Q: “You were working in a special niche of your own in the late 1970s and early 1980s with Hard Times, The Driver, The Warriors, The Long Riders and Southern Comfort — lean, elegiac films which, I’m guessing, benefited from modest budgets and expectations, as well as low producer interference.”

A: “Yes, that niche no longer exists. The middle ground has largely fallen out of the studio system.”

Patrick McGilligan interviewing Walter Hill for Film International in September 1996

The Long Riders (1980)
Directed by Walter Hill
Written by Bill Bryden and Steven Phillip Smith and Stacy Keach & James Keach
Produced by Tim Zinneman
99 minutes

If crowd pleasers like Tombstone are pop music renditions of the Old West, The Long Riders is like vintage bluegrass. With the well earned authenticity of a musician jamming for the pure love of his craft, the first western directed by Walter Hill is a master class in how atmosphere, pacing and performance can elevate a B-movie programmer into something greater than a plot synopsis might indicate. In Missouri after the Civil War, hard put and desperate men looking to make a living under the heel of Reconstruction rob a bank. Led by the steely Jesse James (James Keach) and his brother Frank James (Stacy Keach), the gang includes the deadly Cole Younger (David Carradine), dapper Jim Younger (Keith Carradine) and dorky Bob Younger (Robert Carradine). Along for the job is Clell Miller (Randy Quaid) who’s as dependable as his brother Ed (Dennis Quaid) is unreliable.

The bandits return home to contemplate settling down. Jesse marries his sweetheart (Savannah Smith) while Jim courts a redhead (Amy Stryker) engaged to the no count Ed Miller. Cole Younger hesitates to make an honest woman out of Belle Shirley (Pamela Reed) and the vivacious whore settles in Texas, where she marries hotheaded Sam Starr (James Remar) and takes the name Belle Starr. The success of the James-Younger gang against trains of the Union Pacific Railroad puts them in the crosshairs of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, whose agents draw the wrath of the entire region when they gun down a 15-year-old Younger and firebomb the home of Jesse James’ mother (Fran Ryan). The gang meet their Waterloo in Northfield, Minnesota, forcing Jesse to recruit the oily Ford brothers Bob (Nicholas Guest) and Charlie (Christopher Guest). Their betrayal earns the Fords a spot in history alongside Jesse James.

Stacy Keach and his brother James Keach were cast as Wilbur and Orville Wright for a public television drama that aired in 1971. They kidded that after playing the Wright brothers, their next project together should focus on “the wrong brothers”. Taking their joke seriously, the Keaches arrived on outlaws Frank & Jesse James and spent nine years struggling to get The Long Riders into production, with playwright Bill Bryden, screenwriter Steven Phillip Smith and the Keaches writing scripts. The actor brothers had David, Keith & Robert Carradine set to join them as the Youngers, Randy & Dennis Quaid as the Millers and Beau & Jeff Bridges as the treacherous Fords. Cast in Hurricane, James Keach met producer Tim Zinneman, who saw a movie there and helped attach Walter Hill as director. Guitarist Ry Cooder would be entrusted by Hill to compose and arrange the music, beginning a collaboration that would span two decades.

In spite of its casting scheme, the real star of The Long Riders is Ry Cooder, who utilizes Civil War ballads and rapturous bluegrass to provide texture to the tough, contentious world of Jesse James. It’s a place where strangers become friends by sharing that they served under the Stars and Bars and conversely, playing “The Battle Cry of Freedom” can get a guitar player shot. The Long Riders makes little effort to document who James was and the film is so much better off for it. The loosely sewn narrative tested audiences at the time, yet the approach fits the material seamlessly: defeated but dangerous men drifting through the postwar South. Highlights include David Carradine and James Remar locked in an epic knife duel, while the scenes between Carradine and Pamela Reed crackle with wit and sexual energy. As action films go, this is one that genuinely loves women.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 5,017 users: 70% for The Long Riders

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: N/A

What do you say?

Q: “Why exactly did Paramount bury it?”
A: “Well, I think the real question is, why was it even made?”
Nick Schager interviewing Lou Adler for IFC News, September 2008

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains (1982)
Directed by Lou Adler
Written by Nancy Dowd (as Rob Morton)
Produced by Joe Roth
87 minutes

For those who always wanted to find a time capsule buried in their backyard, or possibly stashed beneath the floorboard of their home, Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains comes closer to capturing that sense of handcrafted wonder, impeccable historical detail and genuine surprise than just about any movie of the 1980s. Like a tin bin containing dime store knick knacks and faded newspaper clippings, this eclectic hybrid of music drama and chick empowerment vehicle lacks anything in the way of lavish production value. Much of its speedy 87 minutes feels duct taped together from different script drafts, reshoots and test screenings, but strangely, nothing could feel more true to the film’s punk rock aesthetic than a film with the sound of a worn out amp resold at a Pittsburgh pawn shop.

