Film #2: Bye Bye Birdie, Film #2 1/2: No Country for Old Men, 2008 Oscar Predictions, and "The Latest Show on Earth"

Well, I made my debut on You Tube--more specifically, on The Latest Show on Earth, hosted by Joe Hendel. As I wrote in my first post, I have live TV experience, so it was a vivid trip back to those times for me. I'm a little rusty, but I think I have proven myself adept, making my picks for the Oscars on the show. Joe, a customer I met at Kim's Video, called me and wanted me to be a guest (along with party rocker/motivational speaker Andrew WK, pictured above). I like Joe
very much and was honored to be asked, so I jumped at it. It was a great experience that I hope to repeat, especially since Joe is so wryly funny and quite talented musically as well (he played me some Shastakovich music written for silent movies on his upright piano--delightful). So check out his show's online archives (EDIT: I think, by 2018, many of the episodes have been deleted, but I asked Joe to keep my appearances up for posterity, and he kindly has). Andrew WK (who was extremely friendly and soft-spoken, and he really didn't have to be) and Joe do a superb keyboard jam/duet on the episode that features a killer foray into Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D minor." I was also floored to meet the show's producer, Steve Paul, the storied New York club owner who, in 1960s New York City, opened a pioneering discotheque, The Scene, which touted acts like The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd and The Velvet Underground, and assuredly many, many others. I look forward to talking more with him in the future, since he's fascinating and funny. (EDITOR'S NOTE: Steve died on October 21, 2011, according to his Wikipedia page, which is worth checking out for some valuable rock n' roll club history. He was very kind to me, but I know things didn't end so well with he and the show.)

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

Days later, after writing my first paragraphs, and it's snowing pretty heavily here in Brooklyn. It's been seeming like it snows on significant days for me recently. I don't know what that's about. Probably all in my mind... or...maybe...NOT!?!


For those who may know me, I've taken a short break from my gig at NYC's Kim's Video so I can concentrate on getting a better-paying day job. Hope it happens soon, 'cause the cupboard's bare. There's like, one piece of lettuce and some butter in my fridge (to quote my old NYU filmmaking friend Steve Wicks, "Want some buttahed lettuce??"). Working at Kim's is really fun--it's an honor to be part of its storied history--but at age 41 it's a drain on me physically and mentally--struggling to get by on 8 bucks an hour (a pittance in NYC), on my feet the entire time, putting a thousand videos a day back on the labyrinthine shelves, jockeying for position at the counter or between the stacks. Typically, I'll be asked, or will volunteer (when a fellow employee is having trouble) to answer, oh, 200 or more movie questions in 8 hours; it's fantastic that I can flex my film knowledge like that, but it's exhausting, too. Still, I love all the customers--so many smart, tasteful people coming in there! And my fellow employees--Ricky (the gentleman rock frontman who hired me, impressed with my instantaneous movie smarts--not many can handle this job), Abe (my favorite fellow employee and the nicest person ever), Nicholas (hilarious, smat and acerbic), Katherine (sharp, appealing, and a constant presence on improv comedy stages, chiefly the Upright Citizens Brigade), Jeff, John, Joel, Alex (whom I think I annoy, but whose hard-won approval I strive for), Vadim (maybe the most on-point worker at the place)--are all people I consider valuable friends. Plus, the place has every movie known to man--I swear, I've found only a few tiny gaps in their collection. And everything is meticulously categorized by country, genre, and director, as it should be (in what other video store are you gonna find an Aram Avakian section, I ask ya?) For me and all cinephiles who rent from the place, it's the insane candy store of video and music outlets. It deserves its legendary status, and it feels like the last-standing business of its kind.

