Soon to Be a Major Motion Picture: Magic 8-Ball

This just in from Deadline New York:



http://www.deadline.com/2010/04/paramount-seeks-film-fortunes-from-mattels-magic-8-ball/

I'm gonna have to agree with the 8-ball on this one.

TCM Film Fest: Day 4: SUNNYSIDE UP, THE KING OF COMEDY, and METROPOLIS

EDITOR'S NOTE: This post originally appeared on FilmRadar.com.

Anyone who's seen Janet Gaynor's great silent work in F.W. Murnau's Sunrise knows that she's a wonderfully expressive performer with great screen presence. Singing and dancing is a different story, however, and with the advent of sound, Gaynor was among many stars of the era who had to prove themselves to audiences all over again. 1929 musical "Sunnyside Up" proved that Gaynor could not only make an effective tranistion to talkies, but that she also had a great flair for comedy. One of the first movie musicals, "Sunnyside Up" screened at the TCM fest on Sunday in a print beautifully restored by the Museum of Modern Art. A simple story of a girl from the tenements who falls in love with a man of means from Southampton(Charles Farrell), the film tells the story at a leisurely pace that allows the viewer to become fully immersed in both worlds.



"Sunnyside Up" is pretty innocent stuff, with one exception. At Ferrell's request, Gaynor's character and her friends agree to perform at a summer seaside charity show. The first number we see is called "Turn On the Heat", and that's exactly what the pre-code company proceed to do. Beginning as an eskimo number set on an ice flow, the performers shed their parkas for bikinis, the ice gradually melts into a tropical paradise complete with inflatable bananas, and by the end of the number, the entire company is writhing on the ground in ways that would have had the Production Code censors turning somersaults. Fortunately for those who missed the screening, the sequence is available on YouTube, embedded below. FilmRadar site owner Karie Bible described the sequence perfectly as "pre-code on crack".






Of course, in the end, true love prevails, and everyone definitely leaves the theatre with their sunnyside up.


Martin Scorsese's 1983 gem "The King of Comedy" opens with Ray Charles' "Come Rain or Come Shine", but there's not much light that streams through in this look at the perils of celebrity. Jerry Lewis turns in what's easily his most accomplished dramatic performance as the Carson-esque talk show host Jerry Langford, and Robert DeNiro manages a unique comic creepiness as "self-styled" stand up comic Rupert Pupkin. Lewis had been scheduled to introduce the screening, but cancelled for undisclosed reasons after the TCM Fest programs went to press. Regardless, the film was screened in a sparkling new print, and Scorsese's tale of of a comic who kidnaps a talk show host in order to get on national television seems even more relevant now than it did on its original release.

Perhaps due to Lewis' cancellation, there were a lot of empty seats in Grauman's Chinese for "The King of Comedy" screening. Not so for the final festival screening at the historic venue. The influence of "Metropolis" on both film culture and the culture at large can hardly be overstated, and TCM closed their first festival with the North American premiere of the most complete version of Lang's film yet available. Upon it's original release, nearly an hour of footage was immediately cut from Lang's film, and over the film has resurfaced in a number of different restored versions. The most definitive version to date was released by Kino in 2002, and it seemed like that was the closest thing to "Metropolis" that modern audiences were likely to see. All that changed in 2008, when a 16 mm print of Lang's original version was discovered in Argentina. In the entire film, only one scene was damaged beyond repair, and the audience at Sunday's premiere was treated to an epic 2 1/2 hour version of the film. The 16 mm footage was incorporated into the earlier Kino version, and the whole film was lifted to new heights by live acccompaniment from the Alloy Orchestra.

TCM host Robert Osborne introduced the screening, and set a poignant tone for the evening by mentioning some of the encounters he'd had with TCM fans over the course of the festival. Where Osborne revealed he'd always thought of TCM as fine entertainment, he revealed that he'd been approached by viewers who'd turn the channel on for comfort in the face of unemployment, or illness, or a bad divorce. Osborne seemed genuinely moved by these interactions, and he got the whole theatre fired up by officially announcing that the TCM fest would return to Hollywood for another run in 2011. The audience erupted in applause, but once the lights went down and the music began, Fritz Lang had their undivided attention.

TCM Film Fest Day 3: Joan Crawford, Illeana Douglas and Temple Drake

EDITOR'S NOTE: This post originally appeared on FilmRadar.com

More than 30 years after her death, Joan Crawford continues to fascinate. A capacity crowd turned out at the Blossom room at the Roosevelt Hotel on Saturday (aka “Club TCM”) to watch Crawford’s grandson Casey LaLonde present highlights from the icon’s home movie collection. LaLonde, the son of Crawford’s adopted daughter Cathy, approached TCM with the films, and was then invited to come and present a selection of the films for festival passholders. Festival programmers had wanted to show a Crawford films anyway, so they also gave Lelonde the opportunity to select which one. His choice “A Woman’s Face”, directed by George Cukor, was an inspired one, and features a Crawford performance ripe for rediscovery.