Diane Lane — 15 years young when shooting commenced in March 1980 — plays Corinne “Third Degree” Burns, an orphaned teen stuck with sister “Dee Peleted” (Marin Kanter) and cousin “Dizzy Heights” (Laura Dern) in their Pennsylvania steel town. Corrine catches British punk band The Looters as they pass through and implores their irascible lead singer Billy (Ray Winstone) for an audition. The Stains get their break from a Jamaican tour manager (Barry Ford), who hopes the girls distract Billy from exterminating the headliner, a one-hit rock relic from the ’70s named Lou Corpse (Fee Waybill). Corrine makes up for zero musical ability with a fuck you attitude, provocative hair/makeup and a feminist point of view, declaring “We’re The Stains and we don’t put out!” TV exposure swells the band’s disaffected female fanbase, but ignoring Billy’s advice, Corrine makes all the wrong decisions for the very first time.

After the success of Slap Shot in 1977, Paramount Pictures offered screenwriter Nancy Dowd a two-script deal. Dowd wanted to write about girls in a steel town who liberate themselves through punk rock. Introducing her to that scene was Caroline Coon, an artist who’d briefly managed The Clash; the studio would retain Coon as creative consultant and costume designer for what Dowd had titled All Washed Up. To direct, Paramount offered the project to Lou Adler, a record producer who’d worked with The Mamas & The Papas and Carole King and hit pay dirt at the picture show in 1978 with Cheech & Chong’s Up In Smoke. Dowd would later strip her name from the credits — citing sexual harassment on the set in Vancouver — but what doomed the film was a calamitous test screening in Denver. Now titled Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains, it became a staple on USA Network’s zombie schedule in the late ’80s but wasn’t available on home video until 2008, when Rhino Entertainment distributed the DVD.

Whether by strict design or happy accident — Dowd received an Academy Award for co-writing Coming Home, while Adler never directed again — Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains taps into an agitated rhythm, buzzing the two bit dives of the Rust Belt with bumblebee’s pace and never losing its sting. In addition to performances by Diane Lane and Laura Dern that feel both surly and vulnerable, the sublime cast is led by a cherub faced Ray Winstone. Former Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones and drummer Paul Cook (who together wrote three songs for the soundtrack) comprise an all-star punk band in The Looters, along with Paul Simonon from The Clash on bass. Playing tour manager, Barry Ford brings both diversity and a sense of truth to the story, which neither advocates coloring inside the lines or ripping up the paper purely for anarchy’s sake.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 1,325 users: 64% for Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: N/A

What do you say?

“I was angry about seeing so many movies with naked women and never seeing a naked guy. So when I shot the sex scene between Stacy and Damone in the poolhouse, I wanted it to be uncomfortable. She was naked, so I wanted to show the guy naked too. And the ratings board said, ‘You do that and you’ll get an X rating.’ I said, ‘How come you can see all these naked ladies in movies?’ And they said, ‘Because the female organ is not aggressive, but the male organ is.’ So what? Should we shoot it? Whatever. But I was a very cranky young lady, and the idea of compromising makes you crazy.” Amy Heckerling in Sean Penn: His Life and Times by Richard T. Kelly

Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)
Directed by Amy Heckerling
Screenplay by Cameron Crowe, based on his novel
Produced by Irving Azoff, Art Linson
90 minutes

A guerrilla handbook to growing up in America, Fast Times at Ridgemont High should have been the last word in high school movies for a while, just like The Outlaw Josey Wales put a nail in the pine box carting around the western genre in 1976. Fast Times didn’t set out to perform last rites on the teenager movie per se, but is such an exhilarating, A-to-Z tour of familiar landscapes that it’s a wonder John Hughes found any territory to carve out for himself. Rather than an incursion by adults into the world of teenagers, Fast Times feels like an inside job. The project was the brainwave of Cameron Crowe, a prodigal 22-year-old Rolling Stone reporter whose publisher David Obst suggested that the only way to uncover what high school kids were all about these days was to actually go back to high school.

So in the fall of 1979, Crowe returned home to his parents in San Diego and received front office permission from Clairemont High School to enroll as a student. Crowe’s surveillance culminated in six characters: a middle class brother and sister, her sexually experienced friend, a nerd, a music obsessed ticket scalper and a stoned surfer. At the end of the school year, Crowe approached his subjects and revealed he was writing a book. At the time, they were indifferent. Universal Pictures grabbed the film rights and put Crowe to work on a script with Art Linson, a producer Crowe had met reporting from the set of American Hot Wax in 1975. In the search for a director, Linson recalled an AFI student thesis he’d seen titled Getting It Over With and offered the job to Amy Heckerling, a 27-year-old who’d yet to direct a feature film.

