COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN NEWS

WILL THE GREAT PUMPKIN BE PASSING OVER THIS PARTICULAR PUMPKIN PATCH?!?!?  

I'm afraid so, my little goblins.  Loathe as I am to admit it, I just won't be able to participate in this year's Countdown to Halloween.  This makes me sad because I've participated in almost every one for the last decade or so; however, the woeful lack of activity on this blog attests to the difficulty I've had in finding the time to post much of anything this year.  While I am hoping that this changes soon, I fear it wouldn't happen by the time the Countdown to Halloween rolls around.  

So, while I won't officially be participating, I do still hope to post as much Halloween content as I can during the month of October.  It won't be much but ideally it will loosen up the ole blogging muscles enough to get me to post more on this blog than I have done and to look forward to full participation in next year's Halloween Countdown.  

MACBETH (2015): THE THANE OF CAWDOR TOOK A SNOOZE

A somnambulistic and confused filmic adaptation of the Scottish play. Director Justin Kurzel reveals an almost complete lack of understanding as to what the play is about while focusing instead on showy (if often beautiful) shots and "edgy" hand-held camera unnecessarily occurring during conversational two-shots. The entire cast often seems to be at a loss as to what they should be doing during any particular scene (hinting at a lack of guidance from the director); they also all seem to have been instructed to say their lines in a throaty whisper which lends a sleepwalking air to the performances. Honestly, after each line delivery I kept expecting Michael Fassbender to state "I'm Batman!".

Fassbender as Macbeth plays the entire movie on one monotonous note without the hint of an emotional character arc or any internal turmoil whatsoever; he starts off the movie as a sociopathic cold fish and stays that way throughout the movie. It's Macbeth as automaton rather than a good man turned to evil by a fatal character flaw. Lady Macbeth, one of the most powerfully ambitious and manipulative of all Shakespeare's characters, here has absolutely no charismatic, seductive influence upon her husband in Marion Cotillard's equally one-note performance. Having seen both actors in other movies, I can only surmise that the performance choices here were imposed upon  the actors deliberately by the director; maybe Kurzel was insecure about the Shakespearean language coming across as comical. Well, the endlessly earnest whispering going on in scene after scene DOES become laughable after about 15 minutes and the complete lack of any identifiable character takes one completely out of the movie before too long. Again, the total lack of inner conflict shown in Macbeth's character creates a listless, matter-of-fact quality to the proceedings: the 3 witches prophecy Macbeth will become king, he comes home and tells his wife, they say "Hey, let's kill Duncan", he goes and does it -- all without any soul-searching anguish or one iota of suspense, guilt or panic. All this reduces one of the Bard's most visceral and tormented tales to a dull, "Who cares what happens" slog.  

It seems to me that one of the most interesting and purposeful themes in Shakespeare's Scottish play is the fact that a relatively nice bloke like Macbeth and his presumably normal good lady wife can, through a set of fatal character flaws like ambition or the ability to be easily led, can quite quickly ruin their lives before they even know it.  The relative flood of positive reviews for this film admittedly bewilder me; were they watching the same film I was?!?!  The above poster, which points out that the film's producers are the same as brought us the equally over-praised and lackluster THE KING'S SPEECH was perhaps a warning that went unheeded in my case.  The air of "this is a SERIOUS PRODUCTION" hangs over Kurzel's MACBETH like a dagger of the mind which apparently hoodwinked some reviewers that this was a good film.  In Fassbender's and Cotillard's -- well, let's face it -- lackluster performances, they make the Thane of Cawdor and his wife appear like they've already seen the play MACBETH and are going through the motions by rote.  Watching Kurzel's film reminded me of sitting in a high school English class while the teacher made teenagers read aloud from the text; not exactly the makings of great cinematic drama!

STERLING HAYDEN CENTENARY

THIS YEAR MARKS THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF STERLING HAYDEN.  

