A Career Out of Laughter

When he was a small boy, no more than 8 years old, his mother developed rheumatic fever and she became very ill. Now in those days, a local physician would have been known to leave his office, and travel with a small black bag filled with a handful of general supplies to visit a sick patient at his or her home, as is what happened on this particular occasion. After the doctor had finished examining his mother and was walking back to his car, the small boy followed him out the screen door and stood gazing from the front porch after this man for some hopeful sign, a wink or a nod, that everything would soon be back to normal. Just before the doctor reached his car, he turned back and noticed the boy watching him from the porch steps. “Try and make her laugh,” he called to the boy, and then he got in his car and drove away.

The boy took this charge very seriously, and during the days and weeks that followed, he worked tirelessly to achieve the laughter from his mother that the doctor had challenged him to procure. From immature joke-telling to general clowning-around, the boy used every antic he could possibly think of to induce from his mother the treasured laugh he now so desperately wished to hear. For in his mind he now knew that only that would be the true sign of her returning health. And then one day, through some perfectly realized combination of facial expression and timing, the boy performed, and from across the room, like the discovery of gold in cave, he heard from his bed-ridden mother the ever-so-slightest hint of a chuckle.

Not many days later, the color, as they say, returned to his mother’s face, and she was soon able to get up out of bed and walk about the house again as she used to do. When the doctor returned to examine his mother one last time, the boy overheard him saying that she had reacted very strongly to the medicine he had prescribed. But the boy knew what had really cured his mother. He knew what the real medicine was. And from those early days on, he carried closely with him the idea that if he could make his mother laugh with such profound results, then making everyone else laugh would be a most worthy life goal.

In the years that followed, the boy grew up into a young man, graduated from the University of Iowa with a degree in Communication and Theater Arts, and was accepted at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in England where he became a champion fencer and a student of classical theater. After a few years, he moved back to the States and was quickly drafted into the army, where he served for a short period of time in the medical corps at Valley Forge Army Hospital in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. He was discharged from the army in 1958, and soon started studying acting full time at HB Studio, a school in New York City that offered, and still does, professional training in the performing arts. He there studied for three years, until a fellow student and friend, Charles Grodin, told him about Lee Strasberg’s method acting classes. After several months, he was officially accepted into the Actors Studio.

It was during his years at the Actors Studio that he famously decided it was time to adopt a stage name. You see, he was moving quickly through the ranks of the acting world, and at the time he simply could not imagine ever seeing on a playbill or theater marquee the words “Jerome Silberman starring as Macbeth.” Therefore, being an avid reader, he turned to literature for his new name. He went over to his bookshelf and pulled from it two books: Our Town by Thornton Wilder and Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe. And so, for his last name, he chose Wilder. He thought it looked profound and sounded distinguished...Indeed. For his first name he went to Wolfe’s classic, first novel, and from it adopted the name of the story’s passionate main character, Eugene, or simply Gene.

Years later, recalling a career that has spanned the years from an Academy Award nomination for The Producers and a wonderful performance in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory to the splendidly brilliant Young Frankenstein and hilarious partnership with Richard Pryor in Silver Streak, he likes to say now he can’t imagine having ever seen “Gene Wilder starring as Macbeth” either. Well that may be true. It most likely would have been an odd Macbeth. But throughout the years, Gene Wilder has done something much more important. Much more valuable. He’s made us for a time able to forget our troubles, or our worries, or whatever it is that may be bothering us. He’s given us exactly what the doctor ordered. Gene Wilder has made us laugh.

Until next week, here is my hope that we all find out Shangri-La. Good night.

From Writer's Block to Bogart and Bacall

Writer’s block. Every writer dreads it. Every writer suffers from it at some point. And then as if encouraged by the snickering muses, every writer does the one thing within his aching power to overcome this numbing condition…he writes about having writer’s block. Hence this introduction.

Norman Mailer once stated that this condition we call writer’s block is the cause of a simple failure of the ego. After all, it requires a great deal of ego to believe you have something noteworthy to say; that you are talented enough to conjure the words to say it; and that you know enough people with enough free time in which to read it. Hmmm. Yes. I suppose my three-week hiatus from this blog could have been the result of a withering ego. Let’s see.

I write a movie blog. A movie blog wherein I use all of my enthusiasm for the movies to encourage you my readers to go out of your way to view movies you perhaps never had any interest in pursuing. I received one email from a reader, we’ll call him Mr. X, that he had been directed by one of my posts to see the movie In America. For months, Mr. X’s Netflix queue sat idle as his DVD player became the home of that movie, and his living room the theater in which to watch it, much to his wife’s growing annoyance, literally dozens of times. Another reader, let’s call him Colonel, just last week in fact, was inspired by my Inception post enough, I am told, to venture out to his local IMAX theater to catch a showing of a movie he had had absolutely no interest in seeing prior to reading my animated words. He wrote me an email the next day telling me he still hadn’t figured out what the heck that crazy dream movie was about. But then Colonel followed that up by informing me that he had just forwarded the link for my blog to a fellow movie lover over in California. Now that’s power you can’t buy people. Ego? Sorry Norman, but we’re all stocked up here.

No. My writer’s block can be attributed simply to a total lack of inspiration brought on by what is already being considered one of the most lackluster years in the history of the movies. Nothing released so far this year, except of course for the simply brilliant Inception (sorry Colonel) and one or two others, has gotten me at all excited about the movies. And nearly a hundred movies have been released this year. Now that’s just sad. And therefore my silence for the past three weeks. But then, suddenly…reinvigoration. The spark reignited. Inspiration struck. I remembered what made me fall in love with movies in the first place. I recalled the classics.

Growing up as a small boy in Jacksonville, Florida, singing mice and wisecracking sponges interested me far less than the names Hepburn, Stewart and Hitchcock did. I grew up loving the classics. The Philadelphia Story; Mr. Smith Goes to Washington; Vertigo. These were titles whose mere mention could invoke from me a long-winded and running commentary about the majesty and grandeur of the great silver screen. Of course, I probably didn’t use words like majesty and grandeur, but…never the less. I was a child who didn’t need color or any other indulgence of modernity to know what good was.

And so, yesterday, I found myself strolling the marvelously growing list of movies available now for instant viewing from Netflix. I determined to stick to the classics section, and there I found a great many titles with which I was vastly familiar, but before that day, knew of by name alone. I settled on The Big Sleep starring the great Humphrey Bogart and the luminous Lauren Bacall, a movie I had known of for some time, but embarrassingly had never seen before. What a thrilling experience. The Big Sleep is infamously, among movie aficionados, known for being one of the most confusing film noirs in the history of the genre. I found that to be a bit of a bum wrap. Sure it’s got some convoluted plot strands, some of which turn out to be much less important to the ultimate outcome of the film than originally expected. And one murder/possible suicide is never cleared up to today’s movie audiences’ required satisfaction, I’m sure.

But the plot isn’t what keeps us coming back to this one anyway. That charge belongs to the enormous chemistry that existed between the film’s two spectacular leads. Watching Bogie and Bacall trade one liners and sly, knowing double entendres back and forth, simply dripping with sexuality, is just thrilling. Nowhere will you find wittier or more quickly delivered dialogue than you will wondrously observe in this terrific masterpiece. Consider this rapid-fire exchange:

Mars: Who’s the girl?

Marlowe: Client of mine. Geiger tried to throw a loop on her, so we came here to try and talk things over.

Mars: Convenient the door being open when you didn’t have a key.

Marlowe: Yeah wasn’t it. By the way, how’d you happen to have one?

Mars: Is that any of your business?

Marlowe: I could make it my business.

Mars: I could make your business mine.

Marlowe: Oh you wouldn’t like it. The pay’s too small.

So if you have found yourself, like me, growing numb with dissatisfaction and endless disappointment by this year’s offering of new films, do yourself a favor and seek out The Big Sleep. It will end any negativity you may hold towards the art of cinema and make right the world again. At least it will help with the ejection of some seriously unwanted writer’s block.

Until next week, here is my hope that we all find our Shangri-La. Good night.

Nolan's Masterful Conception

Two years ago. Summertime. Durham. I sat quietly in a darkened theater and was treated beyond my wildest expectations, thanks to the infinitely creative mind of Christopher Nolan and his team of movie geniuses, to one of the greatest, most entertaining and thrilling movie rides of my then 26 years. The Dark Knight, for me, was one of those oh-so-rare, 100% perfectly fulfilling movie experiences.

