May 1:
The day is spent looking at Blu-Ray versions of varied non-masterpieces. I do a column over at the website proper rating High-Definition DVDs, and while my first couple of installments were pretty much release-date-non-specific, it's now at the point where some semblance of timeliness counts. Last month's Warner release of an excellent Blu-Ray of Bonnie and Clyde was the sort of thing I'd like to see more of, but this month I've got to keep a sharp eye on, and apply some wit to the evaluation of, such not-inordinately distinguished titles as The Devil's Own and
Alvin and The Chipmunks. "Why The Devil's Own?" I think. "I can come up with at least three Alan J. Pakula films I'd sooner see on Blu-Ray than this." (And you can, too, I'm sure—mine were All the President's Men, Klute, and The Parallax View.) But, Devil's Own is, like so many Pakula pictures, shot by Gordon Willis. This plays very much in favor of the Blu-Ray disc—my evaluations skew to the technical side, for many reasons, not least of which being I've always hated DVD reviews that were just film reviews in disguise.
By evening I'm Blu-Rayed out, and, waiting for My Lovely Wife to get home, decide to treat myself by chacking out a couple of the new Universal Cinema Classics discs. A Mitchell Leisen double feature: 1937's Easy Living, starring Jean Arthur, Edward Arnold, and Ray Milland, directed by Leisen from a Preston Sturges script, and 1934's 1939's Midnight, starring Don Ameche, Claudette Colbert, and John Barrymore, directed by Leisen from a script by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett.
Ameche and Colbert in Midnight
I'm struck by the difference in tone between the two films, which I attribute largely to their screenplays. Living is broad, frenetic; everybody seems to be shouting at each other, and the food fight in the Automat is fairly Sennettesque. Midnight is smoother, quieter, more sardonic, with the locale that Ernst Lubitsch dubbed "Paris Hollywood" shown off to spectacular effect. I conclude that I actually prefer Midnight to Easy Living. Whether this is the result of keen analysis (I will argue right here that Sturges ended up being a better director of Sturges scripts than Leisen was) or just my mood, or maybe my longstanding love of Claudette Colbert (I fell for her at age ten, gazing at a picture of her as "Cigarette" in Under Two Flags in a book of Photoplay reprints), I cannot say.
My Lovely Wife gets home about midway through Midnight. She's barely through the door before I start haranguing her about how nobody gives Don Ameche his due these days. I don't know how she puts up with it.
May 2
An office day, mostly. I lunch with my friend Tom Carson, novelist and GQ film/television critic, who's in town for the American Society of Magazine Editors Awards, for which several of his columns had been nominated in the Reviews and Criticism category. New York's effervescent film critic David Edelstein was also nominated, as was The New Yorker's Louis Menand, author of the Quixote, The Nation's William Deresiewicz, and The Atlantic's Caitlin Flanagan, who by my lights ought to have the words "The Deplorable" permanently placed in front of her name. It is not entirely unreasonable to surmise that all the nominees who weren't Caitlin Flanagan were pretty cool about losing, so long as they didn't lose to Caitlin Flanagan. So naturally, Caitlin Flanagan won.
So because I'm such a nice guy, as soon as Tom shows up at the restaurant, I intone: "And then...Defeat. Shameful. Ignominious. Defeat that set back for twenty years the cause of good magazine writing in the U.S." We discuss the Easy Living/Midnight perplex. No conclusion is reached. No conclusion can be reached.
Later in the day I see Jim Meigs, who hired me at Video Review in 1986 and at Premiere in 1996. He's now the editor-in-chief of Popular Mechanics, which the night before had won one ASME award (out of three nominations) for Personal Service. So he was in a good mood. (He also likes Caitlin Flanagan. What a freak.) We discuss, among other things, the "why-do-so-many-undistinguished-movies-get-made-into-High-Definition-discs-before-great-ones?" perplex. No conclusion is reached, but we are determined to reach a conclusion. Journalism is called for.
At day's end, I want to shut down a bit. The inability to shut down, and the ineffectuality of several putative shut-down methods, has become a rather crucial issue in my life of late. I determine on this occasion that a good way of shutting down would be to...watch a Western.