What qualifies as a plot goes like this: Stacy Hamilton (Jennifer Jason Leigh) works at Perry’s Pizza in the mall. When a foxy looking stereo salesman asks her out, Stacy’s friend Linda (Phoebe Cates) encourages her to be sexually aggressive with him. Mark Ratner (Brian Backer) is assistant to the assistant manager of the movie theater and shares his ardor for Stacy with the smooth talking Mike Damone (Robert Romanus), who dispenses love advice to the geek. Stacy’s brother Brad (Judge Reinhold) is employee of the month at “All America Burger” but after blowing his cool with a customer, suffers the indignity of accepting work at “Captain Hook Fish ‘n Chips”. Stoner Jeff Spicoli (Sean Penn) rejects the concerns of his peers, but runs afoul with history teacher Mr. Hand (Ray Walston) in a battle of wills that spans the entire school year.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High shoves other high school movies aside like wimps because Crowe and Heckerling inject so much honesty into the film: laugh out loud honesty, quirky honesty, tender honesty, brutal honesty. It’s not a war documentary, but it sometimes feels like it could be. Rather than turn predictable, Fast Times samples from several  genres. The duels between Spicoli and Mr. Hand are like highlights from a stoner comedy, while Heckerling isn’t kidding around with Jennifer Jason Leigh’s sex scenes, opting for stark realism. What lingers through all of this is how court jester Spicoli suggests there may be more to growing up than consumerism and sex. Forest Whitaker, Eric Stoltz, Anthony Edwards and Nicolas Cage (billed as Nicolas Coppola) made early career appearances.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 148,349 users: 76% for Fast Times at Ridgemont High

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: N/A

What do you say?

“Portmanteau” is French for “coat rack”. Lewis Carroll appropriated the word in 1871 for Through The Looking Glass to explain two words merged into one; “chortle” is a portmanteau Carroll invented, while “Internet”, “blog” and “sexploitation” are three he did not. In the month of January, I’ll take a look at portmanteau films, where we find different coats hanging in the same closet, whether tailored by one filmmaker or the collaborative effort of several.

Fantasia (1940)
Directed by Samuel Armstrong (segments: Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, The Nutcracker Suite), James Algar (segment: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice), Bill Roberts & Paul Satterfield (segment: The Rite of Spring), David D. Hand (segment: Meet the Soundtrack), Hamilton Luske, Jim Handley & Ford Beebe (segment: The Pastoral Symphony), T. Hee & Norm Ferguson (segment: Dance of the Hours), Wilfred Jackson (segment: Night on Bald Mountain/ Ave Maria)
Written by Lee Blair, Elmer Plummer, Phil Dike (segment: Toccata and Fugue in D Minor), Sylvia Moberly-Holland, Norman Wright, Albert Heath, Bianca Majolie, Graham Heid (segment: The Nutcracker Suite), Perce Pearce, Carl Fallberg (segment: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice), William Martin, Leo Thiele, Robert Sterner, John Fraser McLeish (segment: The Rite of Spring), Otto Englander, Webb Smith, Erdman Penner, Joseph Sabo, Bill Peet, Vernon Stallings (segment: The Pastoral Symphony), Campbell Grant, Arthur Heinemann, Phil Dike (segment: Night on Bald Mountain/ Ave Maria)
Produced by Walt Disney, Ben Sharpsteen
125 minutes (roadshow version)/ 88 minutes (general release version)/ 124 minutes (DVD version)

Like piano lessons or spinach, Fantasia wavers between arduous and unpalatable, at least for those kiddies notified that the program will be good for them. Revisiting the film as an adult is a revelation. In late 1937, flush from the success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Walt Disney hit on the idea of an animated short that would interpret a piece of classical music through the medium Disney’s studio was pioneering: motion picture animation. Paul Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice was selected, but the project grew from a short to a feature length portmanteau film, which Disney insisted be recorded stereophonically to mimic the acoustics of a concert hall. His engineers developed a stereo sound system dubbed “Fantasound”, but most exhibitors refused to pony up for its installation. Upon its U.S. release in November 1940, Fantasia was screened in only 14 theaters before being drastically recut for a general release.

Produced for roughly $2.2 million, Fantasia returned only $361,800 in its initial theatrical run, with World War II cutting off most of the international market. Despite winning two special Academy Awards, the picture was regarded as a failure by Disney himself. In 1969, the studio urged exhibitors to market the reissue the same way they would Easy Rider, “a special kind of trip”. Baby Boomers embraced it and today, the film is regarded as one of Disney’s milestone achievements. In essence, Fantasia is one of the boldest experiments (re: head-trips) Hollywood has ever produced. Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker Suite is the most dazzling segment, in both the playful mystery of the music and its singular visual interpretation, with sprites putting on a fireworks display for the unseen world. The more open the imagination — or the more inebriated the cerebellum — the more stimulating the film proves to be.