The home movies offer a fascinating glimpse into Crawford’s personal life. Known as “Jojo” to her grandkids, much of the material centers around scenes of Crawford’s domestic life, which is as extravagant as you might expect. There’s an extended sequence of one of young Christina Crawford’s backyard bithday parties at Crawford’s Westwood home. In addition to pony rides, Christina and her friends got to enjoy a clown performing tricks with trained pig, an amusement park ride, and a ten layer cake served with ice cream elephants. As an adult, Christina went on to write her memoir “Mommie Dearest”, which painted a picture of Joan Crawford as both physically and emotionally abusive. While stopping short of insulting Christina, Casey LaLonde made it clear he doesn’t believe her claims. LaLonde claimed that his primary focus is to restore Joan Crawford’s reputation in the wake of the damage caused by Christina’s account. LaLonde concluded the presentation by revealing that a DVD release of the Crawford Home Movies is in the works.


Regardless of her domestic squabbles, Crawford gave some indelible performances, and her role in 1941’s “A Woman’s Face” deserves more recognition. A remake of a 1938 Swedish Film starring Ingrid Bergman, Crawford convinced Irving Thalbeg to option the property. Thalberg told her that the role would ruin her career, but Crawford insisted on taking the part. As a small time crook in Sweden whose nature is changed when she has plastic surgery to remove a disfiguring scar from her face, Crawford has the opportunity to be both tough and vulnerable, and she hits all the right notes. Melvyn Douglas provides great support as the plastic surgeon who falls in love with her, and there’s also a truly chilling performance from Conrad Veidt, who would appear the next year as the Nazi general in Casablanca.


LaLonde was on hand to introduce the screening, and he was joined by Illeana Douglas, the granddaughter of Melvyn Douglas. Beginning with tales of spending time on the sets of Melvyn on his last couple of films, she spent a few minutes paying tribute to her grandfather’s storied Hollywood career. The elder Douglas started in Vaudeville, then transitioned into film, where he worked with a long line of great directors from Ernst Lubitsch to Hal Ashby. Douglas and his wife were also actively involved in progressive politics. Illeana Douglas talked of how her grandfather consistently spoke out against the House Unamerican Activities Comittee, and revealed how her grandmother had run an unsuccessful Senate campaign against Richard Nixon. By the end of the campaign, she had coined Nixon’s infamous nickname “Tricky Dick.”


For many film classic film fans, 1933’s “The Story of Temple Drake” has long been something of a holy grail. Based on William Faulkner’s novel, “Sanctuary”, the story of a young Southern debutante with a wild side created a huge scandal upon its original release. The film was quickly pulled from release and went largely unseen for decades. Now the Museum of Modern Art in New York has taken on the restoration of the film, and Saturday night’s TCM screening was the premiere of their work in progress. The restoration work must be close to done because the print that was screened for the festival was gorgeous. Struck from the original camera negative, the film’s stunning black and white images looked crystal clear. “Temple Drake” features a phenomenal performance by Miriam Hopkins in the title role, and the role itself is much more complex than many of the parts offered to women in studio films today. If there’s any justice, the MOMA restoration of ‘The Story of Temple Drake’ will get a proper DVD release, but until then, Saturday’s screening should help to rescue the film from obscurity.

NEXT: Janet Gaynor in SUNNYSIDE UP, Scorsese’s THE KING OF COMEDY, and the latest and greatest restoration of Fritz Lang’s METROPOLIS.

TCM Film Fest Day 2: THE STUNT MAN, NO ORCHIDS FOR MISS BLANDISH, and THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS

EDITOR'S NOTE: This post originally appeared on FilmRadar.com.

“It’s better tonight than it’s ever been,” was Barbara Hershey’s response after watching Friday night’s TCM Fest screening of Richard Rush’s 1980 film “The Stunt Man.” Director Rush, also in attendance, agreed. “Damn right, for me too,” Rush said. Co-star Steve Railsback was also on hand, and it was striking how much affection all three seem to have for the film to this day. To hear Rush tell it, some of this may stem from the film’s difficult birth. A full ten years passed before the completed Stunt Man script made it to the screen, and it was only picked up for distribution by Fox after a brave theatre owner in Seattle took a chance on it and played it for a year. The film does’t fit easily into any genre category, and Rush as director takes it on faith that the audience will be able to follow The Stunt Man’s film within a film plotline.