Two years later. Summertime. Marietta. And he's done it again. Christopher Nolan, working from his first completely original script and story idea since Following (1998), along with the majority of the same team from The Dark Knight, has delivered with Inception yet another perfectly crafted and marvelously entertaining film. As I sat in the theater yesterday watching this stunning story unfold, scene after scene, I found myself literally holding my breath and crossing my fingers in hopes that he could really do what it seemed he was doing…hitting another one out of the park. And now, as I sit here typing these words and reflecting back over the decade-long career that Nolan has crafted for himself since he gave us 2000’s masterfully told in reverse Memento, I realize that Inception is in all humbly-declared honesty, really more of a grand slam. Christopher Nolan is simply one of our greatest moviemakers working today.

When I went into the movie theater yesterday, I had already prepared myself, or my brain rather, to be ready to experience a very difficult-to-understand and confusing story. I was not going to be lost. Early reviews and on-the-street word-of-mouth had already negatively labeled the film with these descriptions, and I know that a lot of people are going to avoid seeing it for this very reason. I cannot stress this point enough: Inception is NOT too confusing. If you are a reasonably intelligent person, you will be able to follow the events depicted up on the screen. The story, in fact, is fairly simple and straightforward. It is the manner in which it unfolds, and the rules that apply to the dream state that add to the complexity, and for that matter, the entertainment value. And yet Nolan has tapped into some very basic ideas of dreams, the qualities of which we all have experienced for ourselves while dreaming, that will give much of the proceedings a feeling of familiarity to you as a viewer. The sensation of gravity or falling that often jolts one out of a dream state plays a key role in many of the movie’s most important scenes.

Now as I stated, the story is fairly simple and, in fact, follows the basic structure of a standard heist film. There is the idea or pitch; the gathering of the team; the set-up; and finally the actual heist or sting. If you can follow that, you can follow this story. Nolan adds two elements, however, that turn this into the most original heist movie you or I have ever seen. First, technology in a very near future allows for the ability of a man to enter another man’s dreams and steal a carefully guarded thought or idea. This alone would make the heist story a little more clever but not very. You would have a team stealing an idea rather than a painting, or a diamond, or a great deal of money. It is the second element, however, the element of “inception,” that turns the entire ordeal on its head, complicates the proceedings, and ultimately adds the masterstroke to this wonderful wonderful movie. I, of course, am not going to tell you what inception is, for fear of ruining the fun of finding out for yourself as you watch the movie.

I will tell you though that Nolan, in order to complement the story visually and energetically, has staged and directed some of the most thrillingly visceral action scenes brought to the screen in a very long time. The climax, in fact, that takes place over the final hour of the film, and across three levels of dreamscape, and during three different speeds of time is so perfectly calculated and staged…it is truly a marvel of timing and a triumph for Nolan as director that simply must be seen to be fully understood and appreciated. This is moviemaking at its absolute best.

Leonardo DiCaprio, in his second great role this year, gives one of his best performances and in so doing ultimately helps to elevate this movie into masterpiece territory. If Nolan as writer had simply left the story as a futuristic, dream world heist picture, he would have produced a very good and entertaining film worthy of our money and applause. However, his final stroke of genius, the one that raises Inception up from very good territory and into the rarely achieved heights of greatness is the inclusion of a literally intruding backstory for the DiCaprio character that adds the absolutely necessary element of humanity that all films must possess in order for us to completely buy into them. And it is DiCaprio’s performance in this role that encourages, maybe even demands that we the viewers not only like this character but want to see him succeed. We care about this character, and that alone earns our investment of time.

In a year filled with remakes and sequels and more of the same old thing, Christopher Nolan has stepped up to the plate and given us a genuinely original production. Inception is a terrific film. I highly recommend that you go and see it, for I can’t begin to imagine anything better coming along for quite some time.

The as-of-yet untitled Batman 3 is scheduled for a July 20, 2012 release date. With Nolan once again as director…I’ve already begun to hold my breath.

Until next week, here is my hope that we all find our Shangri-La. Good night.

35 Years of Not Going in the Water

“The thing about a shark... he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes.”

On June 20, 1975, a movie directed by an unknown, arrogant kid, entered the theaters a small, troubled little picture, and left them months later the undisputed champion of the Box Office, the largest moneymaker of all time, and a motion picture legend. If it has done nothing else in the thirty-five years since its release, Jaws has ensured that nine out of ten people who enter the ocean each summer inevitably hear somewhere in the back of their minds an ominous piano playing the eerie, alternating two notes (EF, EF, EF) that have come to represent approaching danger. Since that historic summer in '75, sharks have been the unchallenged superstars of our summer vacations. And Jaws has remained a genuine horror classic.

Forget the progressively worse sequels. Forget the cheap knock-offs (Piranha) and attempted CGI remakes (Deep Blue Sea). These only work to lessen the quality and impact of the original. While generally and unfortunately remembered as merely a movie about a shark that eats a bunch of people, Steven Spielberg’s Jaws is, upon closer examination, a near perfectly made film. Divided into three distinct acts, the movie is a masterpiece of slowly rising tension, a brilliant examination of the fear of the unknown, and a model tale of man versus nature.

One of the genius decisions made by Spielberg during the production of the movie, was to show the shark as little as possible. This would be unheard of today. If Jaws were made today (please, oh please let the rumors of a remake be untrue), you can be assured that a big, beautiful and up-close CGI great white shark would be one of the first things to appear on the screen. A monster movie without the monster? What production company would approve of that today? However, go back and watch the original film and you will not see the actual shark until a good hour into the movie. What Spielberg realized then, and what helps to make Jaws so much more than a mere monster movie now, is that the idea of the shark “somewhere below us” and the anticipation of its arrival and imminent attack are much more terrifying than the shark’s actual appearance. As Hitchcock once said, “Fear lies not in the bang, but in the expectation of it.”

Now Spielberg would be the first to admit that a great deal of what I just gave him credit for was the director simply rolling with the punches. The truth is that the shark basically didn’t work most of the time. Spielberg loves to tell the story of the shark’s first day on the set. Upon entering the water, this million-dollar robot quickly swished its tail twice, swam out into the Atlantic and promptly sank to the bottom of the sea. On only his second film, Spielberg was working in an era when computers could not make anything possible during post-production, and I imagine the young director thought at that moment that his career sank to the bottom of the ocean right alongside his film’s star. But the best directors of that time could prove themselves by using the tools that were available to them, filling in the blanks with innovation and talent, and always putting the story first. Spielberg proved to be one of the most innovative and talented storytellers in film, and has gone on to become the most successful and beloved director of all time. His genius ensured that even when the shark was not on the screen, we were still thinking about it and wondering when it was next going to attack.

In the years since he made the film, Spielberg has gone on to create some of our favorite and most remembered movie images (E.T. flying in front of the moon; Indiana Jones running from the giant boulder; a stampede of life-like dinosaurs). He’s won two Academy Awards for best director, and made one of the most powerful, beautiful, and important movies of all time (Schindler’s List). But for my money, his genius has never been as purely cinematic or had such a primal and raw impact on film as it did thirty-five years ago during the production of the masterpiece known as Jaws.

Happy anniversary to Jaws and to Steven Spielberg.

And until next week, here is my hope that we all find our Shangri-La…and a bigger boat. Good night.

Airing My Dirty Laundry

I had intended this week to write about a very special anniversary taking place in the moviesphere this month, but I am going to save that for a later post. Instead, I’m writing this week to apologize for and explain my recent sporadic approach to Movie Musings. It has been two weeks since my last post, which came two weeks after the release before that. This hopscotch of postings does not reflect any recent downturn in my interest in movies. It is not a statement of protest nor an awakening sign of indolence. I continue to love the movies as much now as ever before. The problem is I just haven’t been watching any lately.

You see, Elaine and I have come to the end of our time in North Carolina, and we are presently applying all of our energies towards the preparation of our imminent departure from the Old North State and forward to the Peach State. This is an exciting time for both of us, as it represents the next major step that we will take in our life together. But it is a bittersweet farewell, as most farewells tend to be. For North Carolina has been our home for nearly four years, and is the setting of many wonderful memories we will share and tales we will tell our children when they ask us to recount our first years of marriage. It is where we built the foundation of our married life. And I will miss it.

For all of you who have moved in your life, you know that a great deal of focus and emotion goes into such an experience, and so hobbies and extracurricular activities often get relegated to the back burner. Well that is where Movie Musings is right now. I am constantly thinking of topics I want to develop further, I write when I can, and will continue to do so as long as our move to Georgia allows me the opportunities. However, for a while, I imagine my posts will have to be a little more infrequent, and therefore must beg of you some patience with me. But please don’t give up on Movie Musings. As soon as Elaine and I are settled in our new home, and things begin to calm down a bit, I promise you the return of my weekly postings.

