P.S. A Column On Things

This and That

I have collected a lot of string since last I posted. In July, when the shape of the future was dimmer, I received this email from my friend John Ruley. I guess I am violating Godwin’s law, but it does provide some historical perspective:

On your Brexit Correction - according to William Shirer, in Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (Chapters 6 and 7), Hitler was first appointed as chancellor after the Nazis failed to win a clear majority in the 1932 elections - but after he became chancellor, in what Shirer calls "the last relatively free election Germany was to have" - received 44% of the total vote, which while not a majority far outpaced that of competing parties. Hitler formed a coalition with the nationalist party, and that gave him the majority he needed to pass the "enabling laws" that gave him absolute power, among other things outlawing all other political parties, including his erstwhile nationalist allies. So, while Hitler was not personally brought to power in a free election, he in fact gained power legally - as he often said - as a result of free elections. Strange, but true!

 Long-time reader Stephen Coquet (one of the few who came to this column organically, rather than through pre-existing friendship with me) suggested this article about Hillary’s email server, back when it still might have done some good if placed before a wider readership. I feel like I let our side down. He also sent me this article from the Guardian about Baltimore police surveillance, and added,

The key statement is, “Police spokesperson TJ Smith insisted that the privately funded agreement between Persistent Surveillance Systems and city police 'was not a secret surveillance program.' " They just thought better if they didn’t tell anyone.

Dan Grobstein mentioned something I had vaguely heard about: A hip, cuddly and cunningly sadistic musical adaptation of the 1993 Bill Murray movie has opened in London. It is scheduled for the August Wilson Theatre on Broadway starting on April 17, 2017 Dan also passed along Ang Lee Is Embracing a Faster Film Format. Can Theaters Keep Up? There are exactly two U.S. theaters showing Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk at 120 fps; one is the Cinerama Dome in LA, where I plan to see it soon. The other is in New York City. Dan also tipped me to the race to preserve old celluloid. 

 Kevin Sullivan has a book tip:

Looking at your book list, I was reminded by your love of film that I recently enjoyed reading - a) "Adventures in the Screen Trade" by William Goldman, and then for fun, the actual book by him of "The Princess Bride". Both were informative and enjoyable.

This from my friend and former colleague Jerry Pournelle (the article is behind the paywall)

"I have ordered the book, but the review is itself informative and interesting."

We’re All Cord Cutters Now
At one chain, the top 100 movie titles accounted for 85% of the DVDs rented in-store. But online, the top titles make up only 35% of rentals.
By Frank Rose
Sept. 6, 2016 7:18 p.m. ET

Does the internet pose a threat to established entertainment companies? Michael D. Smith and Rahul Telang lead a class at Carnegie Mellon University in which a student recently put that question to a visiting executive. He pooh-poohed the idea: “The original players in this industry have been around for the last 100 years, and there’s a reason for that.” As co-heads of CMU’s Initiative for Digital Entertainment Analytics, Messrs. Smith and Telang aim to counter this line of thought, and in “Streaming, Sharing, Stealing” they do just that, explaining gently yet firmly exactly how the internet threatens established ways and what can and cannot be done about it. Their book should be required for anyone who wishes to believe that nothing much has changed.

That such thinking still exists, at a time when Apple and Alphabet (that is, Google) are by far the world’s most valuable corporations, is testament to the power of self-delusion. Whether in music or movies or television or books, digital technology has given artists the tools to strike out on their own, enabled audiences to avoid paying for anything they don’t want to pay for and denied media companies the ability to control audience behavior. No longer can executives in New York or Los Angeles force music fans to buy an entire album instead of a single song; or movie buffs to line up at the box office for something they’d rather watch at home free; or television audiences to rush home and endure a barrage of ads in order to see their favorite shows.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

2.5 stars out of 5

(This review was written for ijpc.org, but I figure as the author I also have the right to post it here)

In journalism movie terms, to go from Spotlight to Batman vs. Superman (BvS),  is to go from the sublime to the ridiculous. From an Oscar-winning best film to a movie that struggled to a 29% favorable rating from reviewers. It is mildly entertaining, in a meh sort of way, but it lacks the joie de vivre we have come to expect from superhero movies, thanks to the smash-hit Marvel universe films.

I speak here, in part, as a fan boy. The difference between the films is not a complete surprise. From 1958 to 1963, I purchased every DC superhero comic, and from 1963 to 1970, every Marvel comic. Right from the first, Marvel was messy, chaotic and funny, featuring “real” people with “real” problems in “real” cities (mostly New York). DC was straight-laced and uptight. It was hippies versus the establishment. This is still the basic difference between the products of the two companies, even if no one uses the term “hippie” anymore.