The movie features an incredible stunt set piece on the roof on the historic Hotel de Coronado in San Diego, and also features a stunning performance by Peter 0’Toole as an egomaniacal director modeled loosely after David Lean. An anecdote Rush told after the screening suggests that O’Toole may have had other directors in mind as well. O’Toole was always professional on set, and had a habit of checking in with Rush each day for approval after he’d gotten into costume. Rush checked out the actor’s wardrobe, and enthusiastically approved it. It was only later in the day that he realized that O’Toole had managed to mimic what Rush was wearing down to the last belt buckle. For more pure undiluted Richard Rush, check out the making of documentary “The Sinister Saga of Makng The Stunt Man”, available on DVD.


As far as rarities go, 1948’s “No Orchids For Miss Blandish” was high on the list for the TCM fest, surpassed only by Saturday’s screening of “The Story of Temple Drake” (more on Temple Drake in our Day 3 recap). Coincidentally, both films feature nearly identical performances by Jack La Rue as the main thug, and both may have been based on William Faulkner’s novel, Sanctuary, although ‘No Orchids” is more of an unofficial adaptation. What really drew the crowd for this film is what a scandal the film created in the UK upon its initial release. Bruce Goldstein from New York’s Fillm Forum introduced the film and provided a laundry list of quotes from the British press of the day. Critic Dilys Powell assiged it a rating of “D for Disgusting”, while C.A. Lejune wrote that “it had all the morals of an alley cat and the fragrance of a sewer.” Both of these attacks pale in comparison though to another paper which declared the film “thoroughly un-British.”


Today the film registers as more of a curiosity than anything else. One of the earliest British attempts at Film Noir, “No Orchids” boats an almost entirely British cast for a ganster tale set in New York. Actor Tim Roth was also on hand for the screening, no stranger to the crime film genre himself. After first marvelling that he felt like he could have been cast in one of the roles, he defended the film as a love letter from the Brits to an American genre they adored. “I"m sorry we weren’t very good at Film Noir,” Roth said. ‘But we did love you!”


One of the things TCM has been pushing hard at this festival is the importance of film preservation. The midnight screening on Friday of 1963’s “The Day of the Triffids” provided a shining example of what a damaged film can look like when it’s restored to its former glory. Michael Hyatt, one the main architects of the restoration, was on hand for the screening to give the audience a glimpse into the painstaking process of bringing a film back to life. In the case of “Triffids”, the film had literally been cleaned in dirty water, resulting in countless specks of dust that grafted themselves to the film.


For those who think that everything has gone digital these days, think again. Hyatt used a modified jeweler’s scope and the sharpest needles he could find to remove every individual speck of dust from “Triffids”. At the rate he worked he was able to get through about three seconds of footage a day, and the film’s complete restoration took close to four years. A midnight screening crowd who had doubtless been watching movies all day started to get a little restless as Hyatt explained his process, but few complaints were heard after the film’s newly pristine technicolor images unspooled.


As for the film itself, it’s still a potent reminder that if you go blind from looking directly at a meteor shower, it’s really tough to avoid killer plants that are trying to eat you.


NEXT: TCM FEST DAY 3: Joan Crawford’s Home Movies, A Woman’s Face, and The Story of Temple Drake.

TCM Classic Film Festival: Day 1: NEPTUNE'S DAUGHTER

EDITOR'S NOTE: The following post originally appeared on FilmRadar.com, but the photo is original to whatmakesjeffyrun!

With TCM main host Robert Osborne down the street introducing “A Star Is Born” at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, it was up to weekend host Ben Mankiewicz to preside over a longstanding Hollywood tradition, the poolside screening. And what better film to screen by the pool than 1949’s Esther Williams vehicle “Neptune’s Daughter”? Williams made a career out of swimming in movies, and in “Neptune’s Daughter” not only does she get to perform fancy aquatic routines, she’s also a successful swimsuit designer. Turner Classic Movies is pulling out all the stops for this festival, so it’s no surprise that both Esther Williams and her co-star Betty Garrett both appeared with Mankiewicz at the screening. Although now confined to a wheelchair, Williams is as enthusiastic about swimming as ever. Initially apologizing that her voice was a little hoarse, she deferred to Garret, and mentioned that Betty could still swim. “If you can still swim,” Williams said, “it doesn’t matter how you talk. The line got a big laugh, and Williams added, “Everyone sounds better underwater.”