And now for a little business at hand. I am creating an emailing list for Movie Musings to inform my readers of new posts and other periodic updates. Until now, I have been leaving messages on Facebook and relied on Elaine to email the link to a few of my non-Facebook-frequenters. With the amount of news feed on Facebook, however, this is no longer a reliable method for new posting announcements. So please send me your email address (paulbwilder@gmail.com) so that I can add you to the list. After this week, I will no longer be using Facebook to post Movie Musings updates. You will receive the link to the new post via email.

And so, until next time, here is my hope that we all find our Shangri-La. Good night.

Lost & Satisfied

On September 22, 2004, for two breathless and mesmerizing hours, I sat, along with 18.65 million others, utterly gripped and completely astonished in front of a television set. For it was on that day that the passengers of Oceanic Flight 815 crashed onto a mysterious island somewhere between Sydney, Australia and Los Angeles, California and effectively made television history.

A couple days prior to this, I had chanced upon an article in some magazine or other that strongly encouraged me and anyone else who might be reading to tune into ABC on that early fall night in order to watch the series premier of a new show called Lost. An early review promised that it was going to be the most exciting two hours of television ever. Strong words to be sure that most likely couldn’t live up to their own grandiose enthusiasm (readers of this blog no doubt know something about grandiose enthusiasm), but intriguing enough to ensure my presence in front of the TV at 8:00 pm on the night of my 23^rd birthday.

The experience is one that I will never forget. For during those two hours, I watched what I every day since then have considered the two most exciting hours of television ever. The pilot episode of Lost didn’t merely live up to the superlative description that I had read in the days leading up to its premier, but soared past it. I had simply never experienced anything like it. For one thing, as soon as Matthew Fox woke up in the jungle and ran out to the beach to discover the wreckage of the plane in which he had minutes before been flying, I completely forgot that I was watching something created for television. The stunning production values, JJ Abrams incredible direction, and the terrific acting across the board all came together to create a thrilling piece of grade-A filmmaking.

For the next six years, Lost provided for its loyal fans a show that was consistently intelligent and endlessly entertaining. This past Sunday, on May 23, 2010, the show that had reestablished the dramatic serial as a successful primetime alternative to the mind-numbingly popular reality TV came to a dramatic conclusion during a two-and-a-half hour series finale. Divisive to the end, Lost’s finale has already inspired millions of written words from tear-wiping, whole-heartedly in love fans alongside their poison-spitting, sick-to-the-stomach with anger counterparts. As the final credits rolled, and I then knew the fate of the characters that I had come to love and root for over the past six years, I found myself faithfully encamped within the former of the two. This was a show that always earned the emotional reaction of its viewers, and the heart-tugging finale was no different. I was and am completely satisfied with the ending.

I will miss the water cooler conversations I had from week to week, season to season, with my coworkers, each of us trying to sway the other with our most recent theories and prognostications. I will miss the anticipation I felt for each new episode, each new season, encouraged by the perfectly constructed and often shocking cliffhangers as well as the show’s enduring mysteries. But most of all I will miss the many wonderful characters, who entered my life for one hour each week and left me happier for their intrusion. Like departing friends, it’s difficult to say goodbye. So instead of that, for the time being, I think I’ll just have to say “See you in another life, brotha.”

Until then, here is my hope that we all find our Shangri-La. Good night.

Festival de Cannes

Forget Sundance. Forget Toronto. Forget New York. For the past 63 years, no other film festival in the world has surpassed the venerable grandeur and prestige that is Cannes. For ten days each May, the greatest filmmakers from across the globe gather in the small seaside town in southern France to promote their latest films and to watch them in competition for the celebrated Palme d’Or. Today, May 12, 2010, the 63^rd annual Cannes Film Festival commences with a glitzy, star-studded red carpet event at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès. This year’s President of the Jury is American film director, Tim Burton. It is not uncommon to discover that a number of the films throughout the year to experience the greatest critical or popular successes during their regular theatrical runs also were part of the officially selected films to premier at Cannes.

Toward the end of the 1930’s, the powerful fascist dictatorships of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini were both so heavily involved in the enactment of control through the complete utilization of rhetoric and propaganda that the majority of the arts in Germany and Italy, especially film, were being specifically selected for censorship of content. In direct response to this censorship, the French Minister of National Education, Jean Zay, decided to establish an international film festival in France. Vichy, Biarritz, and Algiers were all at some point considered as host towns, but Cannes was eventually named the official home of the proposed festival.

September 1 through September 30, 1939 were declared the dates for the inaugural Festival International de Cannes. And then on September 1, 1939, Hitler’s troops invaded Poland, the world went to war, and the festival went dormant for the next seven years. Eventually making its premier in 1946 following the conclusion of World War II, the Cannes Film Festival has now lived on to become the longest running film festival of all time.

The festival is divided into various parts, the most exciting of which, “The Official Selection,” includes juried competitions. The world’s filmmakers must submit their entries to the festival’s board of directors who then decide which films will be a part of “The Official Selection.” There are then two main competitions: the first known simply as “Competition,” the second known as “Un Certain Regard.” The twenty films selected to compete for the esteemed Palme d’Or are viewed in the Théâtre Lumière as part of “Competition.” The films are judged by an annually selected jury and president, comprised each year of international artists based on their respective bodies of work and respect from their peers.

Notable past winners include Billy Wilder’s The Lost Weekend (1946), Carol Reed’s incredible masterpiece The Third Man (1949), Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H (1970), and Roman Polanski’s The Pianist (2002). One of the most famous Palme d’Or wins was the year Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994) took home the prestigious award. Tarantino’s most recent film, the Academy Award-winning Inglourious Basterds (2009), also was selected to premier at Cannes. Last year’s Palme d’Or winner was Michael Haneke’s much praised The White Ribbon.

Here is a list of a few of the films chosen to compete as part of “The Official Selection” this year at Cannes that I think belong on your radar screens. I have only included the English translations of the titles. I encourage you to seek these films out upon their release into theaters. Some of them may be harder to find outside of New York City or Los Angeles, so be sure to add them to your Netflix queues:

Another Year directed by Mike Leigh (England)

Biutiful directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu (Spain)

Certified Copy directed by Abbas Kiarostami (France)

Fair Game directed by Doug Liman (USA)

There is also a section at Cannes reserved for films selected to premier outside of competition. Three are from the United States this year:

Robin Hood directed by Ridley Scott

Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps directed by Oliver Stone

…and the terrifically-titled You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger directed by Woody Allen. That is one that I am anxiously looking forward to seeing. I only hope that it lives up to its great title.

Until next week, here is my hope that we all find our Shangri-La. Good night.

Preview of Coming Attractions: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Movies

Every year right around this time, I start getting excited about new movies again. Up until this point in the year, the studios, with a few notable exceptions, have been releasing their backlog of unimpressive filler films deemed not worthy for fan-fared release during one of the more platinum movie seasons: namely the summer “blockbuster” and fall “awards magnet” seasons. Therefore, with little to wet my insatiable appetite for new cinema beyond titles such as Tooth Fairy, Dear John, and The Bounty Hunter, I have, for less of a better means of description, been going hungry for the past four months.

Except for Shutter Island, which was moved from its originally scheduled release date of October 3, 2009 in order for Paramount Pictures to ensure the release of at least one predicted money-maker during a season usually known for its slim pickin’s, no other film released in 2010 thus far has remotely enticed me to leave the comfort of my rather significant Netflix queue or my rather modest home theater system and to venture out to the dreaded multiplexes. I say dreaded for, to quote Obi-Wan, “nowhere will you find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.”

All right, that’s overstating it a bit. However, they are upheavals of excess and extortion. Sorry readers. Apparently I’m incapable of anything less than hyperbole tonight. But movie theaters have lost their charm. They just aren’t what they used to be. If you’ll allow me a bit of waxing poetic through nostalgia, going to the movies used to be a magical experience of romantic proportions, even if you weren’t on a date. Of course, people also used to put on a hat and gloves to go into town, so…so much for nostalgia. Nowadays, you can go broke even before you get to the popcorn line. And with everyone and his Aunt Lillian jumping on the fast train to 3D town, we are currently looking at ticket prices averaging between $15 and $20 per person. My particular Netflix package costs me less than $10 per month, and my DVD player comes with a pause button in case I have to throw somebody out of the house when his cell phone goes off in the middle of the movie.

