Emulsion Compulsion finds Readership in Chicago
July 28th, 2008 by Scott Marks
At last I’ve become a whatever became of!!! Thanks to my pal J.R. Jones for remembering this old Chicagoan with a terrific mention on the Chicago Reader’s Movie Blog. When J.R. joined Facebook, he did a search on Groucho Marx and not surprisingly, my name came up. Ten years ago J.R. wrote a profile piece that nailed me. Wish I could provide a link, but it’s not in The Reader’s on-line archive. Mention it next time you see me and I’ll recite it for you verbatim. J.R. has assumed the recently retired Jonathan Rosenbaum’s spot as The Reader’s #1 critic, and he continues to make the site one of the finest outlets for film criticism on line. In the words of that grate Chicagoan Sig Sackowicz, “Hey, buddy, thanks for taking the time!”
***UPDATE***
I just received a note from J.R. Jones informing me that my Reader interview is on line. Just go to J.R.’s article and click on my name.
Tags: Chicago, chicago reader, Emulsion Compulsion, j.r. jones, Jonathan Rosenbaum, jr joines, San Diego, Scott MarksReview: PALINDROMES / Todd Solondz (2004)
July 27th, 2008 by Scott Marks
Palindromes (2004)
Written and Directed by Todd Solondz
Starring: Matthew Faber, Angela Pietropinto, Bill Buell, Ellen Barkin & Richard Masur
Running Time: 100 minutes
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Rating: 
How can I dislike a film that features real life retardates given a chance to show off their acting skills, Christian-bashing, fat girls in belly shirts and a plate filled with homemade “Jesus’ tears” cookies? With Todd Solondz, it simply a matter of course.
The film opens with a memorial card for Dawn Weiner, the lead character in Welcome to the Dollhouse, Solondz’s ode to suburban teenage angst. Yearning to create an “inner-dialogue” for his minions, Solondz feels it necessary to establish Dawn’s death in order to squelch any parallels between her character and that of Aviva, the lead in Paliundromes. Here’s an idea - if you fear drawing similarities DON’T DEDICATE A FILM TO HER! In truth, the director begged actress Heather Matarazzo to reprise ‘Weinerdog,’ the role that put her on the map, but the actress wisely refused. She must have read the script.
There is nothing more frustrating than sitting through a comedy and not knowing when or where to laugh. If ever a film had a shot at sick-f–k masterwork it’s this one, but Solondz couldn’t resist ‘arting’ it up. Not through visuals, but alleged narrative complexity. For no good reason other than he liked the idea, at least a half-dozen actresses play the role of Aviva, a pregnant thirteen-year-old desperate to keep her baby. (One incantation named Huckleberry inexplicably makes two brief appearances mid-film and at the end.) Her sensible parents (Ellen Barkin and Richard Masur) insist on an abortion after which Aviva runs away from home. She winds up in the care of Mama Sunshine and her surrogate band of medical anomalies and curiosities.
Continue reading Review: PALINDROMES / Todd Solondz (2004)
Tags: DVD Review, Film Review, Movie Review, palindromes, Review, todd solondzNotes on Speedy Gonzales & Slowpoke Rodriguez, his half-baked cartoon cousin
July 27th, 2008 by Scott Marks
Last night a Mexican friend came over to watch some cartoons and, being the patronizing gringo that I am, the evening began with a handful of Speedy Gonzales shorts.
Of all the superstars in the Warner Bros. cartoon canon, Speedy Gonzales is probably the most nonessential. Within thirty-six hours of purchasing each of the five Looney Tunes Golden Collections, I had watched every cartoon and most of the supplementary features, including the audio commentaries. Until last night, the Speedy Gonzales disc remained the only virgin in the set.
With the possible exception of Being There, a feature length comedy cannot, nor should not be a one note proposition. (See Arthur. The title character is a drunk. Get it?) Live actors squandering five reels in search of variations to play on a one trick premise seldom works, yet with a little ink and paper and only seven minutes to fill, one joke can work miracles. Everywhere that the Wolf went Droopy was sure to go. No matter how hard he tries, Wile E. Coyote will never dine on Road Runner. Every move Daffy makes leads to a buckshot facial from Elmer’s rifle. In each instance, the comic resourcefulness and precision character response jumps out from the screen.
A grinning Speedy Gonzales yells, “Andale! Andale! Epa, Epa! Arriba! Arriba!” as he zips past El Pussygato, arms burdened with cheese for his impoverished amigos who react to his beneficence by jumping up and down.
Suddenly Little Audrey looks good.