1954's Garden of Evil, starring Gary Cooper, Susan Hayward, and Richard Widmark (and also featuring a killer cameo from Rita Moreno), directed by Henry Hathaway, turns out to be pretty lousy shut-down fare. The physical beauty of the film, shot by Milton Krasner and Jorge Stahl, Jr., is simply staggering. "My God, that looks like a shot out of Tarkovsky," I exclaimed at one point. Here's the shot:
The movie's also got a lot of nifty archetypal Cooper dialogue. "You follow me," Widmark says to Coop at one point. "I don't follow anybody," Cooper replies. "You think I'm wrong. You think I've gone crazy," says the increasingly tetchy Widmark. Cooper dismisses him with "I think you talk too much."
And then there's the Bernard Herrmann score, which is replete with the sort of two-note swells that occur throughout Kane. Garden is one of those great unsung '50s Westerns of which there seem to be hundreds, and the new, superb disc of it is out soon from Fox. Again, not shut-down fare.
May 3
This is the day My Close Personal Friend Ron G. marries the lovely Brenda H. I first met Ron pretty much 30 years ago to the month. It's a pretty emotional day, and a swell party. I very happily reconnect with a bunch of people I haven't seen in years. One wedding guest, on the bride's side: Academy Award Winner Lee Grant, who's still pretty feisty at 80. No, I don't get a picture.
At home in the evening, I decide to throw on Robert Benton's latest, Feast of Love. Benton's been on my mind a bit, featuring as he does in Mark Harris' spectacular book Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies And The Birth of the New Hollywood. He features, of course, as the co-screenwriter of Bonnie and Clyde, and Benton's voice in Harris' new interviews with him is as droll and intelligent as it's ever been. Also, I learned a couple of years back that Benton had been extremely interested in adapting a novel by a friend of mine (Not Tom, just so you know), a book of, among other things, considerable sexual frankness. That didn't happen; Feast of Love, written by Alison Burnett from a novel by Charles Baxter, happened instead.
I only get through about the first third of Feast, which one could conceivably credibly describe as an erotic Our Town, laying out the lusts and heartbreaks of the varied residents of a small Oregon town, artist/coffeeshop-owner Greg Kinnear and academic Morgan Freeman seemingly chief among them. The erotic frankness Benton and Burnett bring to bear is refreshingly matter-of-fact, but the film's pictorialism (the cinematographer is Kramer Morgenthau) strikes me as a trifle ostentatious:
...and I'm a little wary that Morgan Freeman seems to be playing, yet again, a "wiser-than-us-all" character, although I suspect that's gonna end up being a kind of ruse. But I cannot watch to the end, because I'm feeling a little guilty about hogging the plasma and My Lovely Wife has been pretty eager to dig into the just- released Complete Eighth Season of...Murder She Wrote.
Yes, despite the fact that My Lovely Wife is a good four decades shy of 70, Murder, She Wrote is one of her favorite shows. Go figure. One has to admit the series does have some attraction for the cinephile—where else can one see former stars of the silver screen such as Celeste Holm, Jane Powell, Howard Keel, Cyd Charisse, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, all giving performances in the same register of broadness?
Season Eight is a particularly intriguing one, as this is the season in which Angela-Lansbury-portrayed lead character Jessica "J.B." Fletcher, mystery writer extraordinaire, regularly commutes from quaint Cabot Cove to the Big Apple, where she teaches a college criminology course. This attempt to spruce up the aging series was, I surmise, the brainchild of new producer J. Michael Straczinski, who also scripted the episode we watched, the thoroughly ridiculous "Night Fears," featuring, as a cop/fellow academic who's all jealous of J.B., cult favorite Wings Hauser.
My Lovely Wife and I agree that this episode—involving serial muggings, a crime-solving wager, and an aspiring police officer with a shameful secret or something—is, in Tone Loc's memorable term, a big old mess. Which, we believe, dose not necessarily augur well for Changeling, the Clint-Eastwood-directed/Angelina-Jolie-starring Cannes entry scripted by, yes, J. Michael Straczinski.
May 4
The day is largely taken up with a first birthday party of a lovely little tot belonging to some pals of ours. Also in attendance: Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly. Being liberal elitists, we mostly discuss the election. And other film critics.
In the evening, a little more Murder She Wrote. An episode in which Re-Animator's Bruce Abbott is saddled with one of the most unfortunate hair styles ever.