When I went to see The Dark Knight for the second time (because I just had to see it a second time), the movie had barely begun to roll when a woman pushing a stroller and leading two bouncing monkeys, who, judging by the vertical diameter of their eyeballs and inability not to twitch, had finished their three gallons of Pepsi before entering the room, took the seat directly next to mine. That’s right. The singular seat. The kids apparently were given free reign to utilize the running space directly in front of my chair. That movie theater was more like a daycare center, and I was the free babysitter paying for the privilege of watching the kids. I kept waiting for the mother to lean over and say, “Do you mind keeping an eye on them? I’m trying to watch this movie.” Terrible.

Anyways, long story a little less long, movie theaters, in my opinion, are the worst way to see a movie these days, especially considering the extremely reasonably short amount of time it takes for new movies to come out on DVD, and the quality of home entertainment centers. That is unless something comes along that sparks my interest enough to encourage my willing ignorance of the above-stated grievances. And this is the time of year when studios start releasing movies with the power to encourage that very willing ignorance.

Looking ahead at the coming months’ release schedules, there are a number of movies coming out that I am either extremely excited about or intrigued enough by to risk a repeat of my Dark Knight fiasco. Here is a handful on my radar that I think you might like to have on yours.

On May 14, the director and lead actor of the 2000 Academy Award-winning Gladiator are re-teaming to bring us a brand new Robin Hood that this time doesn’t include Kevin Costner sometimes attempting a mediocre British accent. The trailer looks incredible. Cate Blanchett is Maid Marion. This one has been getting a lot of buzz for quite awhile.

On June 18, Pixar returns to the ongoing and endlessly entertaining saga of Woody and Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story 3. A new Pixar movie is always worthy of a trip to the theater.

On July 16, Christopher Nolan releases his first originally conceived idea since his monumentally mind-binding Memento (2000). Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Juno’s Ellen Page, Inception, based on the trailers, looks to be as equally mind-binding and original. I will now see anything brought to us by the director of The Dark Knight.

Finally, on August 13, Julia Roberts returns to the big screen in one of her first leading roles since she won the Academy Award for 2000’s Erin Brockovich. I don’t know about you, but personally I’ve missed Julia ever since she decided to live happily ever after as Mrs. Danny Moder and family. Eat Pray Love may seem to be aimed more at the 40-year-old female lobby, and not the 28-year-old male district. But it is the sophomore directorial effort of Glee co-creator Ryan Murphy, and costars the always-terrific Javier Bardem, so I’m willing to give it a try. And…Julia Roberts.

So there you have it. We’ll have to wait and see if they can live up to the hype. I’m looking forward to seeing if they do.

Until next week, here is my hope that we all find our Shangri-La. Good night.

The Art of Returning Home

I cannot think of anything more fulfilling than going on a superb vacation, except, of course, for coming home from a superb vacation. There is just something about returning to the comfortable and the well-known that is so completely satisfying. Like listening to a preferred standard, reading a beloved classic, or re-watching a favorite flick, going back home offers a sensation of genuine familiarity that is just so right.

Since returning to North Carolina from our recent roam through central California, Elaine and I have been reinserting ourselves happily back into our day-to-day life, which for me includes the consideration of a weekly topic for this blog. Not wishing to overuse my free pass, the round about ramble, I have been trying to steer this week’s topic back in the direction of the movies. However, considering I spent the last ten days vacationing on the other side of the country and not watching a single new movie, that task has not proved itself entirely uncomplicated.

But then as I sat reflecting on home and how it feels to return to a place you know so well, I began to think about a movie that I return to again and again for a similar sort of comfort and rejuvenation. A movie that, no matter how many times I watch, manages to never lose hold of its power and its timelessness. A movie that has never fallen from its position way up on top of my list of favorites. A movie that I love like home. Ernest Thompson’s 1981 adaptation of his own play, On Golden Pond, so perfectly encapsulates the perpetual themes of age and time, loss and death, family and strength, that I have stopped waiting for anything better to come along.

The return of Norman and Ethel Thayer to their summer home in Maine is the beginning to one of the most beautiful and moving stories ever committed to film. I have never found an equal in its mesmerizing ability to portray with such flawless authenticity the sheer emotion that results from a life spent growing old with somebody, who knows you better than you know yourself. Director Mark Rydell utilized a very straightforward and idyllic approach to his filming of the story, which was absolutely the correct approach to take. If he had chosen to grandstand in spectacle and effects, the subtle glances and nuances of character along with the clever quips and jabs throughout the rich and believable dialogue would have been lost in the glare.

And then there is the cast. Nowhere will you find a more stunning example of motion picture acting than within the trifecta of awards-worthy performances captured by Henry Fonda, Jane Fonda, and Katharine Hepburn. Henry Fonda won a long overdue Academy Award for this performance, which ended up being his last. He died shortly after receiving the award. His rendering of the octogenarian, Norman, who fears his approaching death but discovers a small reserve of youthfulness after befriending a young boy, is hilarious one minute, heartbreaking the next. Katharine Hepburn, as his wife Ethel, is wisdom and strength incarnate. Hers is one of my absolute favorite performances of all time. It is breathtaking. Jane Fonda was never better than she was here, acting beside her real life dad, as the daughter of a man who was never able to make her feel wanted or loved. If you ever want to watch a movie strictly for the purpose of seeing great acting at work, look no further than this film.

With all due respect to Thomas Wolfe, I believe you can go home again, and recommend, from time to time, you give it a try. It can be a rejuvenating experience. Just like watching On Golden Pond.

Until next week, here is my hope that we all find our Shangri-La. Good night.

Like Lemonade from Lemons

The children have been warned of the lurking danger outside the small school building and have quietly made their way out the side door. As they approach the calm street running along the front side of the building, the camera pulls back and frames the schoolhouse in an imposing, wide-angle shot. Suddenly the sound of running feet rat-a-tat-tat’s across the soundtrack, and the abrupt disturbance sends a swarm of black birds up into the air from behind the building. The horrific chase begins.

The scene I have just described is probably the most famous scene Alfred Hitchcock ever filmed for one of his movies, second only to the infamous shower scene from Psycho. The attack on the small seaside village of Bodega Bay by thousands of birds in Hitchcock’s The Birds to this day remains a stunning thrill ride and cinematic masterpiece. I wanted to begin this week’s post with this particular movie remembrance, because today I walked in front of that very same schoolhouse, and stood in roughly the same spot where I imagine Hitchcock must have stood and peered through his viewfinder, in order to frame what would become such a legendary movie image, roughly 47 years ago.

Now those of you who read my blog post last week know that I promised then to be sending my post forth into the blogosphere this week from Paris, France. And those of you who have seen The Birds know that the small seaside village of Bodega Bay isn’t located in France but resides approximately 65 miles north of San Francisco, California. And I am further certain that those of you who have not been living underneath a rock for the past week know that the entire continent of Europe has been all but unreachable since last Thursday due to the April 14 eruption of Mount Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland. All of this is to say rather verbosely that this post is not in fact coming to you this week from France. Alas!

When Elaine and I began preparation for our trip to France nearly a year ago (longer if you take into consideration the fact that we both promised each other sometime back in 2006 a vacation somewhere in Europe once school was completely finished for us both), we believed we had thought of everything. Probably not a surprise that volcano eruption was not on our list of possible deal breakers. At any rate, this past Friday, we caught our flight from Raleigh/Durham, and made the first leg of the journey to our two-hour layover in Cincinnati. We were told by the airport official who checked us in that if they were going to cancel our flight to France, they would have already done so at that point. Phew! What a relief! So we boarded, and we flew. The second, and I mean the second, we stepped off the plane in Ohio we were informed that all flights to and from Europe had been canceled, and that the airspace over the majority of the continent had been completely shut down indefinitely.

Shock. Disbelief. Heartbreak. All of our planning, all of our hoping, all of our dreaming gone just like that. In less than a flash, France was snatched from us. We were pointed in the direction of a rather daunting, single-file line leading up to a service counter, where three airport workers sat and slowly attempted to help everyone who had arrived in Cincinnati that day with every intention of flying on to somewhere in Europe. The line crept. As Elaine and I stood looking wide-eyed at each other, we began to hear the familiar and relatable stories of the others in line with us and began to share in our collective explosion of bad luck. A man in the States for kidney surgery trying to get back to his family in the Ukraine. A boy trying to reach a job interview in Paris so that he could move back to France. People stranded. People confused. People who just wanted to go home. Elaine’s and my predicament, however, left us with an interesting and unique set of choices. We could either refund our tickets to France, and have Delta fly us back to North Carolina and disappointment, or we could on-the-spot decide to salvage our vacation (time that we both already had off from work) and resolve to travel some place else.