I'm a little bit late since his birthday was in March but it's never too late to celebrate one of my favourite human beings.  Fellow New Jerseyan Sterling Hayden was born in Montclair, NJ in 1916.  He was working on board a ship when some beefcake photos of him appeared in a magazine and Hollywood came a-calling.  With no theatrical or acting experience, they dropped him into major Hollywood productions as Tinseltown's latest hunk.  Hayden, always refreshingly candid about himself, viewed his movie career as laughable; however, he did excel in film noir and Western tough-guy roles and, in later years, took his acting more seriously and gave nice performances in such 70's classics as THE GODFATHER and THE LONG GOODBYE.  I think my favourite performance was in Stanley Kubrick's classic heist movie THE KILLING in which Hayden played the lead with a credibility that may have been lacking in some of his other movie work.

But I think more than for his movie work, I appreciate him for the intensely free-spirited outsider life he lived.  Rather than fall into the Hollywood trap, Sterling Hayden soon began only making movies when his money ran out and he needed capital to sail his boat around the world.  He fought in Yugoslavia during World War II and was so impressed by Marshall Tito that he momentarily joined the Communist Party (until scheduled meetings cramped his style and he quit).  During the HUAC witch hunts, Hayden sadly did cooperate and "name names" but, as ever truthful with himself, regarded his behaviour as weak and shameful, apologized many times for it and was forever haunted by it.  In 1963, he published his autobiography WANDERER which is one of my favourite books of all time (thanks, Lisa*).  And during his 1970's career renaissance, he made several legendary appearances on Tom Snyder's TOMORROW show in which he demonstrated what an intensely interesting conversationalist he was -- audiences demanded multiple reruns of the episodes in the days before VCRs.  

In my small way, I am choosing to celebrate his 100th birthday by watching a great big chunk of his movies.  The films you see above are those Sterling Hayden films I've already seen (and some of which I'll be revisiting):  THE GODFATHER (in which he breaks Al Pacino's jaw), JOHNNY GUITAR (one of my favourite Westerns which Nicholas Ray makes gothic and operatic with a strange colour palette), THE KILLING (my favourite Kubrick film and one which Quentin Tarantino owes a large debt to), THE LONG GOODBYE (nihilistic 70's take on Philip Marlowe), ZERO HOUR! (which was the template for AIRPLANE!), THE ASPHALT JUNGLE (with MM), 9 TO 5 (in which Sterling has a cameo as the company CEO that Jane, Dolly & Lily work for), THE STAR (middling Bette Davis melodrama with Hayden as her hunky boy toy), CRIME WAVE (a little-known cracking film noir), CRIME OF PASSION (an over-the-top barnstormer with an off-her-nut Barbara Stanwyck). VENOM (a daffy "horror" movie with a deadly Black Mamba snake on the loose and Oliver Reed teaming up with Klaus Kinski as kidnappers!) and DR. STRANGELOVE (a movie I'm admittedly not a fan of but will probably revisit to see if my opinion has changed).

In addition, there's a passel of movies which I've never seen but which I intend to do my durndest to watch:  (as shown above) SUDDENLY, WINTER KILLS, THE ETERNAL SEA, TERROR IN A TEXAS TOWN, THE GOLDEN HAWK, KANSAS PACIFIC, NAKED ALIBI, DEADLY STRANGERS, CRY ONION, TOP GUN, ARROW IN THE DUST and THE IRON SHERIFF.  Add to that the previously unknown-to-me documentary about Sterling Hayden which was made three years before his death:  PHAROS OF CHAOS:  A PROFILE OF STERLING HAYDEN.  Happy birthday, you rebel you!

Edgar Wright’s DVD Picks

Laurie Anderson's DVD Picks

Richard Ayoade - DVD Picks

The Cast of Eerie Publications perform the Johnson-Smith Novelty Company...

"THE STARS LOOK VERY DIFFERENT TODAY"

I CAN'T TELL YOU WHAT A SHOCK IT WAS TO LEARN OF DAVID BOWIE'S DEATH.  