Speedy wasn’t always a cuddlesome, Mexican hat-dancing mouse. In Robert McKimson’s Cat-Tails for Two, the pesos needed in order for Speedy to secure what would eventually become his trademark sombrero were spent on an unappealing gold front tooth. According to Robert McKimson, Jr., the fastest mouse in Mexico (and friend of everybody’s sister) was based on a pair of Mexican brothers his father played polo with. The grimy rodent, pitted opposite a much more appealing pair of John Steinbeck retreads, discharged little audience appeal short of Mel Blanc’s well-seasoned vocalization that he had spent years perfecting on The Jack Benny Program.
The studio had faith in the character so Friz Freleng and his designer Hawley Pratt set about retooling the rodent. Their final solution was a featherless cross between Tweety Pie and the Road Runner. As a Coyote substitute to play opposite Gonzales, Freleng recruited the services of his venerable foil, and Tweety’s arch nemesis, Sylvester the Cat aka Sylvero Gato. Speedy would frequently sneak up behind Sylvester and substitute a couple of “Arriba! Andale’s!” for “Meep Meep’s’” that sent the cat soaring to the stratosphere. Cannibalizing his own creation, Freleng modified Tweety’s “I like him, he’s silly” catchphrase to fit the mouse.
Continue reading Notes on Speedy Gonzales & Slowpoke Rodriguez, his half-baked cartoon cousin
Tags: Animation, Cartoons, Looney Tunes, Marijuana, merrie melodies, merry melodies, Mexican, mexican american, mexican boarders, mota, offensive, Photos, Political incorrectness, politically incorrect, Porky Pig, slowpoke rodriguez, Speedy Gonzales, speedy gonzalez, warner brothers cartoonsFiled Under DVD, Rants, Reviews
DVD Review: THE THIRD WHEEL / Jordan Brady (2002)
May 30th, 2008 by Scott Marks
The Third Wheel (2002)
Directed by Jordan Brady
Written by Jay Lacopo
Starring: Luke Wilson, Denise Richards, Jay Lacopo and Ben Affleck
Running Time: 91 min.
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Rating: 
A friend cramped for space and too lethargic to post them on eBay gave me a stack of DVD screeners that I’ve been trying to auction off. With the exception of Charles Burnett’s The Glass Cube, which wouldn’t sell for ninety-nine cents, there wasn’t anything in the bag that I would ever again sit through or for that matter wanted to see in the first place.
The Third Wheel was another title that wouldn’t sell for a buck if it came with a five-dollar bill wrapped around it. There are eighty-one new and used copies on Amazon starting at thirty-cents, plus two dollars for shipping. You can currently purchase one of the thirty-seven copies available on eBay. Not one of the twenty copies put up for auction last month sold.
Looks like I won myself a DVD.
Before she was eternally dirtied by Charlie Sheen, Denise Richards was the bomb. She appeared to me on The Last Weekend episode of Saved by the Bell…alone, out of the open sewer. They cannot…touch…her…beauty…
She received Joe Dante’s dispensation on an episode of Erie, Indiana as well as appearing in Starship Troopers by Paul Verhoeven’s decree. And if you haven’t seen Tammy and the T-Rex, go ahead. I dare you. You can plant corn in her eyebrows!
Her nude menage in Wild Things will go down in smut history as one of the great R rated sex scenes ever filmed. Before Charlie and a network sitcom muddied the waters, she was poised to become her genrations’ Linda Blair. Denise’s unnatural delivery is easily the most enjoyable aspect of The World is Not Enough, but Valentine is deadly dull.
In The Third Wheel, Luke Wilson plays a shy office worker who spends months admiring Denise from afar. He finally gets the nerve to ask her out and, of course, she accepts. Their idyllic first date is constantly interrupted by a homeless con man (Jay Lacopo) who likes to hurl himself in front of their moving auto.
Lacopo, who also wrote the script, received a thanks in Good Will Hunting’s closing crawl. Two of The Third Wheel’s ten producers are Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, both of who play roles in the film. So much for how the film got financed.
The Third Wheel never received a theatrical release in the States and for the life of me, I can’t honestly say this is any worse than half of the jack Black or Adam Sandler vehicles lining video store shelves. It makes Nacho Libre look like Sherlock, Jr. And Miss Richards is surprisingly good, dare I say naturalistic, as the object of desire. Not quite a performance, but better than anything before or since.
You probably sense from my tone that I am not into giving The Third Wheel a flat tire. Every now and then I come across a film that was worth the effort for one single shot. It’s not enough to entirely redeem the film: if anything a moment of grace emerging in the most unlikely of places can only slightly soften the memories of clumsy execution that came before it.
The last shot in the film is worthy of Frank Borzage. Boy and girl have fallen in love and are seated at an outdoor table enjoying a first kiss while the audience waits for the obligatory spielberg pan-up to the moon. The camera begins to dolly and for a moment appears to want to tilt skyward. Suddenly, the table and its two occupants begin moving with the camera as a hydraulic lift gracefully elevates them through the tree branches and out of sight. It is a lush, beautifully executed bit of movie magic that caps an otherwise routine romantic comedy.