Anyway, onto the movie stuff. I saw No Country for Old Men for the second time tonight, an experience that was richer than the first. I was amazed at how the film's depiction of a crime gone wrong (a favorite subject for the Coens, of course, and of the original book's author Cormac McCarthy, from what I hear) got me wincing and my circulation racing once again at every turn. This time round, I was more impressed by Josh Brolin, in particular; his character's steely action drive the movie, but because his performance is so quiet, I don't think he's gotten the recognition he deserves. I also paid special attention to the film's outstanding aural design. Skip Lievsay's sound effects work for this largely music-free movie acts as a de facto score, mesmerizing and totally transportive. And, also, I should mention that the movie is actually funnier than I remembered it being. Despite the preponderance of bloodied corpses, I still get demure chuckles from Tommy Lee Jones' laconic home truths, Woody Harrelson's ultimately ineffective swagger and, of course, Javier Bardem's brazen psychosis. I tried to keep a body count going, by the way, but I lost track at around twenty-five piles of dead meat. Exhausted from all the tension, my mind still drifted away at the film's plaintive, even Bergman-esque climax, for which I could kick myself, since I really wanted to decipher the language of its final scenes (EDIT: I've since sussed out the ending's meaning, and now find it among my favorite of the film's many assets, even if it remains largely unpopular with most viewers disappointed in its cryptic quietude). But I suppose this will make it prime for another viewing when it hits DVD in March 2008. A magnificent film, very much in keeping with Fargo and the Coens' debut Blood Simple. And poised to be the finest Best Picture winner since Unforgiven in 1992 (though I love 1993's Schindler's List as well).

Okay, just for the record, my predictions for the 2008 Oscars:

Best Picture: No Country for Old Men (check)

Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood (check)

Best Actress: Julie Christie, Away From Her (Marion Cotillard could upset with her performance as Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose) (Cotillard won in what was seen as an upset--not by me)

Best Supporting Actress: Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone (though Ruby Dee might get in there; I waver back and forth on this one). (Tilda Swinton won for Michael Clayton--a surprise to me; I was rooting for Cate Banchett for her dead-on 60s-era Bob Dylan in I'm Not There)

Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem, No Country For Old Men (check)

Best Director: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, No Country For Old Men (check)

Best Original Screenplay: Diablo Cody, Juno (check, and a crock)

Best Adapted Screenplay: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men (check)

Best Animated Feature: Ratatouille (check)

Best Foreign Language Film: Beaufort (Israel) (The Counterfeiters from Austria won--and I still haven't seen it in 2018)

Best Cinematography: Robert Elswit, There Will Be Blood (check)

Best Art Direction: There Will Be Blood (the dazzling production design team Dante Ferretti and Francesca Lo Sciavo eventually won the second of their three Oscars, for Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd--their others were for Scorsese's The Aviator and Hugo)

Best Costume Design: Elizabeth: The Golden Age (check)

Best Film Editing: No Country For Old Men (The Bourne Ultimatum won--a rarity that a non-Best Picture nominee would catch this; I suppose Paul Greengrass' film had the MOST editing but The Coens' film was tighter)

Best Sound Mixing: No Country For Old Men (The Bourne Ultimatum won)

Best Sound Effects Editing: No Country For Old Men (The Bourne Ultimatum again--wow, 3 Oscars for that movie? I enjoyed it, but... )

Best Original Song: Glen Hansard, "Falling Slowly" from Once (check--one of my favorite wins of the night)

Best Original Score: Dario Marianelli, Atonement (check)

Best Documentary Feature: No End In Sight (going out on a limb here, over Michael Moore's Sicko) (check)

Best Documentary Short: Freeheld (check)

Best Animated Short: I Met The Walrus (Suzie Templeton's dynamic stop-motion adaptation of Peter and the Wolf rightfully won this one) 

Best Live-Action Short: Tanghi Argenti (The Mozart of Pickpockets won--yucko) 

Best Visual Effects: Transformers (No, thank heavens--The Golden Compass won--still haven't seen it in 2018)

Best Makeup: Norbit (No, and double thanks: can't live in a world where Norbit is an Oscar winner, and apparently the Academy couldn't either, as La Vie En Rose won for Bidier Lavergne and Jan Archibald's astonishing transformations of its gorgeous star into the distinctive and aging chanteuse) 

Okay, let's see how I do! (EDIT: 13 out of 24 correct, with one hunch proven correct in Best Actress--not spectacular, but not bad)