My mother has always been a huge Bowie fan so I pretty much grew up listening to his music since I was the size of a little bitty alien.  "THE RISE AND FALL OF ZIGGY STARDUST AND THE SPIDERS FROM MARS" remains one of my top 10 favourite albums.  And Bowie himself has proved to be a major formative influence in my life.  He famously was a chameleon and strove to be a leader and not a follower; to head in directions that were least expected.  Robert Frost's "road less travelled".  Along the way he's managed to create some phenomenal music.  As a woefully inadequate tribute, I thought I'd list my top 10 favourite Bowie songs.  Now, this is a particularly impossible and painful task -- to pick only 10 -- but I've taken my protein pills and put my helmet on.  So here goes . . .

• 10.  MODERN LOVE
• 9.   PLEASE MR. GRAVEDIGGER
• 8.   THIS IS NOT AMERICA
• 7.   LADY STARDUST
• 6.   FIVE YEARS
• 5.   QUEEN BITCH
• 4.   HEROES
• 3.   SPACE ODDITY
• 2.   ASHES TO ASHES
• 1.   LIFE ON MARS

LIFTOFF!

All I can say is that the world just got a lot less interesting.

THE 2015 PENGUIN AWARD WINNERS

ANNOUNCING THE WINNERS OF THE 2015 PENGUIN AWARDS!

SONG OF THE YEAR

DO YO DANCE  -  The Family Stone

ALBUM OF THE YEAR

OWL CALL BLUES  -  Tuba Skinny

DUET OF THE YEAR

IT'S ALL GOING TO POT  -  Willie Nelson & Merle Haggard

COVER SONG OF THE YEAR

SHE'S GOT YOU  -  Rhiannon Giddens

Enjoy videos from our winners in the posts below. . .

The Family Stone - Do Yo Dance (Music Video)

Tuba Skinny "Somebody's Been Lovin My Baby" LMF 4/14/15 - MORE at DIGITA...

Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard - It's All Going to Pot

Rhiannon Giddens - "She's Got You" | Live at the Grand Ole Opry | Opry

MY MOVIE YEAR: THE MARVELOUSLY-MANIACAL HEART-STOPPING FLICKERS PROJECT 2015

THE PAGES ON THE CALENDAR ARE DWINDLING DOWN SO IT'S TIME TO TAKE STOCK OF MY MOVIE-WATCHING IN 2015.  

As we stand at this very moment (and there's still a few days to go in 2015), my total tally of movies watched this year stands at 605 in my MARVELOUSLY-MANIACAL HEART-STOPPING FLICKERS PROJECT of 2015!  As you can see in the picture above, the first movie I watched in 2015 was Mel Brooks' YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN.  Such a funny beginning didn't prepare me for the horrendously trying year I would subsequently have owing to the death of my grandmother at the age of 97 as well as my own multiple health problems.  In such times, I find it particularly necessary and helpful to my own well-being to be able to venture into the world of cinema in order to take my mind off my troubles as well as improving my knowledge and appreciation of the century+ of film history.  I can only say that I gain so much from watching films and I wouldn't want to do without them.  

This year, thanks to letterboxd, I can tell you that my most-watched actor was Sir Christopher Lee.  This seems to be entirely coincidental, however, since the majority of his films I watched BEFORE his death this year; so that was not the reason.  It was the work of Christopher Lee, and not his death, which compelled me to watch 15 of his films this year.  Perhaps fittingly, his good friend Peter Cushing was my second most-watched with 11 films.  The other top-watched stars appear in the picture below:  Peter Lorre and Boris Karloff (10 films each) and Humphrey Bogart (9 films).  And as for most-watched director in 2015, as you can also see below, Jan Svankmajer is shown as my most-watched director - but since his films are short subjects (and I'm only counting features) the honour of my most-watched director must instead go to George Cukor with 6 films!