Fast forward to 2016; Marvel has cornered the market on sly, wry and ironic, leaving nothing for DC but dour and didactic. Which is OK if you are a huge fan, but not great, and even less interesting to the casual observer.

And while Lois Lane and Clark Kent continue to be journalists, their profession and its practice take a much more secondary role in this film than in Man of Steel. This film does open with a journalism scene in which Lois (Amy Adams) is interviewing a terrorist somewhere in the desert. “I was not expecting a woman,” he says. “I am not a woman, I am a journalist,” which got a good laugh at the showing I attended (and established Lois’ feminist credentials). It was pretty much the last intentional moment of levity in the film. There were other laughs, but they were of the nature, “Oh my God, I can’t believe they just did that…”

Her photographer, by the way, is shooting wet film (turns out to be critical to a plot point I won’t spoil). Really? Is there any news photographer in the world still shooting film? You can’t even buy it anymore, nonetheless get it developed.

Our first glimpse of Clark (Henry Cavill)  is in casual clothes, in a newsroom full of business and business casual. Did he not get the memo? His first interchange with editor Perry White is purse insubordination. Perry wants a sports story. Clark says no. I’ve been in a lot of newsrooms, and that exchange right there would have introduced me to a banker’s box and a security guard in most of them.

Speaking of Perry, I don’t know what newsrooms scriptwriters Chris Terrio  and David S. Goyer looked at before dashing off this opus, but Perry’s habit of dictating the headline before the story has been written (heck, before the reporting has been done!) was irritating and unrealistic. The extreme cynicism displayed by the workers and editors at The Daily Planet might have been appropriate in 1942, but it rang false here.

Alas, BvS continues one sad but realistic trend in recent print journalism movies; jokes about the straitened financial condition of print media. Lois asks to fly to Washington from Metropolis (wherever that is). Perry says “Fly coach,” and Lois responds, “economy?” (I thought they were the same). Perry counters, “No extra legroom.”

Near the climax of the film, Lois asks Perry for a chopper from Metropolis to Gotham City, which, for the first time to my knowledge, is placed across a bay from Metropolis, like San Francisco and Oakland. Perry says, “A chopper? We can’t afford a bicycle.” Lois makes some brief, simple, heartfelt plea; Perry changes his mind and orders a helicopter.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is fantasy.

Macbeth (2015)

5 stars out of 5

If you read and listen widely, as I do, you will have heard some mixed reviews of Macbeth, an art film in limited released directed by Justin Kurzel and starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard. This despite a 79/70 score from Rotten Tomatoes. Well, I'm here to tell you that it was well-acted, beautifully photographed and sensitively cut. Yes, I missed "toil and trouble," (as I missed "do you bite your thumb at me, sir?" in a CalShakes Romeo and Juliet), but a"tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing," which I once tried (and failed) to memorize in grade school. The movie is two hours, the play two and a half, so they cut about 20%. Some of the scenes were a little gory for my taste, but this is a must see. Since Amazon co-produced the film, look for it soon on Amazon Instant Video.

Spotlight, Truth and an outrageous schedule

I have reviewed Spotlight on the IJPC.org website. It is fair to say I really liked it.You can also check my reviews of Truth and my belated review of Man of Steel.

By the way, I have long thought it would be a great idea to create a website that compared movies "based on a true story" to the true story. Turns out History Vs. Hollywood already exists!

Finally, Dan Grobstein sent along  An eighth-grade boy's 'outrageous' class schedule from The Washington Post.
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She's Funny That Way

I just saw the funniest movie I've ever seen. And you haven't seen it. She's Funny That Way"  was written and directed by  Peter Bogdanovich and Louise Stratten and directed by Bogdanovich. He is unquestionably one of the all-time great American directors, but Hollywood being Hollywood, he can't get arrested in Tinseltown. Some of the stars who love him helped get this movie made, but the public and the critics are almost precisely lukewarm. The Metascore is 45/100. Critics were 5.1/10 with only 39% liking it (down from 44 a few weeks ago).. The same goes for viewers; 39% and 2.9/5. With numbers like that, people stayed away in droves, and it made a grand total of  $111,996 (domestic), $2.5 million international. This 93 minute farce doesn't seem like the kind of thing that would play overseas, but apparently it does. The budget is apparently a state secret, but the distributor paid $4 million for it, so somebody lost money.