And so we changed our tickets over to a later flight that evening leaving for San Francisco. Rather than wallow in our misfortune, we decided to make the most of our planned time off, a country full of things we both have wanted to see and do, and a unique situation that afforded us, surprisingly, a great deal of flexibility. We spent two days in San Francisco, and then drove up to Sonoma wine country, where we have been hopping from vineyard to vineyard, sampling some of this country’s best wines. Tomorrow we leave for Monterey and Carmel.

Now I don’t want to give you a false sense of heroics and stiff upper-lippery from this story. There have been occasions during our journey, where one of us, either Elaine or myself, has looked at the other and, with slightly glassy eyes, made the comment that, if things had gone as planned, at that moment we should have been strolling the grounds where Louis XIV once outrivaled extravagance at the Palace of Versailles. We have not always managed the level of flawlessness that I would like to think we are capable of when it comes to rolling with the punches and being good sports about life’s little curveballs. There have been times when we flat out just wish Paris had worked out for us.

However, there was a moment in San Francisco, when we were dining at a terrific seafood restaurant at the end of Pier 39, that I would like to tell you about. We were sitting at our table; I sipping a glass of very fine pinot noir and Elaine nibbling at a mouth-watering plate of Dungeness crab pasta, Alcatraz perfectly visible out a window overlooking San Francisco Bay to our right, the sun setting just beyond the Golden Gate Bridge to our left. I took a sip of my wonderfully aged red, and in that moment, with that remarkable view before me and my favorite person beside me, I think I stopped aching for Paris and decided to let San Francisco in.

Paris was a dream for us, and now it’s our dream deferred. As with all dreams, the possibilities remain endless and our imaginations are free to continue to run wild. One day we will get the opportunity to make that dream come true again. But as it stands now, we may not have Paris, but we’ll always have San Francisco and Sonoma wine country.

Until next week, here is my hope that we all find out Shangri-La. Good night.

Remember the Name Carey Mulligan!

There are many reasons I can list in the coming space to encourage you to see a little movie I just watched called An Education: the beautiful recreation of 1960’s London and Paris; the witty and incisive story of a woman’s carefully observed place in education and society; the sure-handed direction of Danish filmmaker Lone Scherfig. However, the raison d'être that is absolutely the most compelling I can think of for you to move this terrific movie to the top of your Netflix queue is so that you can behold the stunning performance of Carey Mulligan.

She plays a young, high school age girl, who loves to read brilliant literature, listen to French music, and talk to her friends with splendid assurance about the many diversions that lie beyond the quaint stone walls of her home in Twittenham. Her goal is acceptance into a literature program at Oxford, believing that such an education is the most obvious door to the world of which she so desperately wants to be a part. And, after all, “there’s such a lot of world to see,” as Audrey Hepburn once sang. Here I pause to conjure up the image of Hepburn’s Holly Golightly not merely out of superfluous dexterity, but rather to provide you with a solid mental reference with which to compare Mulligan’s performance. For not since Hepburn herself graced the great silver screens has an actress possessed such a marvelous spirit and quality of wondrous watch-ability.

Her Jenny is the trophy of all her teachers, the object of many boys’ attentions, and a constant pride for her loving and supportive parents. But then one rainy day, the older, sophisticated and handsome David pulls up in his sporty car and offers her a ride home. She is immediately taken in by his charm and his carefree consumption of worldly luxuries. He seems to enjoy her maturity and intelligence but mostly is taken by her wide-eyed desire for what he can afford her. This is definitely a movie about seductions and advantages taken, but don’t immediately jump to any conclusions regarding scenarios of older men and their exploitation of young girls’ naiveté. Jenny is naïve, but she is not dumb. David, for her, is a shortcut to the world. The relationship offers them both opportunities for gain. But as with many shortcuts taken in life, ironically lessons are often learned the hard way.

An Education, for all of its tough realities, is a thoroughly enjoyable and often very romantic movie. The magical scenes in Paris will make you want to fall in love, hop on a flight to France, and stroll the Rue de la Paix with your arm around somebody significant. As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what I am going to do. And so, I will be posting next week from Paris. So while I make my way to The City of Lights, I encourage you to go and pick up a copy of An Education, and see what I’m talking about when I say that Carey Mulligan is simply dazzling.

Until next week, here is my hope that we all find out Shangri-La. Au revoir.

A Movie Worthy of Your Ovation

A part of me didn’t want it to be good. I think I almost didn’t want to like it. It would have been easier. Easier to not have to go through the whole reevaluation process. Easier to simply know that I just don’t like her movies and therefore don’t have to watch them. And certainly don’t have to take up an entire week’s worth of blogging to talk about one. But then she had to go and win an Academy Award and force my inevitable reconsideration. I just never thought I’d see the day when I would not find one of her movies anything other than completely cloying. I never thought I’d see the day when I would really and truly whole-heartedly recommend one of her movies to you. I certainly never imagined I’d see the day when I would actually type the words “Academy Award winner Sandra Bullock.” Well bust my buttons, by George, for I was wrong and that very day has come.

The Blind Side is an inspirational, feel-good movie that avoids all of the clichés and various other problems that usually make me avoid inspirational, feel-good movies. There are no unnecessary subplots, no character turned cardboard cutout villain to encourage forced conflict, no added sugar for extra sweetness. In my experience, you might just as well hook an IV drip of sucrose up to your arm as sit through one of these usually sappy excuses for entertainment. The Blind Side is just not one of them. This is simply a really good movie, with a good story to tell and excellent acting that wins our affection by earning our smiles and tears rather than stealing them from us. The true story of Michael Oher and how he came to live with the Tuohy family, survive high school and eventually play football for Ole Miss makes for a compelling and enjoyable movie-watching experience. A story that could have easily slipped into cheap emotional trickery and preachiness, The Blind Side succeeds by maintaining throughout its running time a note of absolute sincerity.

Aside from Nick Saban, who gives a comically bad performance in a cameo appearance as himself (you can almost see his eyes moving back and forth as he reads his dialogue off the cue card), the acting is universally first-rate. Tim McGraw as Sean Tuohy, the supportive husband who knows from years of experience what every one of his wife’s looks means, was an inspired bit of casting. By his second scene, I had all but forgotten that I was watching a famous country singer up there on the screen. Quinton Aaron gives a solid and likable performance as Michael Oher. Although he is frequently forced to act in Bullock’s rather significant shadow, his impressive and natural chemistry with the actress ensures that his performance never the less shines through. Jae Head is a lot of fun as S.J., the Tuohy’s young son, who immediately takes to his new role as Michael Oher’s little brother. And Lily Collins offers great support as the teenage daughter who shows a lot of maturity in her ability to see beyond the cruel words that can come out of the mouths of judgmental adolescents.

As for my new friend Sandra Bullock, well, she simply gives a terrific, star re-making performance that guides this movie far away from predictability and right on into sheer likeability. Now, this is not a knock-you-off-your-feet, earth-shaking kind of performance. You will not once forget that you are watching Sandra Bullock playing a part. That is, mind you, not a bad thing here. Leigh Anne Tuohy is for Sandra Bullock what Erin Brockovich was for Julia Roberts. Merely a perfect match between character and actor. I don’t know any other way to put it. I absolutely loved her in this role. In fact, this performance is so good, it goes a long way in helping me in the still ongoing erasure from my memories of any trace of reminder that I have ever seen Speed 2 and both Miss Congenialities. I sincerely hope Ms. Bullock has a lot more movies like The Blind Side in her future.

And so, yes, I was short-sighted and arrogant and I apologize. For there is indeed a Sandra Bullock movie out there that is every bit as worthy of a recommendation as every other movie I’ve promoted on this blog. I guess you could say this one just sort of…blind-sided me. And there goes the remainder of my credibility. Oh well. The Blind Side. If you haven’t already, see it.

Until next week, here is my hope that we all find our Shangri-La. Good night.

An Epic Search for Family

Tonight I’m going to switch gears so that I can tell you that Monday night I finished reading a stunningly realized piece of literary greatness, which that night took its rightful seat atop the list of my all time most thrilling page-turning experiences. It was one of those times when I turned the last page and shut the book and just sat there for a moment without moving or saying a word. A reading experience that affects you in such a way that you must pause and think before you can move on to the next thing. Written by The New York Review of Books contributing writer, Daniel Mendelsohn, The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million is the true story of the author’s multi-year search for the identity of one entire branch of his family tree, lost to the Nazi carnage of World War II.