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


Well, the second film I've picked to review on FILMICABILITY is George Sidney's Bye Bye Birdie, an adaptation of the 1961-62 Broadway hit about an "Elvis-like" rock n' roll heartthrob being drafted into the Army, causing an international furor that engulfs one American family--the teen daughter (Ann-Margret) is chosen to be the representative fan  to bestow a going-away kiss to her idol on the then-No. 1-rated The Ed Sullivan Show. I put "Elvis-like" in quotes because the meatball Jessie Pearson, who mugs through the show as Birdie, never could be anything CLOSE to the real Elvis (on Broadway, the role was assayed by comedian Dick Gautier, equally a showboater who later in 1963 became an irritating part of the massive It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World cast, and an abrasive regular on '70s game shows like Match Game and The Liars Club; however, Gautier was Tony-nominated for his performance). In fact, Birdie's awful numbers bespeak the palpable contempt composer-and-lyricist team Charles Strouse and Lee Adams clearly held against rock music. Ditto the casting of Pearson himself, whose cornball loudness could never engender the bodice-ripping chaos greeting his every undulation.

Now, this movie has lots of faults, particularly in its drab second half. I couldn't care less about the romance between songwriter Dick Van Dyke and his sexually-frustrated girlfriend Janet Leigh, a concern which is constantly gumming up the works ("C'mon, man," y'wanna scream, "it's Janet Leigh here--Psycho, Touch of Evil? Get with it"). But I recommend it largely for one element alone: Ann-Margret. Now I must confess a bias here: like many so-called "red-blooded males," I'm in love with Ann-Margret--she's the ultimate movie goddess. Here, as the breathlessly enthusiastic Kim, she's at her most fresh-faced and well-scrubbed. Her three solo numbers are superb--the heart-racing opening title song, with her performing on a treadmill against a deep blue background, teasing and entrancing the movie audience with her silky approaches and pull-aways; "How Lovely to Be A Woman," which catches what every male wants to witness, albeit perhaps in more lurid detail: a saucy Ann demurely changing clothes in her frilly bedroom; and "One Boy," sung wide-eyed and lovingly to the goony Bobby Rydell (a blight on early rock n' roll Top 40, who doesn't deserve a lady of such verve). I treasure every moment I get to spend with Ann in this film--her ocean-blue/green eyes, strawberry blonde mane and apple cheeks...well, I just better stop, 'cause I'm gettin' myself worked up. See her for yourself in this Golden Globe-nominated performance, then also check out Tommy, Viva Las Vegas, and Carnal Knowledge and you'll know why I and everyone else adore her., even in much worse movies.



I admire some other features of Bye Bye Birdie. "The Telephone Song" is inventively directed with some terrific multi-screen action (better caught on the largest format possible); Paul Lynde, reprising his stage role as Ann-Margaret's befuddled dad, gets lotsa laughs and has two memorable songs (the classic Broadway standard "Kids" and "Ed Sullivan"--"My favorite human" he exclaims); Maureen Stapleton injecting pep into the deadly dull Dick Van Dyke sequences, portraying his dominating mother (she was too young for the role, but she makes it work, getting some hardy cornball chuckles); and, for sure, it's immensely cool to see Ed Sullivan playing himself, directing the chaotic  show (probably in the same way he would direct The Beatles' American TV debut only two years later). Stage legend Gower Champion's Broadway work was surely superior, with Van Dyke, Lynde, Chita Rivera in the Leigh role, Funny Girl Oscar-nominee Kay Medford in the Stapleton role; and, in an example of more suitable stage casting, future Bonnie and Clyde star Michael J. Pollard as Kim's boyfriend. However, the piece remains, as filmed, vehemently anti-rock-n'-roll and never make attempts to understand or accept a music phenomenon that would eventually overtake the world (clearly, the makers thought it was just a fad, like the hula-hoop). Plus, it contributed the catchy but sickeningly cheerful "Put On A Happy Face" to the popular culture (that song makes you wanna give a stinging slap to anyone even whistling it). However, I'd watch the first half of Bye Bye Birdie again any day, just to see Ann. It's really her movie. She's the most rock-'n-role thing about it. Just ask Elvis (he's still around, I think...)