Many reviews call it a screwball comedy. I would characterize it more as a slamming door farce, not unlike my favorite-ever West End production, which was titled something like Has Anybody Seen My Trousers.  All slamming doors and ridiculous  misunderstandings. It is already available on Video on Demand. Buy it. Support a terrific film maker and laugh your ass off.

Whiplash

I just saw Whiplash. Better late than never. Breathtaking. If you haven't seen it yet, see it, if not before the Oscars, then after, no matter how it does. Hollywood being Hollywood, J.K. Simmons is considered a supporting actor in this film. I guess the system is what it is, but despite not having as many lines as the quite competent lead actor, Simmons turns in one of the most amazing performances I have seen in recent memory. If he does not cop an Oscar, there is no justice in the world and the Academy will be committing at least a misdemeanor if not a felony. I feel so strongly about this I wanted to drive my stake in the ground now, before the Oscars.

Mini Reviews: Mr. Turner, Spongebob Movie, Academy Award Shorts

Mr. Turner
Amazing cinematography and great acting. Too damn long at 2.5 hours, and not enough plot. The Internet seems to feel it is relatively historically accurate, which makes it educational. That  does not make it interesting. 90 minutes would have been about right. But, as I say, beautiful to look at.

Spongebob Movie
I like Antonio Banderas. Everyone else associated with this movie should be ashamed of themselves. There's a writer's credit, and I know it was written, but I'm not going to mention the writers because, perhaps, if everyone forget this film, they might work again someday. Rotten Tomatoes awards it an unbelievable 75% critic score: I don't think it is as funny as any edition of the TV show I ever watched. How it topped the box office, taking in $50 million the first weekend, I will never understand.


Academy Award Nominated Shorts
Once again this year, if you're lucky, you can see all the nominated live action and animated shorts at a nearby arthhouse. In my case, the Shattuck in Berkeley. My picks: Boogaloo and Graham, live-action  story of two boys and their chickens in Belfast during the Time of Troubles, and Feast, the cartoon played before Big Hero 6, which features the culinary adventures of a rescue dog named Winston. The Animated Shorts  always feature some "commended" but not nominated cartoons, into which category I would definitely place Duet, which I loved. There are some very sad nominees in both categories, and some very weird ones, which is par for the course. As "chicken is the canvas upon which great chefs paint their masterpieces," "short films are the clay  on which filmmakers practice their creativity."

Groundhog Day Movie and Buddhism

As usual, I expect  new material for my Groundhog Day The Movie website from my avid readers. Fire away if you have something you don't see here.

Welcome to another perennial item. I run this one (nearly) every year in conjunction with Groundhog Day. The Bill Murray movie of the same name is the 34th funniest American film of all time, according to the American Film Institute. It is also my favorite movie of all times. This is the ninth time I've run this item!

I went to a showing of Groundhog Day sponsored by the San Francisco Zen Center on Friday, Aug. 10, 2001, held in the Trustees' Auditorium of the Asian Art Museum in Golden Gate Park (relocated in October 2002 to the old SF Main library in the civic center).

I have so much to say about this exciting, exhilarating, eye-opening experience that it is now a subsite titled Groundhog Day The Movie, Buddhism and Me, which includes a description of that seminal showing, commentary, and links to other sites that deal with the connection. While noticing the connection between this movie and Buddhism is not particularly profound, it was news to me, and the nuances were explored in a particularly exciting fashion during the Zen Center presentation. My site is rapidly gaining ground as the authoritative center for GHD/Buddhism commentary on the web. I brush it up and add new material regularly, so if you haven't been there in a while, take a look.

If you love the work of GHD writer Danny Rubin as much as I do, check out his web site which includes a bio, a list of his works in progress (exciting) and a list of his sold films (also exciting). I have been privileged to share a radio show with him. He has been nice enough to correspond now and then with me via e-mail. He's written a great e-book, How to Write Groundhog Day, which I  thoroughly enjoyed. Go out and buy your own copy!

Also, the University of California has published a Groundhog Day book, by Ryan Gilbey.

I finally bought the book The Magic Of Groundhog Day by Paul Hannam. Danny Rubin who wrote the foreword. You can find out more at Hannam's website (check out his blog!). Hannam wrote me that he "did a book group on my book and several readers said that they could not believe how great the movie was after learning about its profound spiritual and psychological meaning. Even at Oxford 90% of the students thought it was just a Bill Murray comedy!"

Robert Malchman found a New York Daily News Where Are They Now feature

Bob Nilsson checks in:

I stumbled upon this clip of Stephen Tobolowsky explaining Bill Murray's pain in stepping into the puddle during Groundhog Day. Looks like there are many clips at YouTube about the movie.