Joining the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra in front of an immense canvas draped in blue light, emcee Deems Taylor introduces the first of eight classical music compositions conducted by Leopold Stokowski and interpreted by the artists of Walt Disney Studios. Johann Sebastian Bach’s Toccata and Fugue In D Minor is a thundering trip through rays of light, cloud forms and geometric shapes. Nature is explored through Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker Suite, with sugarplum faeries animating inanimate objects of the natural world. Paul Duka’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice tells the familiar story of magic and mischief with a mute Mickey Mouse as the star. Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring is set to the biggest story in the universe, the evolution of life on earth, from its creation in the seas to its near extinction in the age of dinosaurs.

Returning after a brief intermission, our emcee employs the unsung hero of the Fantasia program — The Soundtrack — to appear and introduce several of the instruments of a symphony orchestra. Next up is Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6, The Pastoral Symphony, with unicorns, fawns, centaurs and the creatures of Greek myth enjoying a bacchanal, which is threatened by the appearance of Zeus and a lightning storm brought down by Vulcan. Andre Ponchielli’s Dance of the Hours from the opera La Gioconda finds a ballet dancing hippo wooed by a hungry crocodile. The final segment combines two contrasting pieces; Modeste Moussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain opens with Satan conducting the armies of darkness in a booming nocturnal festival, which is defeated by dawn and the bells of Franz Schubert’s reverent Ave Maria.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 104,499 users: 77% for Fantasia

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

What do you say?

“Portmanteau” is French for “coat rack”. Lewis Carroll appropriated the word in 1871 for Through The Looking Glass to explain two words merged into one; “chortle” is a portmanteau Carroll invented, while “Internet”, “blog” and “sexploitation” are three he did not. In the month of January, I’ll take a look at portmanteau films, where we find different coats hanging in the same closet, whether tailored by one filmmaker or the collaborative effort of several.

Short Cuts (1993)
Directed by Robert Altman
Screenplay by Robert Altman & Frank Barhydt, based on writings by Raymond Carver
Produced by Cary Brokaw
187 minutes

Misogynistic. Realistic. Bleak. Reassuring. The worst movie Robert Altman ever directed. His best. No two opinions of Short Cuts quite cotton, but in one word, the late filmmaker’s 30^th feature is exhilarating. Raymond Carver never published a novel before dying of lung cancer at the age of 50 in 1988, but he left behind 11 volumes of short stories and poems, many hinging on simple twists of fate in working class America. Altman had been sacked from a movie in Italy and on a flight home, discovered Carver’s literary world. Seeing his type of film on those pages, the director of M*A*S*H, The Long Goodbye and Nashville met Carver’s widow, poet Tess Gallagher, who optioned nine of her husband’s short stories and one poem to Altman. With Paramount Pictures footing the bill, he teamed with Frank Barhydt on an adaptation. The studio read it and hated it.

Unable to get financing for what he was calling L.A. Short Cuts, Altman took a gig directing a low budget black comedy titled The Player. Embraced at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival as Altman’s comeback, producer Cary Brokaw stepped in to help raise roughly $12 million for Altman to make Carver’s world a reality. At a bare minimum, Short Cuts employs an expansive yet organic cast that rates as one of the finest ever assembled. Each of the 22 players is thrown the ball at some point and — given something special to do — score. But Altman’s spry touch keeps Short Cuts from sinking under the weight of any moral imperative, a lesson lost on portmanteau films like Crash. Ebbing between light drama and dark comedy, this orchestration of human behavior is a monumental achievement. Doc Pomus & Dr. John and Elvis Costello & Cait O’Riordan wrote the sumptuous jazz numbers performed by Annie Ross in the film.

Helicopters dusting for the medfly fill the skies above Los Angeles. A news anchor (Bruce Davison) and his wife (Andie MacDowell) are concerned by the chemicals, yet their 8-year-old son Casey is allowed to walk to school in the morning. A waitress (Lily Tomlin) upset by her boozehound boyfriend (Tom Waits) accidentally slams her car into Casey, who shrugs off the accident and returns home. The boy’s neighbor (Lori Singer) is a sensitive cellist whose jazz vocalist mother (Annie Ross) is past the point of giving a damn. At the nightclub where she performs, a financially strapped couple (Lili Taylor, Robert Downey Jr.) receives instructions from bourgeois neighbors whose apartment they’ve agreed to housesit. They’re friends with another couple: a pool man (Chris Penn) increasingly frustrated by the lack of attention from his wife (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a stay-at-home phone sex operator.