George Cukor had 6 films (THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, HOLIDAY,  ADAM'S RIB,  BORN YESTERDAY,  IT SHOULD HAPPEN TO YOU  and  THE MARRYING KIND).  In second place with 5 pictures each are Martin Scorsese (THE DEPARTED,  GEORGE HARRISON:  LIVING IN THE MATERIAL WORLD,  MY VOYAGE TO ITALY,  PUBLIC SPEAKING and THE 50 YEAR ARGUMENT) and William Castle (HOMICIDAL,  THE OLD DARK HOUSE,  13 FRIGHTENED GIRLS,  HOLLYWOOD STORY and  THE FAT MAN). The directors in third place with 4 films each are:  Richard Quine (THE NOTORIOUS LANDLADY,  THE SOLID GOLD CADILLAC,  HOTEL,  and OPERATION MAD BALL), John Huston (THE AFRICAN QUEEN,  ACROSS THE PACIFIC,  WE WERE STRANGERS  and  THE ASPHALT JUNGLE),  Ingmar Bergman (FANNY AND ALEXANDER,  WINTER LIGHT,  THE MAGICIAN  and  SAWDUST & TINSEL), Terence Fisher {ISLAND OF TERROR,  ISLAND OF THE BURNING DAMNED aka NIGHT OF THE BIG HEAT,  SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE DEADLY NECKLACE  and  THE MUMMY),  Michael Curtiz (THE WALKING DEAD,  BLACK LEGION (co-directed with Archie Mayo),  THIS IS THE ARMY  and  CASABLANCA),  James P. Hogan (BULLDOG DRUMMOND ESCAPES,  BULLDOG DRUMMOND'S PERIL,  BULLDOG DRUMMOND'S SECRET POLICE  and  ARREST BULLDOG DRUMMOND),  William Wyler (ROMAN HOLIDAY,  MRS. MINIVER,  HOW TO STEAL A MILLION  and  THE CHILDREN'S HOUR), and John Ford (CHEYENNE AUTUMN,  THE LONG GRAY LINE,  THE WHOLE TOWN'S TALKING  and  THE LAST HURRAH).  Then we come to the films which I saw for the very first time in 2015 that I liked the most.  Not necessarily the greatest films I saw for the first time this year but the one's which I connected with and enjoyed seeing the most.  In no particular order:

(seen above)  I KNEW IT WAS YOU:  REDISCOVERING JOHN CAZALE,  THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY,  LARS AND THE REAL GIRL,  EUROCRIME!: THE ITALIAN COP & GANGSTER FILMS THAT RULED THE 70s,  BRICK,  ROBOT & FRANK,  THE INTOUCHABLES,  EUROPA REPORT,  THE WIND RISES, FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT TIME TRAVEL,  PREDESTINATION,  INTERSTELLAR,  THE LUNCHBOX,  THE TRIP,  MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO and BEFORE I DISAPPEAR.

KIKI'S DELIVERY SERVICE,  THE GARDEN OF WORDS,  KUNG FURY,  FILMS OF FURY:  THE KUNG FU MOVIE MOVIE,  LATE AUTUMN,  POLICE STORY,  CARVE HER NAME WITH PRIDE,  MRS. MINIVER,  THE RIVER,  ST. VINCENT,  LAST HURRAH FOR CHIVALRY,  RIKI-OH:  THE STORY OF RICKY,  REWIND THIS!,  MAD MAX FURY ROAD,  THE BATTERY and BLADE RUNNER.

KANSAS CITY CONFIDENTIAL,  INHERENT VICE,  BELLS ARE RINGING,  WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS,  THE TALE OF PRINCESS KAGUYA,  DONKEY SKIN,  PICKPOCKET,  LES DAMES DU BOIS DE BOULOGNE,  FANNY AND ALEXANDER,  NO REGRETS FOR OUR YOUTH,  A MAN ESCAPED,  ONE WONDERFUL SUNDAY,  AN AUTUMN AFTERNOON,  WHAT HAPPENED MISS SIMONE?,  FROM CALIGARI TO HITLER and ANT-MAN. 

King Size Special: 175 Jack Kirby double-page spreads