The Silver Screen Oasis

The conversation about the sometimes charming and touching Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid made me wonder:
Has anyone ever seen The Senator Was Indiscreet (1947), the political satire starring William Powell and Ella Raines and directed by playwright George S. Kaufman? It always looked like fun and doesn't seem to have been broadcast in recent decades or to be available on DVD.

George S. Kaufman directed a movie? Wow! He hated Hollywood!

FROM HERE TO ETERNITY is one case where the movie is better than the book. I don't have many problems with the movie. I like Deborah Kerr a lot. The book is long, convoluted and disgusting. There's considerable focus on the dark, decadent lifestyles of men at war, or specifically, men on leave! It's unpleasant.

I can't remember having seen The Senator was Indiscreet, though it's possible I might have seen it once on regular TV when I was a kid. I am awestruck that Kaufman directed a film! Even more so that I never knew it, you'd think that movie and Algonquin round table buffs would know that sort of thing.

Has anyone here seen "The Dark Knight Rises"? I saw it last week and had a weird/intensely negative reaction to it. (I didn't like "The Dark Knight" all that much, but my reaction to this film went way deeper.) Haven't really seen what bugged me talked about in reviews.

Watched two good documentaries yesterday.

The first, The Godfather Legacy (airing on History Channel), takes an in-depth look at Francis Ford Coppola's trilogy and has an emphasis, thankfully, on the first two films. The doc includes interviews with F.F. Coppola, various historians, prosecutors, actors (including Al Pacino which only makes me wonder, Dude-what happened to you?) and a mobster's daughter (luckily not from Gotti's clan). I think the documentary isn't available as a bonus feature on the Blu box set but as a stand alone because it seems tied to recently published book. Either way, it's worth a look, especially if, like me, you are a big fan of the first two films. Even FFC seems to understand that the third film is not in the same league as the first two.

The other is Vito airing on HBO. This is an in-depth look at Vito Russo, the gay activist and author of The Celluloid Closet. The doc is quite well done and includes interviews with Russo's friends and family and includes some great classic film clips. If you enjoyed his book or the documentary (or want to know more about the gay liberation movement in NYC), the documentary is worth watching.

Lynn, I absolutely adore that avatar!
Sorry I missed that History Channel special, and Vito, too. It sounds marvelous. Big Mario Puzo/Godfather fan aqui.

I almost forgot I watched Nicholas Hytner's THE CRUCIBLE, from 1996. I was wary that the ponderous, pointed theatricality of Arthur Miller's play might not translate well. But I was quite pleased. The story moves fluidly and without waste. Most of the dialogue is intact as I recall. If some superfluous lines are cut, that's probably a good thing. There's even a visual quality that's surprisingly effective, considering the origins of the story.

The cast is fine, with Winona Ryder as the trouble maker, Daniel Day-Lewis the challenger, and the reliable Joan Allen his cold, but loyal wife. The screenplay is by Miller himself. Sometimes a playwright writes a good movie. Sometimes he doesn't. In this case, it was the right call. This is not my favorite play. There are a couple of scenes that feel awkward, indecisive. But it is an American classic, and for a film adaptation of this particular work, Hytner's movie would be hard to beat.

Red, I remember liking The Crucible a lot more than I thought I was going to, the cast is extremely good. It deserves a revisit.

It has been a good long while (well over a decade, I believe) since I saw The Crucible.. but I DO recall it being a very intense and quite disturbing film. Very moving.

This spring, our community theatre is doing THE CRUCIBLE. I just might have to dust off my acting chops for that one!

kingrat wrote:I hated Batman Begins so much that I swore not to watch any more comic book movies. I guess I wasn't ready for an NRA Batman

NRA Batman? Batman is pretty famous for hating and not using guns, and that mythology is a part of The Dark Night series, particularly The Dark Night Rises where he flat out says, "No guns," to Selina. The bad guys use 'em, but not the Batman.

kingrat wrote:Interesting, MJ, because the scene in Batman Begins where Bruce Wayne's parents are killed plays out like an NRA ad.

Would that the NRA actually run this as an ad. I supposed they could super-impose something like this over the bodies of the dead Wayne's:
"NRA: Guns don't kill, people with guns kill."
Not seeing it though. But I also don't see Bruce's father as being an opera-loving wimpo.

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Okay, here are my thoughts on "The Dark Knight Rises." They might be "out there" for a lot of people.

I wasn't that taken with "The Dark Knight." The absence of an expressionistic style made me ask questions like "How do the characters get across the city so fast? Where does the Joker keep getting henchmen from if he keeps killing them off in public? Why didn't the police take the Joker's makeup off when they arrested him?"

"Dark Knight Rises" began as more of the same. There is no real humor except for a Cleveland joke (Commissioner Gordon's wife is so miserable that she leaves him to move to Cleveland.) I didn't like Ann Hathaway as Selina Kyle (the name "Catwoman" is never used). She is this unbeatable ninja type who gets the best of her foes in every fight. Michael Caine was good, but his role seemed like Etta Place in "Butch and Sundance" ie. "I'm not going to stick around and see you get killed."

At about an hour into the movie, I realized that compared to "The Avengers" and "The Amazing Spider-Man," I just wasn't enjoying this film.

Then it got much worse.