As a small boy, Mendelsohn recounts at the beginning of his journey, he could make certain members of his family burst into tears simply by entering a room. This uncanny ability to make the elder generation of his relatives weep was due to nothing more than the boy's involuntary, fierce resemblance to his grandfather’s oldest brother, Shmiel. From that point in his life on, a fascination with understanding this reaction to his looks and their likeness to a man who died years before he was even born grows within him until it ultimately leads to the round-the-world voyage of discovery that makes up this mesmerizing tale.

As with any piece of literature or music or film that uses the Holocaust as the episode within which to set its scene, there is always the danger of falling prey to two guaranteed means of failure. Either the story is a too specific and sharp-focused examination of one person or small group of people; the author’s attempt to give his audience a jolting up close look at a character with whom to identify. An approach that inevitably runs the risk of undermining the enormity of the Holocaust. Or the author views the subject through a wide-focus lens in order to paint a truly grand picture of the event that ultimately failed in its participants’ attempts to bring about the total annihilation of an entire race of people. This approach ultimately leaves the reader, while surely filled with the appropriate shock and disgust, a distant and removed observer of the murder of vast amounts of faceless victims.

Mendelsohn beautifully navigates his story between these two techniques. Throughout his book, he makes it clear that his main focus is to put faces on the members of his great uncle’s family. However, in order to find out who this man was, what his wife was like, what his four daughters did for fun around their small Ukrainian town, and, most important to the author, when and how they all eventually succumbed to Hitler’s Final Solution to the Jewish question, the author must venture far away from his home in New York City and seek out survivors who may have at some point come in contact with his lost family members. As he slowly, many times by absolutely amazing luck, finds these marvelously described people, from Australia and Sweden to Israel and eventually the small town of Bolechow itself, and listens to all of their stories of endurance in the face of unimaginable horror, Mendelsohn begins to realize that in his efforts to uncover the specifics, he has written a book that testifies to the Holocaust as a whole. He never loses sight of the big picture, even as he hones in on the explicit details.

And most perfect of all, this quest to find these lost relatives, to try to know and understand the man who he so closely resembled as a child that he often brought people to tears, ultimately becomes for Mendelsohn a journey of self-discovery. His book is a wonderful testament to the importance of family and the idea that only through a genuine appreciation of where you came from can you ever truly know who you are.

I can’t think of a better way to spend this year’s observances of Easter and Passover than by reading a book that recognizes how special it is to be a part of a family.

Until next week, here is my hope that we all find out Shangri-La. Good night.

A Good Head of Steam on the Ol' African Queen

They both had already worked through what many believed to be the high points of their movie careers. Even though she had yet to act in three of the four movies that would bring her the current record for most Academy Awards won by an actress, the general consensus at the time was that her best work was behind her. He had become famous for playing the tough, sharp-witted romantic lead in some of the greatest Hollywood movies of all time, but age and a chronic drinking problem had all but guaranteed that those types of roles no longer found their way to his door. However, in 1951, when the two collaborated on a film together for the first time, a true movie classic was born. She opened up a new chapter on her prestigious film career, deepening the impact of her future status as a genuine movie legend. And he won the Academy Award that had been eluding him for more than twenty years.

Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart together in John Huston’s The African Queen make up one of the most memorable film duos in all of cinematic history. She plays the spinsterish missionary sister assisting her minister brother to bring just a touch of good English decency and God-fearing Christianity to some of the wildest parts of East Africa. He plays a gruff and crude machinist who brings news of the outside world to the mission by traveling weekly up the Ulanga River aboard the small, grimy but capable steam-powered riverboat, the African Queen. When World War I breaks out, and the Germans invade the territory, destroy the mission, and kill her brother, Hepburn’s prim and proper lady has but one chance for survival. She will have to travel with Bogart’s gin-swilling Charlie Allnut down one of the most dangerous rivers in the world aboard the African Queen. Marvelous hilarity ensues as his plans to tuck into a quiet and unassuming little cove in order to wait out the war clash with her newfound enthusiasm for tangible excitement and spirited desire to use the small sea craft as a means of entering into battle for Queen and country.

John Huston, the film’s director, is reported to have said that the initial plans for the movie were for it to be more of an adventure thriller. However, once Hepburn and Bogart arrived on location (rare for a film of this time) and proved to not only have palpable chemistry but were also each other’s match for comic timing, the film crew decided to turn up the comedy level in order to fully utilize this aspect of its cast. You can see this on display no better than in the scene when Bogart takes the boat down the Ulanga’s first set of rapids in an effort to scare Hepburn into submitting to his wishes. Watch as Bogart looks on in total disbelief as a wide-eyed Hepburn dabs her face off with a handkerchief and professes, “I never dreamed that any mere physical experience could be so stimulating.” I am right this second laughing out loud thinking of her uttering that line. It is a priceless moment among many.

For years, the only way to see this gem of a movie has been to either pop in your old, and no-doubt warn out copy on VHS or hope to catch it some late night on Turner Classic Movies. Very few greater films have been unavailable in digital format for so long. Now, after a painstakingly meticulous restoration process that has returned the film to its original Technicolor splendor, The African Queen can be purchased either on DVD or Blue Ray for the first time ever. Not many films would lead me to recommend that you, my readers, drop whatever it is you are doing right this moment, get in your car, drive to your closest movie retailer, and not hesitate for a second in plopping $20 bucks down to buy this movie. I reserve my highest praise for movies that, regardless of whatever else they do, succeed at offering the purest satisfaction by being an absolute entertainment experience. That is The African Queen.

Until next week, here's my hope that we all find our Shangri-La. Good night.

A Touch of the Blarney

In the spirit of the day, I attempted for about two minutes and twelve seconds to write this post in a beautifully thick Irish brogue dialect. This proved an ill-fated idea. Alas, to misquote an old Gaelic proverb, it is better to write in clever English than in broken Irish. Never the less, I will approach tonight’s post with every intention of maintaining just a touch of the Blarney.

When you think of Ireland and the movies, if you think about them at all, your thoughts most likely jump immediately to one of two kinds of movies. Either you picture terrorist thrillers with the IRA standing in for the brood of bad guys; something in the flavor of Harrison Ford’s Patriot Games. Or you picture comic scenes set among quaint little villages, with quirky squinty-eyed and ruddy-cheeked characters clinging thoroughly to their God-fearing traditions; perhaps Disney’s Darby O’Gill and the Little People or John Wayne’s The Quiet Man. However, there is a different brand of Irish cinema out there, adding a richer and more meaningful depth to the stories of the strong and determined people who hail from the Emerald Isle. The film I want to talk about tonight was directed by two-time Academy Award nominated and Dublin born Jim Sheridan.

A couple of years ago, I happened upon a little movie not at all by accident. Rather, I came to know the film thanks to the marvelous recommendation of my sister’s mother-in-law and treasured friend of the family, Barri Jones. The movie was made in 2002 but did not premier in the States until 2003, and then only within the film festival circuit. Needless-to-say, the movie got lost in the shuffle and remained completely unnoticed by me until Barri made the splendid introduction. At the time, I already knew Jim Sheridan, in fact very well, as the director of the brilliant and powerful In the Name of the Father starring the peerless Daniel Day-Lewis. That film, along with Day-Lewis’ Academy Award winning performance in Sheridan’s My Left Foot, etched out a high-ranking position for the director among Irish cinema’s foremost significant elite.

In America is the wonderful story of an Irish family that illegally immigrates to the United States, with hope that the father can break into the New York theater scene. This is not your standard immigration story of huddled masses arriving in New York Harbor aboard an overcrowded steamer. In this story, in fact, the family crosses the Canadian border in a station wagon. There is no one in this story yearning to be free. The plight of this family is merely an attempt at a fresh start in a country famous for them. And yet the efforts made by these parents to create a home for their spirited young daughters among the slums of Hell’s Kitchen are truly heroic to behold. Nowhere will you find a better example of the modern day immigrant experience than within this amazing little movie. A scene at a fair with the dad, a game of double or nothing, and the family’s entire life savings proves to be one of the most gut-wrenching scenes I have ever watched. But this is no story of being down and out and full of disappointment and collapse. Rather with each falter this family manages to keep pushing with effort back in the direction of hope. It is inspiring.

The acting is vibrant and genuine across the board. Paddy Considine as the father is wonderful as a man who can stomach the ridicule that accompanies his outsider status, but can’t fathom the possibility of his own failure. The girls are played by real-life sisters, Sarah and Emma Bolger, in two magnificent presentations of youthful strength of mind, both completely devoid of any hint of the pretension or overacting that often supplements child performances. Holding the whole family together with heart-breaking strength and valiant determination is the mother, played with unnerving realism in an Academy Award nominated performance by Samantha Morton. If you did not know any better, you might be persuaded to believe that Sheridan found a real family to portray his onscreen creation, they are that believable.