Kent Peterman found a Groundhog Day quiz. My nephew Paul found a collection of interesting facts.
Turns out there is a spiritual analysis of an obsession with movies. A friend writes:

Every movie you see saves you a few cycles of living through another "groundhog day", because you learn from the mistakes you see others make in the movies and see heroes to emulate.
 
For our generation, movies and tv were/are the shared mythologies of the day.  There is a wonderful old episode of Northern Exposure TV show that addresses that--where one of the characters tries to interview people inthe town about their ancestral and current mythologies but discovers that the shared images and metaphors they all have are from movies--just like all men knowing exactly what a certain scene or two from the Godfather movies "means" to them as men trying to function inthe world.
 
This current generation seems to still have movies as their mythology shared, but also you tube, etc.--I have witnessed amazing conversations among twenty something year olds that seemed to be entirely shared you tube view reactions.
 
The movie thing has probably helped you skip ahead a lot in your own unfolding of remembering of god--sort of like the prodigal son getting to skip some of the wastral years and then take a more direct flight back to the Father's house.
 
The way the Course in Miracles phrases it is that it is the function of the Teachers of God to "save time"--because each of them that witnesses to the Truth of God that they have seen/experienced helps others take little time leaps over their own learning curve.
 
Eastern religions that use a lot of reincarnation metaphors would call it getting to skip over many reincarnations to ultimate Nirvana

An interesting meditation on my favorite film, Grounhog Day appeared in the March 2013 issue of The Atlantic and was brought to my attention by a friend.

MINI Reviews: Selma, A Most Violent Year

Selma
The first commercial Martin Luther King biopic is a great film, reasonably historically accurate (a little hard on LBJ), and important for its recounting of a significant historical event. As bad as things are in American race relations, they were once worse. It is a travesty that the actor playing King and the director were not nominated for Oscars. Be sure to see this if you can.

A Most Violent Year
Great acting, lovely period cars and landscapes, but not exactly a straightforward narrative. It isn't European; it's not that nothing happens. Just not anything very compelling. A bunch of interesting scenes. Good, not great. Sort of a mob-film minus.

Movie Briefs: Imitation Game, Into the Wood, Top Five, Wild

I have let too many movies pile up to give them individual attention so here is a sentence each. As often happens at this time of year, I haven't been to a clunker yet. In fact, there's a reason they call this awards season; except for Top 5, all of them are Oscar bait, as movies and for their leads.

The Imitation Game, a biopic about computing pioneer Alan Turing, included the line, “Sometimes it's the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine." It is the amazing story of the machine used to break the German Enigma code, as well as Turing's chemical castration after the war for homosexuality. Oscar nods to Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley (typical stand by your man role). I agree the scrambled chronology was a bad idea, but otherwise a great film.

I never saw the musical Into the Woods, but the movie was amazing. You don't leave the theater humming Sondheim songs, but you are impressed while you are sitting there listening to them. Solid performances from Anna Kendrick as Cinderella, James Corden as the Baker (a chance to see the work of the new CBS Late, Late Show host) and Emily Blunt as his wife. Kudos to the amazing voice of child actor Lilla Crawford as Little Red Riding Hood and another Oscar nomination in the can for Meryl Streep as the witch. You've never seen Grimm's fairy tales like these. Leave at the end of the obvious first act if you don't want your kids to see the scary and literally dark second act, but as an adult, you should see it. The women in this film are real and self-actualized. A very good film.

Top Five is the Chris Rock vehicle that paired him with Rosario Dawson and, apparently, ended his 19-year marriage. The movie is hysterically funny and features cameos by a score of famous comedians. It is raunchy, of course, and the gay jokes are a little rough, as is some of the sex. But if you like Rock at all and can stand a raunchy comedy, this one is a keeper. Dawson tries to be real, but her role is mostly stand by your man (or in this case, your interview subject).

Wild is the Reese Witherspoon vehicle that traces the real-life story of a woman who hiked the Pacific Crest Trail by herself from the Mojave to the Bridge of the Gods. That is one long hike. This isn't her first serious movie, but it's her first serious movie in years, and she does a full Oscar: the only thing that attracts Oscar voters more than facial prostheses is dirt. She appears with no makeup (according to her director) and no hair styling. I've seen the film. I can believe it. Since she is along most of the time, we get voice over, supposedly the sign of a bad movie in Hollywood. Not this time. Film and actress will both be in contention for the Oscar, with a best supporting nod seemingly certain for Laura Dern. There just aren't that many good roles for women. Engaging drama.