The brief discussion with the two stars was followed by a brief but elegant performance by Aqualillies, a local synchronized swimming troupe. It was a perfect introduction to the film, and the members of the troupe were even wearing vintage suits from the Esther Williams collection. They swam to a few carefully chosen songs, including “It’s Cold Outside”, the Oscar winning song from “Neptune’s Daughter.”


Which only leaves the film, which is an enjoyable piece of fluff. It features a young Ricardo Montalban, who plays the very improbably named Jose O’Rourke, a champion polo player from South America. Although it seems that half the film consists of people commenting on the love life of this “Romeo from the Amazon”, Betty Garrett’s character somehow manages to confuse him with Red Skelton. No matter. Add in Mel Blanc doing a modified Speedy Gonzales and some wacky polo shenanigans that arrive just in time to set up the happy ending, and voila, we’re back in the pool watching Esther Williams doing what she did best.

Record Store Day 2010: Blow by Blow

(photo taken by Jack Cozzi using the Lomo app for iphone)

2008 saw the launch of the first Record Store Day, which was designed to boost sales for independent record stores across the country. To help with this effort, a number of indie artists released limited edition singles just for the occasion. A friend and I met at Amoeba Music in Hollywood that day around the time they opened and found a very laid back scene. A few enthusiastic collectors, but nothing out of the ordinary. No longer. Record Store Day 2010 was truly an event, with Amoeba featuring an instore appearance by Slash and a performance across the street by Smashing Pumpkins. Amoeba opened at 10:30; my friends and I showed up at 10 to find there was already a line around the block to get in. Once the doors were open, a feeding frenzy ensued that was somewhere between the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange and the running of the brides at Filene's Basement.

Miraculously I managed to walk away with a couple of this year's exclusives, but we were all much happier when we escaped to smaller less crowded stores. Rockaway Records in Silver Lake proved to be filled with treasures, and Origami Vinyl in Echo Park Vacation Vinyl in Hollywood both proved well worth the trip.

Oh, and lest I forget, I won a $20 record store gift certificate on Bob Ham's excellent blog, The Voice of Energy.

Here's how it all went down...

Stores visited:

Amoeba Music (Hollywood)
Rockaway Records (Silver Lake)
Origami Vinyl (Echo Park)
Vacation Vinyl (Hollywood)
Atomic Records (Burbank)
Penny Lane Records (Pasadena)
Poobah Records (Pasadena)


Record Store Day Exclusives acquired:

Neko Case-Middle Cyclone (Clear Vinyl)
R.E.M.-Chronic Town (Reissue, Blue Vinyl)
Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band-Wrecking Ball/Ghost of Tom Joad 10"
Elvis Presley-That's All Right, Mama/Blue Moon of Kentucky 7" (Reissue)
Peter Gabriel/Stephen Merritt Split 7"
Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings/Budos Band Money/Day Tripper 7"
Ted Leo & The Pharmacists North Coast 7"
The Mountain Goats-Life of the World to Come DVD

Misc. New Vinyl purchased just because:

Titus Andronicus-The Monitor

Used LPS bought/deals found:

Grover Sings the Blues ($1 @ Vacation!)
Saturday Night Fever OST
The Byrds-Younger Than Yesterday
David Bowie-Christiane F OST
Elvis Presley Sings for Children & Grown-Ups Too
Supertramp-Breakfast In America
Ella Fitzgerald-Ella: songs in a mellow mood (50 cents @ Atomic!)

Used Singles:

XTC-Wake Up 10 "
Prince and the Revolution-I would Die 4 U/Another Lonely Christmas 12"
Pat Benatar-Love Is A Battlefield/Hell is For Children 7 "


Elusive Holy Grails not obtained:

Rolling Stones-Plundered My Soul 7"
Elvis Costello & The Attractions-Live from Hollywood High 7"
The Hold Steady-Heaven Is Whenever LP

Free schwag received:

"Whip It" mini movie poster
Record Store Day record bag
Origami Vinyl record bag
Noah and the Whale "Blue Skies" 7"
CD sampler featuring Jeff Bridges, Jimmy Buffett, Deep Purple among others
2 "Urban" record store day CD samplers
She and Him luggage tag
Puddle of Mudd keychain bottle opener
1 cassette sampler
3 record cleaning cloths
Stickers and postcards too numerous to mention

Fingers lost in the mob scene at Amoeba:

None, but it could have gone either way. Place was INSANE.

Award for nicest, most enthusiastic staff:

Origami Vinyl

Reason for not punching out Amoeba patron and stealing their Rolling Stones Single:

Too many witnesses.

Reason for drinking two cans of Colt 45:

It was free!