Casey ends up in intensive care, where his dad is visited by the father (Jack Lemmon) he hasn’t seen in 30 years. Neglecting to pick up a cake they ordered, Casey’s parents are harassed by the baker (Lyle Lovett). Casey’s doctor (Matthew Modine) suspects that his artist wife (Julianne Moore) broke their wedding vows three years ago and tries to get to the bottom of it. The artist befriends a professional clown (Anne Archer). She’s pulled over in full makeup by a motorcycle cop (Tim Robbins) who hits on her. Unfaithful to his wife (Madeline Stowe), the cop’s lover (Frances McDormand) has cut ties with her ex (Peter Gallagher), a pilot who dusts for the medfly and refuses to accept that his marriage is over. The clown’s husband (Fred Ward) goes fishing with his buddies (Buck Henry, Huey Lewis). The men discover a female corpse in the river and debate how soon they need to alert anyone.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 5,693 users: 87% for Short Cuts

Metacritic “Metascore” average among 22 leading critics: 79 for Short Cuts

What do you say?

“Portmanteau” is French for “coat rack”. Lewis Carroll appropriated the word in 1871 for Through The Looking Glass to explain two words merged into one; “chortle” is a portmanteau Carroll invented, while “Internet”, “blog” and “sexploitation” are three he did not. In the month of January, I’ll take a look at portmanteau films, where we find different coats hanging in the same closet, whether tailored by one filmmaker or the collaborative effort of several.

Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (1983)
Directed by Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam (segment: The Crimson Permanent Assurance)
Written by Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin
Produced by John Goldstone
106 minutes

Proving that a glimmer from Monty Python is a supernova compared to what constitutes comedy in other galaxies, The Meaning of Life is a greater portmanteau film, even if it ranks as lesser Python. The group was born in the undergraduate revues of Cambridge, where Graham Chapman, John Cleese and Eric Idle were students, and Oxford, where Terry Jones and Michael Palin met. While touring New York, Cleese met an American illustrator named Terry Gilliam. Through writing and performing satirical sketches on British stage, radio and television in the late 1960s, the six formed a comedy troupe. After four hugely influential TV series and two ridiculously profitable feature films, the group ventured to Jamaica — where they’d written Life of Brian (1979) — unable to agree on their next movie. Python hit on the idea of stitching together material by using the meaning of life as glue.

As with Life of Brian, Terry Jones would direct and Terry Gilliam would provide the animation, as well as a fantastic short film titled The Crimson Permanent Assurance that grew into a 16-minute segment. Awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival, The Meaning of Life would be the last time all six members of Python worked together, with Graham Chapman dying of cancer in 1989. Gilliam’s whimsical short, with rousing music by John Du Prez and delightful model work, is the #1 reason to see the film, which peaks at the 1-hour mark with a sketch so flagrant it transcends flagrance. Even with longer pauses between the belly laughs, the hand craftsmanship and relentless social satire of Python is all here, cutting down performers they’ve influenced — namely veterans of Saturday Night Live who’ve given the movies a try — with a thousand arrows.

In a “short feature presentation”, aging accountants in London mutiny against their corporate masters, raising anchor on the Crimson Permanent Assurance and sailing the building to pillage the financial world. As the feature presentation begins, six goldfish (Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin) in a restaurant aquarium ponder what life is all about. In the first of twelve sketches, surgeons (Chapman, Cleese) get to the business of delivering a baby. The patriarch (Palin) of a Roman Catholic family in the slums of Yorkshire explains the predicament of contraception to his several dozen of children in a song titled “Every Sperm Is Sacred”. A public schoolteacher (Cleese) instructs a class on sex education with the help of his wife. Sent to fight in the Great War, a sergeant (Jones) is distracted from a mission when his men insist on showering him with presents.

Examining middle age, an American couple (Palin, Idle) vacation in a resort with an authentic medieval dungeon, ordering “conversation” about the meaning of life from their waiter (Cleese), who suggests “Live Organ Transplants” as a topic. Two paramedics (Chapman, Cleese) perform a liver removal before the donor is dead; they convince his wife (Jones) to volunteer her liver as well by introducing her to a man (Idle) whose song about the galaxy demonstrates how futile human existence is. Death is explored when the grossly obese Mr. Creosote (Jones) arrives at a French restaurant but is unable to hold down his meal. The Grim Reaper pays a visit to a dinner party, where the guests mistake him for “one of the men from the village”. Wrapping up the sketches, a TV host (Palin) delivers viewers the meaning of life, interjecting her own commentary.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 22,708 users: 83% for Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

What do you say?

This month’s theme was hatched after yet another person with better taste than me recommended that I add the 2005 romantic drama Shopgirl to my queue. Looking for nine more films with similar themes, “Cat Food”, “Rain” and “Corset” were all considered and rejected before I settled on “May December Romance”. So in the month of December, I’ll take a look at love separated by much more than just six months on the calendar.