So tonight on this celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, should you find yourself in need of something to go along with your coddle and stout, heed this recommendation from Barri and me. See In America.

And now, along with a raised glass of Guinness, here is my hope that we all find our Shangri-La. Slán go fóill.

I Remember Oscar

Well, the Oscars were Sunday night. And that must mean that come Monday morning, people all over the country were collectively sharing in the exact same sentiment: “I’ve never even heard of The Hurt Locker.” At least that’s what I keep hearing around the water cooler. Now this tells me two things. One, they obviously haven’t been reading my blog. And two, the movie studios are spending much more money promoting the likes of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen than they are spending to push the really great movies being made each year. That, coupled with the fact that the movie-going public refuses to stray too far from its entertainment comfort zones, means that this year’s top award winner is the lowest grossing Best Picture of all time.

The other commonly heralded statement I keep hearing questions why Avatar did not win, especially considering the correlation between how much money it has made and its immense popularity. As far as my opinion goes, I have seen both movies, and while I thoroughly enjoyed Avatar and recognized its vast technical achievements, I personally feel that The Hurt Locker is the superior film. Another point to consider is that members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (and not the movie-going public) vote on the winners in each of their respective fields, and their votes are related (not solely) to the types of movies they would like to see continue to be made. And if that doesn’t satisfy angry Avatar fans, then note this. No film in the history of the Academy Awards has ever been named Best Picture without also having been nominated for its screenplay and/or its actors. So, to James Cameron, who wrote his own screenplay, I have one word: collaborate.

For the past 82 years, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has been taking one night out of the year to recognize and celebrate the accomplishments in filmmaking from the previous year. The very first Academy Awards were presented during a small banquet on May 16, 1929 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. 270 people attended the dinner for the price of $5 per person. Wings was named Best Picture of the year, which was not at all a surprise, as all the winners had already been announced three months earlier. By the second year, public interest in the awards had developed enough to warrant a radio broadcast of the affair. For the next 23 years, movie lovers across the states crowded around their radios on the night of the awards to see which of their favorite stars would take home one of the golden statues. This tradition lasted until 1953, when the Academy Awards made their first appearance on television.

Over the last several years, however, a steep decline in viewership has encouraged some small and large changes to the ceremony. The belief in the existence of a widening chasm between popular films and quality films led producers of the show this year to break with a precedent set 67 years ago. For the first time since 1943, ten films were nominated for the top honor of Best Picture. The hope was that the inclusion of more popular films such as The Blind Side alongside smaller, more independent films like District 9 would appeal to a wider audience, and ultimately improve declining broadcast ratings. This year’s show was up 14% in viewership compared to last year’s, so I guess the producers are patting themselves on the back this week.

For me, however, the value in the larger nomination field resides in the recognition of a more diverse and interesting collection of films. By casting the net across a broader expanse, members of the Academy are helping to ensure the continued creation of many different kinds of wonderful and entertaining films. Propelling the names of movies like Precious and An Education out of obscurity by placing them in a spotlight of appreciation beside titles like The Blind Side and Avatar guarantees that the people behind those movies can go on doing what they do, and that your local theaters will be showing more than the latest blockbuster currently showing on four of its ten screens.

My challenge to all those people claiming this week that they’ve never heard of The Hurt Locker or An Education is this. Now that you have heard of them, next time you venture to Blockbuster or tour your Netflix queue on the hunt for the perfect Friday night flick, take a chance and pick one of the nominees you would not normally reach for. You may just find yourself pleasantly surprised.

Until next week, here is my hope that we all find our Shangri-La. Good night.

Pixar!

I would love to sit in on one of the brainstorming sessions at Pixar Studios. You know the old adage, “There’s no such thing as a dumb question?” Well, it must be policy at Pixar that there is no such thing as a dumb idea. Bring anything to the table. Because you really just never know which dumb ideas are going to be green lighted as sheer brilliance. Who could have ever imagined that Up would not only be as terrific as it is, but as successful and popular as it was during its run in the theaters last year.

I envision the pitch for Up must have gone something like this:

“Ok. So our hero is 80. And after his wife dies and the city strong arms him into buying his property for major urban growth, and then he accidentally attacks a man he thinks is trespassing and therefore must be moved to a retirement community once he is deemed a public nuisance by the courts, our hero decides to attach thousands of helium balloons to his house and fly it to South America in an effort to fulfill a life-long promise he made to his late wife. Hey! In fact, why don’t we start out with a twenty-minute prologue that shows the tear-jerking lifetime love affair our hero had with his wife. We show everything. Dreams deferred. Heartbreaking realizations of infertility. And we end with her death and his subsequent solitude. Kids are gonna love this one!”

Any other studio would have laughed this proposal right into the garbage can. But not Pixar.

Since 1995, and the release of the first fully computer-animated feature film, Toy Story, Pixar Studios has been the premier movie studio for animation and the uncontested leader in story originality. No other major Hollywood production company has been as consistently successful. And no other studio has managed to incorporate the consistent child-like wonder that established the magic of the Hollywood Golden Age with the same majesty and grandeur that Pixar has infused into each of its ten terrific movies. A Pixar movie is not merely a ‘kids movie.’ These are movies that can be enjoyed by all.

I saw Up when it was first released last summer, and while I have come to expect greatness from Pixar, I was truly amazed by the genuine themes and grown-up emotions introduced in the film’s lovely prologue and woven throughout the remainder of the film. Ideas such as the loneliness that follows the loss of a lasting love affair and the regret that accompanies unfulfilled promises are not something you expect to find in a cartoon. But they are part of what makes a Pixar movie such a special and lasting piece of cinema.

My wife and I watched Up again last night, and I found myself just as thrilled by the adventure, just as captivated by the story, just as touched by the characters as I was the first time. Up, after Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, is only the second animated movie ever nominated for a best picture Academy Award. I think it more than deserves such an accolade. But whether or not it wins on Sunday will be merely a footnote in some future writer’s critique. Of much greater significance is the continued encouragement of every wildly passionate and off-the-wall proposal that enters the offices of Pixar Studios. Such encouragement leads to brilliant creativity. That’s entertainment!

Join me again next week for my recap of the Academy Awards.

Until then, here is my hope that we all find our Shangri-La. Goodnight.

Scorsese Dabbles in Genre

For Adam, Grove, and Hayes.

It is a great day for a film-lover when he gets the chance to see and then discuss a new Martin Scorsese film. This is especially true when that lover of cinema is as big a fan of Scorsese as I am. Considered by many within the industry as a one of the greatest American film directors of all time (I raise my hand in enthusiastic agreement), Martin Scorsese releasing a new movie is almost of itself an historical event. For me, it is without a doubt reason enough to leave the comfort and preferred movie-viewing setting of my home theater, and venture out to the multiplexes on an opening weekend.

To paraphrase Roger Ebert, the best Scorsese films are not great because of what they are about. They are great because of how they are about what they are about. Martin Scorsese is an unparalleled master of vision and style, who, for the past forty-plus years has used his innumerable skills to tell stories that unveil the vast complications that drive men to do what they do. And during each of those four decades, he created a film that I am not at all alone in regarding a masterpiece. In 1976, we were given Taxi Driver. In 1980, it was the powerful Raging Bull. 1990 saw the arrival of Scorsese’s best film to date, Goodfellas. And in 2006, The Departed brought the director his long overdue Academy Award.

Martin Scorsese is the antithesis to the pedestrian director. When watching one of his movies, you can see that every scene was set up and filmed with an exacting purpose. There is a reason behind each angle shot; the length of time between cuts; how close up to an actor’s face the camera is placed. Every decision he makes is made in the spirit of purest creativity and a supreme enthusiasm for the medium of film and its ability to tell a story. And because he approaches each new project with the eagerness of a first-timer and the passion of an old pro, every Martin Scorsese movie is a film-lover’s pleasure to see at least once.

For his newest opus, Scorsese has filmed the third successful adaptation (following Clint Eastwood's Mystic River and Ben Affleck's Gone Baby Gone) of a Dennis Lehane novel. Shutter Island is not great Scorsese, but it is very good Scorsese. The difference between great Scorsese and good Scorsese is a meticulous attention to character versus a strict adherence to an easily discernible plot. All of Scorsese’s great films favor the former over the latter. That is not the case with Shutter Island, a dark and mysterious tale of a federal marshal, who ventures to a remote island insane asylum to search for a patient who has inexplicably vanished. A throwback to the old John Huston film noirs and Alfred Hitchcock thrillers of the 40’s and 50’s, Shutter Island is Scorsese’s tribute, and he is clearly having a lot of fun showing what he learned from his predecessors.