Years from now, after time further blurs a memory already overloaded with statistics, I’ll stumble across The Third Wheel and think for a moment whether or not I had seen it. “I don’t remember seeing it in a theater,” I’ll mutter aloud to the nurse. Once all the pieces fall into place, I guarantee you that whatever remains of my mind will immediately race to the curtain shot. Hey, I know where you can get a copy for $2.30!
Tags: Ben Affleck, Denise Richards, DVD Review, Jay Lacopo, Jordan Brady, Luke Wilson, Matt Damon, THE THIRD WHEELFiled Under DVD, Image Blog, Reviews, Video Mashups
Joan Crawford & Bette Davis feud sparked by sexual tension
May 15th, 2008 by Scott Marks
While out promoting Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, Bette Davis told one interviewer that when Robert Aldrich suggested that she and Joan Crawford co-star in the film, Warner Bros. studio head Jack L. Warner replied: “If you get rid of those two old broads and sign some real box office names, we’ll give you the money.” (Surely Warner was joking, for the teaming of these two hated rivals meant instant box office gold.) Davis took great delight in retelling the story, but she reportedly received a follow-up telegram from Crawford that cautioned: “In future, please do not refer to me as an old broad!”
It was the last salvo the stars unleashed during the making of Baby Jane, a film that united the bitter actresses who had waged a personal war that both continued fighting to the grave.
Much has been written about the making of the film including juicy stories about its spiteful stars. Crawford was then on the board of Pepsi-Cola so Davis had a Coke machine installed on the set. Bette soon discovered that Joan’s personal Pepsi-bottle was always spiked with vodka. “That bitch is loaded half the time!” raged Bette. “How dare she pull this crap on a picture with me? I’ll kill her!”
In one scene, Crawford falls out of her wheelchair and a maniacal Davis begins kicking her. Davis claimed that her shoe coming in contact with Crawford’s scalp was quite unintentional. It took three stitches for the “accident” to heal.
Even though both actresses publicly denied that there was any personal animosity between them, for over thirty years their rivalry continued to grab headlines. The feud has pretty much been written off as professional jealousy until now. The Daily Mail’s Michael Thornton writes that two years before Ms. Davis died (and ten years after Crawford’s death) she confided that the love of her life was Crawford’s second husband Franchot Tone.
Bette told Thornton, “She took him from me. She did it coldly, deliberately and with complete ruthlessness. I have never forgiven her for that and never will.”
“On both sides, it was highly personal and sensitive,” Thornton writes, “and was a case of unrequited love. Crawford, a promiscuous bisexual, was in love with Davis but was rebuffed. Her co-star was firmly heterosexual.”
In 1935, the 27-year-old Davis took home her first Academy Award starring opposite Tone in Dangerous. At the time Davis was married to her high school sweetheart, the musician Harmon Oscar (”Ham”) Nelson. Ham spent a lot of time on the road and years later Davis confessed: “I fell in love with Franchot, professionally and privately. Everything about him reflected his elegance, from his name to his manners.”
The bad news was Crawford got there first. “She slept with every star at MGM”, Davis later alleged, “of both sexes.” Crawford had a reputation of bedding not only her leading men, but her directors as well. Well…maybe not George Cukor.
“Franchot isn’t interested in Bette,” Crawford reportedly said, “but I wouldn’t mind giving her a poke if I was in the right mood. Wouldn’t that be funny?”
During the filming of Dangerous, Crawford and Tone announced that they were going to tie the knot. Imagine Davis’s fury when the couple married in New Jersey soon after the film wrapped.
Both actresses shared a fortune when Baby Jane opened, but it wasn’t enough to heel the wounds.
In 1968, the feud re-surfaced when Davis learned that Tone was dying from lung cancer. Crawford encased her ex in a nine-room New York flat and nursed him until his death, even going so far as supervising the scattering of his ashes.
“Even when the poor bastard was dying, that bitch wouldn’t let him go,” raged Davis.
Thornton closes his piece with a hilarious anecdote that must have slipped by me. While filming her final feature The Whales of August, Davis decided to entertain the crew with some Crawford horror stories.
Director Lindsay Anderson, a friend of Crawford, slammed his hand on the table and told Davis he wasn’t going to listen to any more.
Davis brought her fist down even harder, raised her voice and told Anderson, “Just because a person’s dead doesn’t mean they’ve changed.”