Beautiful Girls (1996)
Directed by Ted Demme
Written by Scott Rosenberg
Produced by Cary Woods
112 minutes

Like a Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer for Generation X, Beautiful Girls has carved its niche as holiday comfort food that tastes great every year. Following his first produced screenplay Things To Do In Denver When You’re Dead, Scott Rosenberg signed a deal with Touchstone Pictures. He submitted a treatment for his first assignment Con Air and waiting for word in Boston while snowplows dug through a blizzard, it occurred to Rosenberg that the real action was in his hometown, where friends were dealing with commitment as they hit their third decade. Rosenberg emerged from his room five days later with a script. Brian Grazer, Ridley Scott and Mace Neufeld were interested, but producer Cary Woods and Miramax Films won the bidding. Rosenberg worked on a dozen drafts with James L. Brooks before the director decided he didn’t relate much with blue collar 30-year-olds and dropped out.

Ted Demme wasn’t much older than the characters in the script and was ultimately hired to direct. His aesthetic influence was The Deer Hunter and preferring “Knight’s Ridge” to look as worn down and as frozen in time as possible, opted to shoot the film in Minnesota. With 17 characters packed into a 1 hour 50 minute movie, there are segments of Beautiful Girls that work much better than others: Michael Rapaport as a local yokel obsessed with fashion models, a Neil Diamond sing-along and (no joke) Rosie O’Donnell chart high, while the “romance” between Natalie Portman and Timothy Hutton remains the #1 reason to see the movie, an episodic comedy drama that never spells out its intentions or dumbs itself down. The script is a series of insights in search of a story, but after a few years, you not only feel you know these characters, but look forward to spending time with them.

Lounge playing piano man Willie Conway (Timothy Hutton) scrapes together enough cash for bus fare from New York City back home to the town of “Knight’s Ridge” for his 10-year high school reunion. Willie discovers that his friends never really left. Tommy (Matt Dillon) runs a plowing company and clings to his glory days by sleeping with ex-cheerleader Darian (Lauren Holly). Tommy’s loyal girlfriend Sharon (Mira Sorvino) copes with his behavior by focusing on her weight, which her brassy pal Gina (Rosie O’Donnell) sees as a perpetuation of male fantasy. Paul (Michael Rapaport) pushes away his girlfriend Jan (Martha Plimpton) by refusing to accept she isn’t cheating on him with the meat cutter. He buys her  a brown engagement ring and when she refuses to marry him, Paul buries Jan’s driveway in snow.

The quiet Kev (Max Perlich) also shovels snow for a living but aspires to do little more than work all day and drink all night. Husband and father Mo (Noah Emmerich) seems to be the only genuine grownup among the group. The weekend takes a detour with the entrance of Andrea (Uma Thurman), a beautiful and cool import from Chicago visiting Knight’s Ridge to see her cousin “Stinky” (Pruitt Taylor Vince), who runs the tavern the boys drink at. Each of the guys take turns trying to impress her, to little avail. Willie’s girlfriend and possible fiancée (Annabeth Gish) soon joins him, but the 29-year-old musician confides his commitment fears to a kindred spirit, the soulful 13-year-old who lives next door, Marty (Natalie Portman). She suggests Willie wait to get married until he meets someone who excites him. By Willie’s math, when Marty turns 23, he’ll only be 39.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 4,746 users: 79% for Beautiful Girls

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: 64 for Beautiful Girls

What do you say?

This month’s theme was hatched after someone with much better taste recommended that I add the 2005 romantic drama Shopgirl to my queue. Looking for nine more films with similar themes, “Based on Novel”, “Redhead” and “Salesgirl” were all considered and rejected before I settled on “May December Romance”. So in the month of December, I’ll take a look at love separated by much more than just six months on the calendar.

Crazy Heart (2009)
Directed by Scott Cooper
Screenplay by Scott Cooper, based on the novel by Thomas Cobb
Produced by Scott Cooper, Robert Duvall, Rob Carliner, Judy Cairo, T Bone Burnett
112 minutes

Stripped down to longing, regret and inspiration, Crazy Heart is the film version of a country tune, small but perfect. A journeyman actor, Scott Cooper’s role in Gods and Generals mostly hit the cutting room floor. He did get to work with Robert Duvall and the two became friends. An aspiring writer-director, Cooper’s grand ambition was to make the life story of Merle Haggard. He spent a year on the road with the recording legend, whose life rights the aspiring filmmaker realized were knotted in legal thorns. Luckily, an acquaintance gave Cooper a copy of Thomas Cobb’s 1987 novel Crazy Heart, the tale of a boozed up and beat down songwriter equal parts Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings and Townes Van Zandt, Cooper’s musical heroes. He adapted a script and with the support of Robert Duvall, ultimately got his two wishes, landing the talents of music producer T Bone Burnett and actor Jeff Bridges.

