.
My favorite musical number so far is NSFW, the very funny “Sexy Getting Ready Song.” Here’s my runner-up, Rebecca’s boy band fantasy song, performed by four Joshes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C5fHfG_ptEAnd here’s an Astaire-and-Rogers themed song with Fontana.
The songs are by Fountains of Wayne’s Adam Schlesinger, who created the pitch perfect title number for “That Thing You Do” and the songs for the Drew Barrymore/Hugh Grant film “Words and Music.” They are funny and smart and earwormy in the nicest possible way. It’s on the CW Monday nights at 8/7 central and you can catch up on the previous episodes on Hulu.
Posted on November 5, 2015 at 5:52 pm
B+| Lowest Recommended Age: | High School |
| MPAA Rating: | Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of action and violence, some disturbing images, sensuality and languag |
| Profanity: | Some strong language |
| Alcohol/ Drugs: | Drinking |
| Violence/ Scariness: | Spy-style action violence with chases, shootouts, and explosions, characters injured and killed, torture, suicide |
| Diversity Issues: | None |
| Date Released to Theaters: | November 6, 2015 |
| Date Released to DVD: | February 8, 2016 |
| Amazon.com ASIN: | B018WXLFSM |
The opening scene is brilliantly staged by returning director Sam Mendes. It takes place in Mexico City, in the midst of the Day of the Dead celebration and parade. Skeletons and signifiers of mortality are everywhere. An masked man with a man bun (so he must be a bad guy) passes by. Another masked man seems to be paying attention only to the beautiful woman he is escorting, but we can tell by the elegantly tailored suit that this must be Bond and therefore he is paying attention to everything. Sure enough soon he is spying, shooting, and chasing in one bravura shot that takes him through the crowd and the parade and into a fight inside a swooping helicopter.
Great beginning! And then we go into the credit sequence, which is pretentious and silly, with a sub-par song from Sam Smith. Ah, well.
It continues along those lines, with some set pieces that are exactly what we want from a Bond film, but other elements that show the uneasy bridge the Broccoli family, which controls the franchise, is trying to develop between the late 20th century Bond (Grace Jones! Space! Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist named Christmas! Infomercial level product placement!) and the grittier, more down-to-earth geopolitics of the 21st century, whether on screen (the Bourne series) or in the news (9/11). The film raises the question both in its storyline and in its presentation about whether the era of the shaken-not-stirred martini drinker who never carries a suitcase but always seems to have a dinner jacket on hand is over.
The dinner jacket, the beautiful women who find Bond irresistible, the martini, the cool car, the exotic locations, and the guns and gadgets are all there. A nice twist is that the car was designed for another agent, so Bond has no idea what the various buttons do. And the new gadget actually assigned to him is below the technology level of Maxwell Smart’s shoe phone. The gadgets that matter here are lines of code, and in this movie they serve as the MacGuffin as well. All of that works, though there were some snickers in the crowd during a brief pause in the action where Bond and the new Bond Girl (Lea Seydoux) get all dressed up for dinner on a train. The cinematography by Hoyte Van Hoytema finds a nice consistency through all of the globe-hopping ports of call, with lots of white space around our increasingly isolated hero. Craig, as he has done in all of his Bond films, gives a performance of depth as well as charm. He faces some choices with moral complexity, especially when he meets with a former adversary, and it is intriguing to see how he thinks them through. The somber tone is Bourne-ish, but the storyline teeters too close to recent stories like the last “Mission Impossible” and even “Captain America: Winter Soldier.” The final resolution exemplifies what is best and worst about the film, taking the “Skyfall” revelations about his past further, but going completely overboard with a brilliant villainous strategist who puts way too much time into an elaborate trap. And an otherwise sensible Bond girl who picks a very bad moment to discuss the relationship.
“Bond will return,” we are reassured once again at the end of the film. And by then we’re already looking forward to the next reboot.
Parents should know that this film has extended and graphic scenes of action-style spy violence with many crashes, explosions, chases and shootouts. There is a suicide and and some torture, with characters injured and killed, as well as some strong language, some sexual references and situations, and alcohol.
Family discussion: Who should decide what information is available to government agencies? How did childhood trauma affect three of the main characters?
If you like this, try: “Skyfall” and some of the Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan Bond films
Posted on November 5, 2015 at 5:26 pm
B| Lowest Recommended Age: | Kindergarten - 3rd Grade |
| MPAA Rating: | G |
| Profanity: | None |
| Alcohol/ Drugs: | None |
| Violence/ Scariness: | Some tense scenes of anxiety, hurt feelings, and shyness, some mild action scenes and peril (Snoopy’s flying ace battles) |
| Diversity Issues: | None |
| Date Released to Theaters: | November 6, 2015 |
| Date Released to DVD: | February 29, 2016 |
| Amazon.com ASIN: | B018WXLHVM |
I admit that I approached this film with some of the same trepidation Charlie Brown approaches the football, knowing Lucy’s history of pulling it out of the way at the last second. I’m a fan of Charles Schultz’s original comic strip and fond of many of the animated specials and features that were careful to preserve the simplicity of his aesthetic. I was concerned that a more fully-animated version (in 3D!) would drown out the gentle storylines. But Schulz’s family has been careful to preserve his legacy. The script is co-written by his son and grandson and is timed to appear on the 65th anniversary of the strip and the 50th anniversary of the classic “Charlie Brown Christmas” special. And Blue Sky (which made the “Ice Age” and “Rio” movies) understands the material and its audiences — the older generations who are attached to the original version and today’s children, who are new to these characters.
The brightly colored, rounded figures were easier to get used to than I feared. The iconic details — Charlie Brown’s yellow shirt with the brown zigzag (it turns out he has a whole closetful) and wisps of hair are familiarly iconic. It’s not a period piece but there is a timeless quality. Phones are corded landlines. We never see a laptop and no one ever checks Google or GPS. Indeed, one of the most important items in the story is a pencil. It has glitter and a feather decorating it, but it also has the teeth marks of its sometimes nervous owner, and that is something you won’t find on a smartphone.
The movie does not commit any serious blunders. There are pleasant moments and welcome echoes of the past, but it does not justify its existence by adding anything of value to the canon already available. The first and best of the television specials, A Charlie Brown Christmas
The film begins promisingly, with Schroder playing the studio’s theme music on his piano and an immersive soft, gentle snowfall. It’s the most joyous day of the year — a snow day — and we meet the characters as they wake up and choose the winter activities they most enjoy. Charlie Brown decides it is a good time for him to try the kite again, figuring that the “kite-eating tree” will be out of commission in winter. It does not go well. Once school is back in session, a new student arrives, a girl with red hair, and Charlie Brown is smitten — and terrified. How can he impress her?
The Schulzes are true to the spirit of the original. We squirm with Charlie Brown as he agonizes over his insecurity, especially when he is faced with a dilemma at the school talent show and when he is awarded an honor it turns out he did not deserve. The sections with Snoopy’s Red Baron fantasy are of less interest and appeal and the 3D effects and the talents of top-tier musical stars (Trombone Shorty playing the “waa waas” for the adult voices and Kristen Chenoweth as Snoopy’s daring aviatrix love interest) are underused. The best use of this film is as an introduction to the classic television specials — and the original comic strips that inspired them.
Parents should know that this film includes some tense scenes of anxiety, hurt feelings, and shyness, and some mild action scenes and peril (Snoopy’s flying ace battles).
Family discussion: Which character is most like your friends? Which would you most want to be like? Why don’t we hear the grown-up voices?
If you like this, try: The Peanuts comic strip collections and the television specials.