Also, I revisit the Edition Filmmuseum disc of Frank Borzage's otherworldly The River for the Monday Morning Foreign Region DVD Report.
May 5
Look at DVD extras for the Blu-Ray of Chronicles of Narnia. Double check image quality of Blu-Ray disc of The Orphanage. Conclude that the greenish tinge is in balance with the rest of the picture. Write final draft of High Def DVD Consumer Guide.
Plow through more of Richard Brody's biography of Godard. It is thoroughly excellent, but as it goes on I find myself quarrelling with Brody, Godard, and myself over a feature of Godard's personality and work that I find increasingly troubling, or rather infuriating. Later, a wise friend will advise me to finish the book before drawing any conclusions, but this afternoon, a little after finishing the chapter on Godard's King Lear, I find myself in a state. In a state, but at the same time, compelled to watch a Godard film from this period. So I pop in the new Lionsgate disc of 1985's Detective, which I can't fully engage but watch all the way through anyway. Here's the adolescent Julie Delpy, one of the many performers Godard was thoroughly unpleasant to on the set of the film, handling a clarinet, as Stephane Ferrara lolls on the bed.
After that, it's "Fin du Cinema," at least for the night.
Ya know I think you're da man GK, but why in the hell do Blu Ray DVD's need to be "reviewed?" Aren't they *supposed* to look great? I mean, has there been an instance of "jeez, this film was amazing on washed out VHS and an old DVD I had, but it's just awful on Blu Ray."?
Just admit it's all a ploy to get free Blu Ray DVDs and I'll let it slide.... ;-)
Posted by: don lewis | May 06, 2008 at 12:37 PM
I beg to differ, Don. There's a considerable amount of differentiation to be found among High-Def discs. Even those that ostensibly look "great" might not be accurate representations of their movies, for instance. And there are High-Def discs that actually fall flat—"The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford" being a particular disappointment recently. Sites like DVD Beaver and Hi-Def Digest give a good perspective, and I aim to do so in my column, which I welcome you to check out:
http://www.premiere.com/dvdreviews/4524/high-definition-dvd-consumer-guide-blu-ray-how-you-livin.html
And Don, up until recently, we weren't getting the discs for free...
Posted by: Glenn Kenny | May 06, 2008 at 12:54 PM
There would be a couple reasons why The Devil's Own is coming out:
1. They already had a 1080 master made for HD-cable showings.
2. Name value.
3. The need to start doing some catalog releases.
4. Harrison Ford/Indy tie-in.
Since early adopters are likely rich and hungry for anything, this might be a good release.
Posted by: Dellamorte | May 06, 2008 at 01:00 PM
Agreed, Dellamorte. I was only giving an account of my thought processes at the moment, and my subjective conclusion as to what the value of such a thing would be for myself and like-minded viewers.
Posted by: Glenn Kenny | May 06, 2008 at 01:05 PM
You wonder how your wife puts up with you grousing about the fact that nobody gives Don Ameche his due these days, and I understand. On the ride home from work yesterday, my wife listened to me go on and on about how bewildering it is that the Times Online list of Top 50 Crime Writers that I'd stumbled across that afternoon could conceivably leave off John D. MacDonald AND Donald E. Westlake. Because she realized who I was when she married me, she asked if Charles Willeford had made the list. I told her that he had, but that I didn't believe that his inclusion was sincere, given that Patricia Cornwell also made the last, but was rather an attempt by the Times to appear "hip".
We have good wives.
Posted by: bill | May 06, 2008 at 03:33 PM
We do indeed.
Posted by: Glenn Kenny | May 06, 2008 at 03:37 PM
Ok, Glenn, I'll fess up. I'm one of those guys whose DVD reviews you've always hated because they are really film reviews in disguise. But in my defense:
1) I'm a dad with a young baby, a second on the way, and new to Atlanta, so no sitters yet. I don't get a chance to go to the theater as much as I'd like so to paraphrase Blanche Dubois, I do depend on the kindness of DVDs.
2) I'm not technically inclined, so why fake it. I'll stick to what I know and review the film on an artistic level, and review the extras.
Hope you understand a little.