Filmed mostly in New Mexico on a brisk 24-day schedule with a budget of $7 million, Crazy Heart rode universal critical acclaim all the way to the Academy Awards, where Ryan Bingman & T Bone Burnett (Best Original Song) and Jeff Bridges (Best Actor) won Oscars. Not as haunted as Robert Duvall’s down and out Max Sledge in Tender Mercies, Jeff Bridges channels the spirit of Kris Kristofferson, growling and fumbling his way through a character who’s a songwriter first, alcoholic second and entertainer further down the line. Cooper’s take on the material is character driven and nuanced, rejecting show business melodrama for a lower and far richer key. The soundtrack boasts some of the best original music I’ve heard in a movie in a long time, while the incomparable Maggie Gyllenhaal leads a fine supporting cast that includes Tom Bower, Rick Dial, Colin Farrell and ol’ Duvall himself.

Driving his ’78 Chevy Suburban into Pueblo, New Mexico, singer-songwriter Bad Blake (Jeff Bridges) is as disgusted to be booked into a bowling alley as he is to learn that his contract does not include a bar tab. 57 years old and flat broke, Bad rejects an offer relayed by his Beverly Hills manager (Paul Herman) to write some new songs for Tommy Sweet, a former protégé of Bad’s who is now a country music superstar. Barely making it through a set before puking his guts out, Bad fares much better in Santa Fe, where a piano player (Rick Dial) convinces the musician to grant a rare interview to his niece, an aspiring journalist. Dropping by his motel room while her subject scoops his dinner wearing only a towel, Jean Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhaal) brings out the best in Bad, though he declines to answer any questions about Tommy Sweet or his children.

Continuing her interview over two-night his stop in Santa Fe, Jean’s spirit seems to drop the years off Bad. After sleeping together, she agrees to let him bake biscuits for her 4-year-old son, who takes an immediate liking to the Texan. Bad swallows his pride and accepts an offer to open for Tommy Sweet in Phoenix. In spite of his super stardom, Tommy (Colin Farrell) extends gratitude toward his broken down mentor, even joining him on stage. Bad makes a beeline back to Santa Fe, falling asleep at the wheel and rolling the Suburban. He ignores doctor’s orders to quit drinking and implores Jean to come visit him back home in Houston. The romance inspires Bad to write new material for the first time in years and to telephone his estranged 28-year-old son, but his drinking takes a sudden toll on the relationship when Jean arrives for a visit with her son.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 101,594 users: 72% for Crazy Heart

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: 83 for Crazy Heart

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Roman Polanski was born August 18, 1933 in Paris. The sordid details of his flight from the United States in 1978 have often overshadowed discussion of the director’s work, which at the age of 77, includes one of the best films of 2010. Is he a world class filmmaker? In the month of August, I take a look at ten directed by Roman Polanski.

The Pianist (2002)
Directed by Roman Polanski
Screenplay by Ronald Harwood, based on the book The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man’s Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945 by Wladyslaw Szpilman
Produced by Roman Polanski, Robert Benmussa, Alain Sarde
150 minutes

A tale of an urban castaway that’s as powerful as it is restrained, The Pianist was Roman Polanski’s finest work in two decades. Originally published in 1946 under the title Death of a City, Wladyslaw Szpilman’s memoir of survival detailed the classical pianist’s six years under Nazi occupation in Warsaw. Seizing upon the book as his next film, Polanski selected South African born playwright and screenwriter Ronald Harwood — whose play Taking Sides also featured a composer caught in the maelstrom of World War II — to adapt a screenplay. France’s Le Studio Canal largely financed the €38 million (roughly $33 million) production in association with England’s Cadre Films and after Joseph Fiennes declined the role in order to remain on the British stage, Polanski arrived on Adrien Brody to portray Szpilman. The actor went from 160 to 130 pounds in six weeks to prepare for the part.

Filmed at Babelsburg Studios in Berlin, with additional shooting in the Braga district outside Warsaw, what sets The Pianist apart from WWII dramas like Saving Private Ryan or Enemy At the Gates is its simplicity and grace. Written immediately after the occupation, Szpilman’s story is resplendent in detail and confident enough in its truth not to employ artificiality or unearned sentiments. Turning genre conventions on their head, we meet Jews who are less than virtuous and at least one German who is more than pure evil, creating a landscape that provokes thought and feeling. A tale of genocide, the irony is that Polanski’s craftsmanship is so solid we wish the story kept going. Nominated for seven Academy Awards, Adrien Brody (Best Actor), Ronald Harwood (Best Adapted Screenplay) and Roman Polanski (Best Director) all won Oscars.

