Ξ December 23rd, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Movies |
2008. Starring Anna Faris, Emma Stone.
Beauty and brains. Rarely do the two co-exist.
As I said back in August, when penning an admiring (and not-at-all-creepy) tribute to Anna Faris, she is capable of carrying an average comedy into a next level of funny. In The House Bunny, she portrays Shelly Darlington, a 27-year-old resident of the Playboy Mansion who dreams of putting that beauty on display as a centerfold. Instead, she is kicked out of the mansion and, now homeless, staggers onto the distressed yard of a sorority much in need of her help. The Zetas, made up of a half-dozen socially awkward sisters who need a big boost in popularity to save their frumpy house.
Anyone in need of more plot description need only watch Revenge of the Nerds, or any other campus-based comedy from the 1980s.
But I’m going to expound a bit more on Ms. Faris. She really is this movie, breathing life into every line, mining comedy gold from the dumbest things. (”How did you know I was here?” she asks a housemate. “A little bird told me,” is the reply. Shelly looks panicked: “What BIRD?”) She transforms the sorority sisters, of course, into a still-awkward-but-at-least-attractive bunch who can throw a killer party and finally talk to the guys on whom they’ve had crushes. (Unfortunately, there’s no makeover for the dull dudes who earn their interest.) But the real lesson here is that true beauty lies in being yourself. . .
Whatever. With an exception for the adorable Emma Stone (who plays the coolest nerd, Natalie), the House Bunny rides on the lovely shoulders of Anna Faris. Maybe it’s her exclamation when knocking over a table in a restaurant — “SWEET BALLS!” — or her dude-scoping directions to her sisters, “Check out that box of Cutesicles,” she nails every line, and is disturbingly natural as the ditzy-but-golden-hearted housemom who considers being called “vapid” a compliment.
The subplot actually works too, as Shelly falls for a guy who volunteers at an old-folks home — kinda like the orphanage where she grew up, you know, but for old people — and feels that she’s not smart enough for a guy who doesn’t fall for the regular tricks. She gets help from her newly glamorized charges and learns the same lessons about being yourself. . .
So, yeah. The House Bunny isn’t The Seven Samurai, or even Two-Lane Blacktop, but it was entirely watchable. And Anna Faris is entirely charming. And true to the spirit of the movie, she’s never sexier than when, looking so cute, she’s in a library, up to her lovely elbows in dusty old books. There’s just something about the power of brains times beauty.
Ξ December 21st, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Music |
I’ve been thinking a lot about my family, with Christmas coming up, and of Christmases past. Whether I was bad or good for the entire year, I was always spoiled by my parents on December 25. I realize now how hard they worked to shelter and feed our family, clothe us and keep us healthy, and still get me that electronic football game or Hot Wheels SuperCharger Race Set. I’ve always felt fortunate, and that feeling has little to do with money.
Dolly Parton’s Coat of Many Colors is reportedly autobiographical, and about as clearly written as any work about the realization that you’re poor, at least as seen through the eyes of others. But the song’s beauty — besides its melody and Dolly’s performance — lies in the singer’s rejection of what others think of her and the realization that there are some gifts you can’t put a price on.
Coat of Many Colors (performed by Dolly Parton)
Written by Dolly Parton
Back through the years
I go wanderin’ once again
Back to the seasons of my youth
I recall a box of rags that someone gave us
And how my momma put the rags to use
There were rags of many colors
Every piece was small
And I didn’t have a coat
And it was way down in the fall
Momma sewed the rags together
Sewin’ every piece with love
She made my coat of many colors
That I was so proud of
As she sewed, she told a story
From the Bible, she had read
About a coat of many colors
Joseph wore and then she said
Perhaps this coat will bring you
Good luck and happiness
And I just couldn’t wait to wear it
And momma blessed it with a kiss
My coat of many colors
That my momma made for me
Made only from rags
But I wore it so proudly
Although we had no money
I was rich as I could be
In my coat of many colors
My momma made for me
So with patches on my britches
And holes in both my shoes
In my coat of many colors
I hurried off to school
Just to find the others laughing
And making fun of me
In my coat of many colors
My momma made for me
I couldn’t understand it
For I felt I was rich
And I told them of the love
My momma sewed in every stitch
And I told ‘em all the story
Momma told me while she sewed
And how my coat of many colors
Was worth more than all their clothes
But they didn’t understand it
And I tried to make them see
That one is only poor
Only if they choose to be
Now I know we had no money
But I was rich as I could be
In my coat of many colors
My momma made for me
Made just for me
Yeah, the song is a little corny, but it always makes me cry. It’s a valuable lesson to learn: to be proud of what you are, not what you have. Especially in times when you don’t have money.
I recently watched a video of my Dad describing my Mom in elementary school, how she and her sisters would wear sewn-together flour bags as winter leggings. She would never have denied it — it was a source of pride to her, how practical her family was during some desperate times, how homemade clothing was better, warmer and more comfortable. She made amazing dresses for my sisters, who seem from photos to be the best-dressed kids in their school. (She made me a few sweaters and shirts over the years, but I think my usual jeans and t-shirts were even cheaper.)
I’m also thinking of those who are having a particularly rough Christmas this year. I hope the new year brings them “good luck and happiness.”
