I don't know if it's age-induced cynicism, bitterness or just an increasing awareness about what's really important in life, but I have come to loathe the entertainment Awards Season and the shows which present said awards.
It honestly seems ridiculous to me to offer up awards for any art form, especially since art is so very subjective. I may love a film; TV show; play; musical; painting; song; album; composition; sculpture or installation that you absolutely detest. Or vice-versa. You might find something uproariously funny while I find it repulsively disgusting. I may be moved to tears by a poem or novel, while you simply shrug your shoulders and say "Huh?" No one else I know is as fascinated by Dali's "The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus" as I am. And that's as it should be. Art (and one's response to it) may be one of the few truly individual things we have.
Here's a very personal example: Dear D's favorite actor is Sylvester Stallone and his favorite movie of all-time is Rocky. I have no favorite actor (really, how can one?) and my favorite film of all-time is Bringing Up Baby. If I did have a 'favorite actor,' I can assure you it wouldn't be Stallone. That doesn't mean Stallone hasn't been in some highly entertaining films. It also doesn't mean that every film he's been in, has been bad. Or even that the bad film's in which he's appeared weren't entertaining. Demolition Man is by no means be 'high art,' but I was amused and entertained by it (though, unlike D, I don't have 3 seashells in my bathroom - no matter how hilarious I may find it).
Awarding folks for their achievements is hardly new. And while I wouldn't be opposed to winning an award of any kind, I imagine that winning a Nobel or Pulitzer or even an Olympic medal would mean much more to me than a Golden Globe, Critics' Choice or Academy Award. While awards shows may be just as entertaining to some folks as great art is to others, to me they are just ego-inflating parties thrown by and for rich people who have nothing better to do than pat one another on the back.
Oh, and for famous LGBT people to publicly come out (via):
OK - not every Ghost Movie is scary. Hell, not every Horror Movie is scary and if I remember, maybe next year's Shocktober will be about Horror Comedies. But tonight (and at least one other post this month) is about a Ghost Comedy. And a pretty popular one, at that.
1937's Topper stars Cary Grant and Constance Bennett as George and Marion Kirby, a rich and irresponsible pair of partiers who only care about themselves. When they die in a car crash, they find themselves trapped on Earth until they do something selfless. Enter their friend, boring banker Cosmo Topper (Roland Young) who buys the Bennets' car at an auction, unaware that it comes with two unadvertised accessories... Cosmo's wife, Clara (Billie Burke, best known as Glinda inThe Wizard of Oz) is only interested in her status among the socialites and constantly nags Cosmo about presenting himself as respectable. Realizing that freeing Topper from the stoic and fun-free life Clara expects of him may well be their ticket to Heaven, George and Marion make it their mission to enliven Topper's life. Madcap antics ensue and Topper eventually ends up arrested. Clara leaves him because of the scandal, but a near death experience for Topper (and her butler's advice to "loosen up") convince Clara that life is meant to be enjoyed and she reunites with Cosmo. Their good deed done, George and Marion are finally allowed to enter Heaven.
As in his other madcap comedies from the 30's and 40's (Bringing Up Baby* and Arsenic and Old Lace), Grant's comedic talents are on full display here. Of course, it didn't hurt that he was so handsome and debonair, qualities that helped make the absurdity of his situations all the funnier. Bennett and Burke are fine here, too but it's Young's performance as a stuffy banker who learns to enjoy life that makes Topper so enjoyable. Young provides the kind of physical comedy Steve Martin would later emulate in 1984's hilarious All of Me. Oh - and notorious gossip columnist Hedda Hopper makes an appearance as socialite Grace Stuyvesant.
Topper inspired two sequels, 1938's Topper Takes a Trip and 1941's Topper Returnswith Joan Blondell. Grant did not appear in either, while Bennett eschewed the third film. It also inspired a failed 1973 TV pilot starring Roddy McDowell, Stephanie Powers and John Fink, as well as a 1979 TV remake with Kate Jackson, Andrew Stephens, Jack Warden and gay icon Rue McClanahan.
Obviously, the TV remake doesn't hold a candle to the original, which is probably an excellent starting place for young film fans who want to learn about the comedies that came before most of the crappy movies they find amusing today.
That's Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, May Robson and Skippy the dog in Howard Hawks' 1938 quintessential Screwball Comedy (and my personal favorite movie of all time) Bringing Up Baby.
"But Uncle Prospero, we thought you loved Horror movies." Of course I do, but that doesn't necessarily mean my favorite movie is a Horror movie. I love all kinds of movies. And just as high on my list are good old-fashioned Screwball Comedies. Fast-talking dialog, outrageously complicated plots and smart but ditsy heroines are just a few of the mainstays of the Screwball Comedy. Films like His Girl Friday; My Man Godfrey and The Awful Truth were staples of Depression-Era films and their brilliant hilarity holds up, even after 60 or 70 years.
I know I've talked about Bringing Up Baby before, but this wonderful essay by Mike D'Angelo over at A.V. Club (via) analyzes the above-pictured scene in particular and conveniently ties in with the films of a director I mentioned just a few posts ago, Peter Bogdanovich. Interestingly enough, Bogdanavich's first credited film as a director was a 1967 television documentary called The Great Professional: Howard Hawks. It wasn't until 1971's The Last Picture Show that he came into his own. Then in 1972 he made his own Hawks-inspired Screwball Comedy, What's Up, Doc? starring Barbra Streisand and a then very hot Ryan O'Neal.