To give away any of the plot, however, would completely spoil your experience watching it and discovering the film’s multitude of surprises, red herrings, and twists all for yourself. Suffice it to say that absolutely nothing is as it seems. Leonardo DiCaprio, in his fourth collaboration with Scorsese, gives a terrific performance as the lead marshal investigating the case; a man whose loosening grip on reality greatly affects the way we the viewers observe key events throughout the story. Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, and the awesome Max von Sydow are all excellent in supporting roles.

Watching this movie is one hell of a good time. And Scorsese’s touch throughout raises the bar considerably on the quality of the final vision. It is my hope, however, that for his next film, Scorsese returns to the brilliant character studies of his greatest works. He has just entered his fifth decade as a film director. Another masterpiece is surely on the way.

Until next week, here is my hope that we all find our Shangri-La.

Life in Acrylic and Oils

“What [is] any art but a mould in which to imprison for a moment the shining elusive element which is life itself – life hurrying past us and running away, too strong to stop, too sweet to lose.”

~ Willa Cather

For those of my readers who tend to notice the buried detail, you probably have spotted the subtitle I gave my blog. The rationale behind this subtitlery was not that I believed when I named it that “Movie Musings” could not stand on its own, nor was it a mere fling with poetic license. Rather this dabbling in mild excess stands behind two purposes. The first is that it excuses me on occasion to stray slightly from my primary topic with no need to explain my decision to do so. The other is to act, like Carol Burnett’s tug-of-the-ear, as a very subtle acknowledgement to someone who has affected me throughout my life, and imbued many of my undertakings with encouragement and inspiration.

On September 30, 1995, my grandfather gave me a gift. A book of children’s short stories entitled Round About Rambles. The book had belonged to him ever since he was a child and, based on a Christmas inscription to a Charles Wilder dated 1874, had been in my family for more than a hundred and twenty years. Below this inscription, my grandfather added one of his own:

To Paul Bedlan Wilder

from Carlton Bedlan Wilder

No words of inspiration. No perfect quotation or brief anecdote. Just our two names and the date. And yet with the inclusion of our shared middle name, he let me know better than any cleverly chosen words ever could that the two of us are linked. I gave this book a special shelf above my desk at home, where I sit writing this right now, and each time I look up from my computer screen and see it, I am reminded of who I am and of where I came from. And now I hope he, and you my readers, will permit me one of my own round about rambles.

Once when I was a child, ten or eleven (maybe older; maybe younger), Carl gave me an art lesson. You see, in my life, I have had the incomparable honor of being the grandson of a great artist. And early on, members in my family began to recognize, I suppose, that I had inherited a small fraction of his talent, which they frequently chose to tell me. So in an effort to catch his attention one day while visiting, I gathered together a drawing pad and some colored pencils, packed them into a small rowboat and anchored myself fifty yards offshore, where I began, for the next hour or so, to sketch the shoreline. It worked. A couple of days later my mom received a call from my grandmother that Carl had seen me sketching out in the river and was wondering if I’d be interested in a private art lesson.

For the next couple of weeks, on Sundays, my dad drove me to the “little lot” on Jack Wright Island Road, where, after a waffle breakfast, Carl and I would go off together and talk about art. I remember sitting out on the deck and being shown the way the color of a tree trunk changes as it curves around each side, represented in art by shadow and shading and variations in color tone. A few weeks into the lessons, Carl set up a second easel in his studio, and for the remainder of our time together as master and pupil, we stood side by side and painted. Every now and then, I would receive direction, but for the most part, we just painted.

The lessons ended after not too long a period of time. The story goes that Carl, after a hiatus from painting in order to work on the house he built for my grandmother and him to live in, caught the bug during our lessons and decided it was time to pick up the brush again. I guess I did a little inspiring of my own. Our friendship has far outlasted the time we spent in the studio together. But I have never forgotten what it feels like to paint beside a great artist like Carlton Wilder. And I never will.

Today, when I look at one of Carl’s paintings, my thoughts are immediately whisked away to some distant memory from my past. A poker game boisterously playing out late into the night. Or the sound the water makes as two wooden oars work in unison to propel a small rowboat across the St. Johns. Or the haunting flavors of a perfectly mixed Manhattan, sipped while watching the sun make its daily exit from the sky. People like to pontificate the defining boundaries of a qualified blessed life. Well consider this. My life has been illustrated by Carlton Wilder paintings.

Until next week, here’s my hope that we all find our Shangri-La. Good night.

Only Have Ayes for Kathryn

In 1997, James Cameron released into theaters what would become the most successful movie of all time. Following the triumph of Titanic, Cameron spent the next seven years developing and perfecting the most advanced, state-of-the-art digital 3D and performance capture technology ever utilized in the production of motion pictures.

In 2005, members of Cameron’s marketing team announced that he was currently working on a movie, at the time, being called Project 880, with an estimated budget somewhere in the vicinity of $300 million. Between that announcement and December 18, 2009, James Cameron created Avatar, which has gone on, over the past two months, to eclipse Titanic and become the most successful movie of all time (not taking into consideration inflation or ticket price adjustment).

On June 26, 2009, a considerably smaller film with an estimated budget of $11 million experienced a limited release across the United States, before finishing a relatively minor run on November 15, 2009 with a respectable-enough box office take of $12,647,089 (USA only). During the two months in which Avatar has been earning its $595,752,416 (USA only), The Hurt Locker has won the Producers Guild of America Award for best picture of the year, the top Directors Guild of America Award for its director, Kathryn Bigelow, as well as nine Academy Award nominations, including ones for best picture and best director (only the fourth woman ever nominated in this category).

The Hurt Locker follows three members of a US Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team throughout Iraq on various missions to find and disarm bombs. Each new call to the site of a newly discovered explosive device is set-up and filmed as its own mini suspense thriller, directed and acted in such a way as to take full advantage of every possible moment of tension.

Alfred Hitchcock used to define the difference between mystery and suspense in this way: Show two people sit down at a table in a restaurant and start talking. A bomb explodes. That’s mystery. For the alternate scenario, however, begin by first showing the bomb ticking away time under the table. Then have the same couple come in and sit down at the table and start talking. That’s suspense. Maybe you even show the two start to leave when the husband suggests he might just like some desert after all. Now that’s even better suspense.

Bombs by their very nature are perfect elements of suspense. We know what they are supposed to do. We know what happens to anybody or anything in their presence when they do what they are supposed to do. And unless they have one of those giant red digital timers (which I really can’t imagine a skilled bomb maker including on a real bomb, unless it is his intention to help the person trying to disarm it), we just don’t know when or by what means they will be triggered to do what they are supposed to do.

Put a likeable character into a known-hostile environment and watch him handle an object created explicitly to blow his body into unrecognizable pieces, and you have the perfect setup for a scene of almost unbearable suspense. The Hurt Locker, constituted of scene after scene like this one, built to make you sit on the edge of your seat, white-knuckling your arm rest and holding your breath, is one of the most tightly-paced and expertly constructed thrillers I’ve seen in a long time. It is one of the best films of 2009.

It is also a unique war film. Often times war movies suffer as entertainments when they allow their message to bog down the story. That is not the case with The Hurt Locker. Despite the fact that the story is set in present day Iraq, Bigelow refreshingly has no political agenda here. This film is not a clinch-fisted rage against war, nor is it a flag-waving tribute to all things American. Rather what we get is a sharp-focused view of an unparalleled branch of the armed forces and a completely absorbing movie experience. If the director and her screenwriter, Mark Boal had an agenda, it was to visually express what it must be like to work in the job Bigelow has described in interviews as the most dangerous in the world. They succeeded.

Lina Wertmuller for Seven Beauties (1975). Jane Campion for The Piano (1993). Sofia Coppola for Lost in Translation (2003). And now Kathryn Bigelow. 81 years of Academy Awards, and never a female winner for best director. However, only six times since the Directors Guild of America Awards’ origin in 1948 has the winner not gone on to receive the Academy Award for best director. And for approximately three-quarters of Academy Award history, the best picture winner has been directed by the best director winner.

Come March 7, a woman who used to be married to “King of the World” James Cameron himself could find herself walking away from a podium with a little gold statue in hand for directing a terrific little movie that I highly recommend you see. Kathryn Bigelow and The Hurt Locker deserve this recognition.

Until next week, here's my hope that we all find our Shangri-La. Good night.