Links:
Joan Crawford’s unreleased scenes from “Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte” to be included in new DVD
Unretouched Before & After Photos of Joan Crawford
Bette Davis for Lustre Creme
Joan Crawford & Larry Fine
Mommie Dearest photos
The Three Stooges: A study guide to “Pop Goes the Easel”
March 30th, 2008 by Scott Marks
Pop Goes the Easel marked the seventh of almost 200 two-reelers the boys made for Columbia pictures. Produced with minuscule budgets and equally tight shooting schedules it’s a miracle they were able to salvage enough footage to adhere to a movie screen for 17 minutes.
It’s always been my contention that The Three Stooges function best as a vacation from brainwork for hardcore cinephiles. Budding auteurs will learn more from studying the Three Stooges than they would from all the world’s film schools combined as these shorts are textbook examples of everything a filmmaker shouldn’t do.
This short has been with me since birth. I’ve seen it more times than I did my maternal grandparents. While it’s not the funniest Stooge opus, it is easily one of the most inept.
Sadly, the copy on You Tube was not taken from the remastered DVD so a couple of the finer aesthetic points will be lost in the translation. It’s also been sliced into three parts, so you’ll have to watch it on the installment plan.
00:59 Continuity: Larry stands next to the car holding his placard and in the next shot he’s leaning on the passenger door.
01:23 Enjoy Curly’s flood pants.
02:40 There was never time for re-takes on a Stooge short. The force of the sign connecting with Moe must have loosened his clip-on tie. As he whistles for Larry and Curly, watch as his tie proceeds to fall loose into his jacket.
03:53 Continuity: In one shot the boys play hopscotch on a residential street and in the next they’re running down a commercial boulevard.
04:26 It sure takes the cop a long time to open that door.
05:40 Bookmark Curly’s dubbed in reaction sound when Moe gouges his eyes. This “inner dialogue” will come into play shortly.
05:55 Forget about the foreground action. The real laughs come from Curly’s background continuity.
06:35 Enjoy the way Moe steps into his brutal slap to Larry’s face.
01:11 Much has been made in Stooge circles of Moe and Curly’s “look at the grouse” exchange. I tolerate it while awaiting Larry’s hilarious squeal as he steps through the window.
01:25 Is there anything funnier than a fermished Larry?
02:10 Either that dumb flatfoot can’t figure out how to open a door or editor James Sweeney needs tightening lessons.
02:27 When left to his own resources, Moe’s dialog can be painfully unfunny. It’s worth wading through to get to Yiddish Swami Larry and a deaf and dumb Curly.
03:23 A prime example of the pay off justifying the set-up. Ballerina Phyllis Crane’s upside-down “It’s a boat” revelation is basically an excuse for Curly to let fly another “grouse.” This unexpected cutaway of Crane still balanced on her noggin is the closest the Stooges ever came to surrealism.
03:27 No time to re-take Moe’s flubbed line.
04:04 Love it any time Larry is punished for being enthusiastic.
No pain, no gain
04:40 Is Moe poking Curly in the eyes or giving him devil horns from the front? Moe generally tried to pull his punches, but this is ridiculous!
04:48 Pay attention to the painting of the woman hanging above Moe. The art director obviously didn’t because when the boys run onto the next set the exact same portrait graces the wall.
04:51 Literally painted in a corner, the boys stand perplexed in front of a picture-covered wall. As soon as the cop comes snooping, the student’s artwork is inexplicably replaced by a black door.
05:02 So much ineptitude in so little time! In addition to the magic painting and black door, note that the Stooges exit a freshly painted floor and leave no footprints as they enter the next scene.
05:40 Watch the set shake after Curly shoves the cop.
05:59 “My sister Crumbette…”
06:26 Remember the dubbed in Curly reaction I asked you to remember in Part 1? Here’s your repeat reward!
00:05 Another stunningly obvious dubbed in Curly reaction sound.
00:09 & 01:05 The remarkable Larry-ism, “I”ll show you guys a pitcher what is a pitcher.”
00:36 & 02:03 Pop goes the same shot twice!
01:30 What Larry does best: absorbing Moe’s abuse just seconds after giggling over pain inflicted upon fellow Stooge Curly (or Shemp).
02:09 It is imperative that any Stooge shoot has a bust perched on a high shelf that’s waiting to fall on the enemy’s head.
02:12 For me, Jack Duffy’s questioning cameo still draws the short’s biggest laugh.
02:15 Another rule of Stoogedom: Toupees will be launched off bald heads by either hunks of clay or a pie.
02:29 Stooge math: White clay + Black Dress + Woman’s Chest = Big Laffs!
02:40 Second biggest laugh: Professor Fuller mistaking pounding clay for someone at the door.
03:05 More Stooge math: White clay + Black Dress + Deaf woman’s rump = Bigger Laffs!
Videos: Part One, Part Two, Part Three
Photos: The Three Stooges
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