What's Up, Doc? concerns a musicologist (O'Neal); his fiancee Eunice (the brilliant and sorely missed Madeline Kahn in her film debut); a wacky heiress/perpetual student (Streisand); identical plaid bags; International spies and a host of characters played by Kenneth Mars; Austin Pendleton; Sorrell Booke; Randy Quaid and Liam Dunn, among many others. Without getting too involved, a suitcase containing rocks with which O'Neal's character intends to prove a theory about ancient music is mixed up with an identical suitcase containing secret documents. Streisand serves as the wacky heiress here, while O'Neal plays the hapless intellectual whose life is turned upside down by a chance encounter with said wacko. Set in San Francisco (one of Uncle P's favorite U.S. cities), the film culminates in an outrageous car chase through the city's many winding and hilly streets.
If you aren't panting over O'Neal in that scene, you're a straight man, a lesbian or blind. And the ripping of his pajama pants? Right out of Bringing Up Baby, thank you.
Streisand would again attempt the Screwball Comedy in the inferior, but still amusing 1974 farceFor Pete's Sake. But without Bogdanovich at the helm (Peter Yates directed), it just didn't have the same impact.
After What's Up Doc? Bogdanovcih directed Paper Moon, again starring O'Neal, Kahn and O'Neal's then 10 year-old daughter, Tatum. Set against the Great Depression, Paper Moon is the story of conman Moses Pray (O'Neal) and Addie Loggins, a girl who may or may not be his daughter. Kahn is the temptress who may well come between them.
How sad to see talents like Ryan and Tatum O'Neal reduced to drug-addled tabloid fodder. And sadder still that the fast-talking, wise-cracking, smarter-than-they-let-on characters of the classic Screwball Comedy are things of the past. Hopefully, a screenwriter more talented than Yours Truly and a director whose talents match Hawks' and Bogdanovich's will come along and revive one of cinema's most beloved genres. Of course, I tried my own hand at a Screwball Comedy with a screenplay called Comatose Joe, which you can read here, should you be so inclined.
As for myself, I'd rather see a Howard Hawks or Leo McCarey comedy than anything Jud Apatow or Kevin Smith made in the last ten years or so. I guess I'm just an old-fashioned kind of guy, that way.
Well, not one, but two of my blogger pals (both of my Stephens) have tagged me on this, so I suppose I should respond. But first - a note about yesterday.
On New Year's Eve, Uncle P slipped in the inch of snow we got here in Southeastern PA (well before the two major storms this week) and did a number on my back. Not long after, I had the infamous Kitchen Disaster of 2010, which only served to exacerbate the problem. Add two more major snowstorms and no time to really heal, and I now have a chronic back issue. Currently, my GP is treating me with meds (a muscle relaxer, an anti-inflammatory and a pain killer). Yesterday (and the day before) were snow days at my day job, so while I had time off, I still had to dig out. By 6:00 PM Eastern time, I was in absolute agony and couldn't imagine sitting for an hour or more to post, so I didn't. I took today off and am feeling a little better, but still not nearly 100%. Add that to discovery that SyFy choose a screenplay entitled Sharktopus (I swear to God) over mine, and I was in no mood to blog last night.
Name three classic movie moments that have, in some shape or form, made you buy things, do things or think things that perhaps you shouldn't have.
Hmmm... As influential as film has been on my life, I honestly cannot think of anything that any movie has done any of these three things to me. I can however, name at least three films that have influenced me in other ways.
Of course, the movie that made me love movies is a childhood (and adult) favorite, the original 1933 version of King Kong. Watching it every time I could catch it on TV (usually on UHF - a concept totally alien to most modern TV audiences), King Kong taught me that anything was possible in the movies: Giant gorillas could defeat dinosaurs in battle; true love saves the day; exploitation is bad and even animals have feelings. Merian C. Cooper's masterpiece stands the test of time and even 77 years later, it holds up as both a thrilling adventure and an allegorical love story:
It wasn't until I was a bit older, that I discovered the power of Silent Films. And while there are many great ones (Potemkin; Modern Times; The Birth of a Nation), none had as great an influence on me as Fritz Lang's masterpiece, Metropolis. Lang's 1927 Sci-Fi landmark used then state-of-the-art special effects to tell the story of exploited workers under the thumb of an elitist regime of wealthy industrialists using plebeians to carry out their dirty work. Metropolis may well be the first movie that made me understand the plight of the "Common Man," while instilling in me a fascination for in-camera special effects. In the 1980's, composer Georgio Moroder combined known footage with a few "lost" stills to create a more comprehensive version of the film with a modern soundtrack. More recently, additional footage was found in South America, and a "new" version is set for release later this year. Metropolis remains one of the most effective visions of a dystopian nightmare ever committed to celluloid:
Finally, a movie I didn't actually see all of until I was in my 20's, Singin' in the Rain may well be the best movie musical ever made. Starring a very young Debbie Reynolds, Donald O'Conner and the amazingly athletic dancer Gene Kelly, Singin' in the Rain is the movie that made me fall in lve with movies all over again. Not only does it tell the story of technology changing the industry (something we are seeing now with the overrated Avatar), its also a very human story about actors and what they have to go through to make it in the most competitive industry in the world. Seeing it all the way through for the first time was an almost revelatory experience.
I could probably go on and on about the movies that have influenced my take on the world (such a list would probably take forever), but these are the first three I could come up with that had a major influence on not only how I view film, but the world, itself. And of course, it doesn't include my favorite movie of all time, the Howard Hawkes masterpiece Bringing Up Baby, an underrated (at the time) comic gem that should make every screenwriter take notice:
So, while I can't imagine any movie that made me do, buy or think something I shouldn't have; I can certainly imagine hundreds (or perhaps even thousands) of movies of that influenced my love of the medium.
More, anon. Prospero
PS - This list does not include any of Peter Bogdanovich's comedies from the 70's, which I will expound upon, anon.