In Warsaw of September 1939, pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrien Brody) is performing Chopin’s Nocturne in C Sharp minor for Polish radio when German artillery shells hit the city. Szpilman’s violinist father (Frank Finlay), mother (Maureen Lipman), younger brother Henryk (Ed Stoppard) and two grown sisters (Julia Rayner, Jessica Kate Meyer) rejoice with the news that Britain and France have declared war on Germany, but Poland quickly falls under Nazi control. Szpilman has time to take an adoring cellist named Dorota (Emilia Fox) for coffee before the city’s 360,000 Jews are evicted from their homes and sealed inside a ghetto in October 1940. Szpilman finds employment as a piano player in an upper class Jewish café and along with Henryk, rejects an offer from a family friend named Heller (Roy Smiles) to join the Jewish Ghetto Police.

When Henryk is arrested, Szpilman appeals to Heller’s ego to secure his brother’s release. He keeps his family from being deported by obtaining employment certificates for them, but these prove worthless when in August 1942, the Szpilmans are herded onto trains bound for Treblinka. Heller pulls Szpilman off the line, sparing his life, but the pianist never sees his family again. He survives by joining a Jewish work detail and buys enough time to arrange for his escape. Harbored by friends, Szpilman is reunited with Dorota, now married and expecting a child. Once the Polish uprising begins in August 1944, he’s near the brink of famine. Scrounging for food in the deserted city, Szpilman comes to face to face with Captain Wilm Hosenfeld (Thomas Kretschmann). Instead of being shot, the pianist is rewarded by an act of kindness after the German officer hears his music.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 107,318 users: 94% for The Pianist

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: 85 for The Pianist

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In the month of July, I take a look at films released in my very favorite film stock and aspect ratio: black & white in anamorphic. Unless they’re being financed with credit cards, movies are rarely shot like this anymore because they’re impossible to sell to television. Yet these dreams sneak onto Turner Classic Movies every now and again …

Manhattan (1979)
Directed by Woody Allen
Written by Woody Allen & Marshall Brickman
Produced by Charles H. Joffe
96 minutes

Of the 39 feature films he’s directed and written so far, neither the Oscar winning Best Picture Annie Hall nor the handful of other treasures in the Woody Allen vault have the timeless magnificence of Manhattan. Allen discussed the idea of shooting a movie in anamorphic widescreen with cinematographer Gordon Willis on the set of Interiors in 1977. Their ambition was to make a movie that captured an intimacy typically blown away by epic framing and since the story would take place in New York, use black & white film stock to express the vibe of the city. Allen — who grew up in Brooklyn and was introduced to Manhattan via Hollywood movies – began coming up with scenes as he listened to Michael Tilson Thomas recordings of George Gershwin. He then wrote a script with Marshall Brickman.

Manhattan is a valentine for the other 364 days on the calendar. Allen’s intent was to make a picture more serious than Annie Hall but funnier than Interiors, “a serious picture that had laughs in it”. Manhattan fits that bill better than just about any movie you could name. Allen’s one-liners aren’t the knee slappers they may have once been, but the film’s visual and symphonic splendor are as enthralling as they ever were. Expressing the resplendence of a city as it existed mostly in his own dreams, Manhattan volleys between Allen’s contention that we’re being too tough on ourselves, while in the moments that matter most, not being nearly tough enough. Diane Keaton and Mariel Hemingway — far sexier in other roles — have never seemed more beautiful than they are here, while Woody gives his most nuanced performance.

Four friends gather for supper at Elaine’s. Isaac Davis (Woody Allen) is a 42-year-old writer working on a book set in the city he adores. His 17-year-old girlfriend Tracy (Mariel Hemingway) has more intelligence and maturity than Isaac’s ego will give her credit for. His best friend Yale (Michael Murphy) is married to Emily (Anne Byrne) but leaving the restaurant, reveals to Isaac that he’s become involved with another woman. Isaac is unable to offer much relationship advice as his second ex-wife Jill (Meryl Streep) has taken up with a woman and is publishing a tell-all memoir about their marriage, or as she calls it, “an honest account of our breakup.” While Tracy asserts that she’s in love with Isaac, he advises the teenager to view their relationship as little more than “a detour on the highway of life.”

Visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Isaac and Tracy run into Yale and his mistress: journalist and neurotic dingbat Mary Wilkie (Diane Keaton). She offends Isaac by disparaging all of his cultural heroes — from Heinrich Boll to Ingmar Bergman — in under a minute. Nervous about his future once he quits a job writing for a hip sketch TV show, Isaac bumps into Mary at a benefit for the Museum of Modern Art and ends up wandering Manhattan with her until sunrise. Yale develops a guilty conscience after breaking off his affair and when Isaac maintains that he’s not serious about Tracy, compels his friend to give Mary a call. Isaac and Mary leap right into a relationship, which ends up being undermined when Mary confesses she still has feelings for Yale. Realizing he made a mistake by dumping Tracy, Isaac sets out to make things right.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average 16,781 users: 92% for Manhattan

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

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