Posted by: Tony Dayoub | May 07, 2008 at 12:56 AM
Isn't MIDNIGHT 1939, not 1934?
Posted by: cadavra | May 07, 2008 at 02:44 AM
I must confess, my DVD reviews are often just film reviews. This is due to my being a barbarian who still watches movies on a CRT television, and my being a philistine in that I've always found home theater geeks to be really, really annoying. Unless a presentation is really egregiously off or truly godawful, I don't care. I'm not going to measure the blacks on "Kiss of Death", I'm going to watch the goddamn movie and enjoy it.
Oh, and thanks for mentioning "Garden of Evil". Hadn't heard of it before but I'm definitely checking it out now.
Posted by: Dan | May 07, 2008 at 09:38 AM
Actually, Dan, I should have been a bit more clear in my expression of distaste. I mean, hell, I do an awful lot of movie reviewing/criticism on this blog based on DVD viewing myself. And I yield to no one in my respect for Dave Kehr, whose DVD column in the Times contains some of the best movie criticism around. And I enjoy your stuff, too; what we're up to is part of the give and take of cinephilia.
The ire I express is for more mainstream DVD reviews/reviewers who are supposed to be rating the DVD as product but instead offer their own not particularly interesting perspectives on the movies themselves, or rehash recieved opinions, or something. It has to do with a philosophy of service journalism. I mean, I admire the Hi-Def Digest website, but when I go there, I'm interested in their methodology and results in sizing up picture quality rather than their opinions of the film. I find that the reviews on DVD Beaver generally strike the most pleasing balance, and I myself try to stay very focused on the stuff that makes Hi-Def Hi-Def when I write my column on Blu-Ray and HD discs.
Posted by: Glenn Kenny | May 07, 2008 at 10:08 AM
Ah, much becomes clear! Thanks!
Heh, it never fails to surprise me when people actually read my blog, although I suppose it shouldn't, but that's another, way off-topic story.
Posted by: Dan | May 07, 2008 at 10:44 AM
Also, if we're talking Pakula, and they wanted a Harrison Ford tie-in (OK, OK, different studio entirely, but...), what about the superb "Presumed Innocent?"
Posted by: Dan | May 07, 2008 at 01:30 PM
They're not film reviews, Tony, they're the Naughties' version of those boy's-only stereophile '70s freak shows in which woofers, tweeters and equalizers were parsed with as much attention as the lyrics to "Hotel California."
I love, love, LOVE "Midnight." One used to have to haunt whatever channel TCM was, waiting for Ted Turner to broadcast it. So glad it's out on DVD now -- modern filmmakers could learn a lot from its seamless acceptance of the fairy tale as a thoroughly chic screwball comedy. My wonderful husband, name-checked in GK's post, can't stand Claudette Colbert. Because he is of the devil.
Posted by: Arion Berger | May 07, 2008 at 05:49 PM
"... they're the Naughties' version of those boy's-only stereophile '70s freak shows in which woofers, tweeters and equalizers were parsed with as much attention as the lyrics to 'Hotel California.'"
Jeez, Arion, you say that as if it's a BAD thing...
Posted by: Glenn Kenny | May 07, 2008 at 08:32 PM
Love gives naught but it self and takes naught but from itself.
Posted by: Beats by Dr Dre | December 17, 2011 at 08:44 AM
Canada Goose parka er ligesom en flamme, der kan gøre os varme hele vinteren.
Posted by: Canada Goose Jakker | December 20, 2011 at 07:26 AM
Ask me no questions and I will tell you no lies.
Posted by: Monster Beats sale | December 22, 2011 at 08:20 AM
A man cannot whistle and drink at he same time.
Posted by: Canada Goose Jackets | December 27, 2011 at 07:28 AM
Hoist your sail when the wind is fair.
Posted by: Red Bottom shoes | January 02, 2012 at 01:50 AM
Growth and change are the law of all life. Yesterday's answers are inadequate for today's problems ——just as the solutions of today will not fill the needs of tomorrow.
Posted by: Red Bottom shoes | January 05, 2012 at 02:27 AM
Fools grow without watering.
Posted by: Red Bottom shoes sale | January 07, 2012 at 02:09 AM
You cannot eat your cake and have it.
Posted by: Canada Goose Parka sale | January 09, 2012 at 02:13 AM