And I hope that the time has now passed in which we think of poor people as people who haven’t tried hard enough. Maybe we can consider that poor people, for the most part, play by the rules, and that is a much harder way to become wealthy. We’ve been reminded enough this year about the few who took a shortcut to wealth, and how little value they bring to our world.
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and may your airing of grievances and feats of strength make this the best Festivus ever.
The online edition of Smithsonian magazine features an article by Bob Eckstein that discusses a forgotten shame: the pre-Frosty treatment of snowmen in popular culture. Snowmen were assaulted and abused by children and adults alike, possibly leading to their frequent depiction as drunken, out-of-control anthropomorphic wads of snow.
Snowmen were apparently an easy target — unable to run or fight back, they were also weakened by direct sunlight, and not as dapper as later depictions would have you believe. And advertisers exploited their pathetic nature:
To add insult to injury, the snowman somehow became a spokesperson for any product of an embarrassing sort, appearing in ads for every personal hygiene problem imaginable: dandruff, gas, hangovers, constipation, and bad breath. Add this all up and you have a Frosty with a pretty shaken psyche. We literally built him up only so we could, apparently, knock him down and use him as a piñata. It’s no wonder the snowman turned to booze.
Since those dark years, the snowman’s image has been rehabilitated, and we even have songs and TV specials to celebrate them. But when the holidays have come and gone, we have to wonder about the puddles they leave behind: are those icy tears?
Snowman Gone Wild (Smithsonian Magazine)
Be sure to check out the online gallery for examples of snowmen depictions.
Ξ December 19th, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Movies |
1971. Starring Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepard. Directed by Peter Bogdanovich.
Anyone who has visited my other site, couderaywisconsin.com, knows that I have real affection for my hometown, and for small towns in general. The experience of growing up in such a small town — Couderay had a population of 113 when I lived there — is impossible to describe. As a kid, there was nowhere safer, surrounded by woods and backroads, but also by neighbors who kept an eye on you. But there was soul-crushing boredom for us kids, who watched TV and saw movies and knew of a bigger life out there somewhere, in a bigger town. There’s the comfort of tradition and responsibility, and there’s a stifling sense that you couldn’t swear alone in your room without someone bringing it up in church on Sunday morning. There’s a feeling of seclusion. Yet as everyone knows, there aren’t many secrets in a small town.
A couple years ago, I discovered and came to love Bobby Bare’s LP, A Bird Named Yesterday, an album about fondness for a hometown that had to change to keep up with the world. Bobby Bare was singing about this heartbreaking sense of loss in 1965 — and I was feeling it in 2007. Knowing what was and knowing that it will never be again must be what it means to get old.
Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show is about small towns, and the change that comes to them. Even the heartache and the tragedy that occurs in the small Texas town of Anarene seem to have a glow to them because they happen as signs of life in such a neglected and blowing-away town. Timothy Bottoms plays Sonny Crawford, a resident and member of the town’s apparently terrible football team. He spends most of his time hanging out with his buddy, Duane Jackson (Jeff Bridges), and the mute Billy (Sam Bottoms, cast when he visited his brother on set). They bounce around between the Royal movie theater — retreating to the dark section to make out with their girlfriends — and the pool hall, where they are nudged back in line by owner Sam the Lion (Ben Johnson), a father figure and soul of the town.
Duane is in love with Jacy Farrow (Cybill Shepard, in her first role, very sexy and daring), whose mother (Ellen Burstyn) has advised that she get the deflowering matter over with, so she can head off to college and find someone rich. Sonny has always loved Jacy, but finds himself also attracted to his coach’s wife (Cloris Leachman, in a surprisingly strong role), a lonely, neglected woman who has just gotten some bad medical news. Duane tries to confirm a future with Jacy, while she is testing the waters with the country-club set, beginning with a skinny-dip party with Randy Quaid and friends.
Time goes by, and the small town changes. Then Sam keels over while Duane and Sonny are off on a drunken road trip to Mexico, leaving the pool hall in Sonny’s idle hands. Duane leaves to work in the oilfields, and Jacy suddenly sees Sonny as a promising suitor, especially when talk about the two begins to circulate in town. Duane comes home to visit and nearly blinds Sonny in a bitter fight. Jacy quickly ups the ante by proposing to the confounded Sonny (love the sound of Webb Pierce’s Back Street Affair playing in the background), but their elopement is brought to a sudden end by her disapproving parents.
While all this drama swirls around Sonny, his world begins to fall apart. Jacy is shipped off to college, Duane enlists and heads off to Korea, the Royal shows one last movie before shutting down (television is to blame now, even more so than football), and he has betrayed the woman who loves him and needs him. And there’s a final tragedy that awaits the dusty streets of his hometown.
There are so many great scenes and performances in this movie — Ben Johnson reminiscing about the “good old days” and rolling a cigarette, Jacy’s disappointing fling with a wildcatter (Clu Gulager), the quiet scenes with Sonny and the coach’s wife. There are some intriguing scenes, too, that may take a bit more reflection — the “preacher’s boy” being arrested for kidnapping a very young girl, and a scene at a dance, when Sonny’s father steps up to him and says hello, as if they haven’t spoken to each other for years, though they live in the same small town, if not the same small house.
I was inspired to watch this movie again because of reading about Sam Bottoms, who passed away this week at 53 from brain cancer. He was 15 when he appeared in The Last Picture Show, and went on to play the famous surfer in Apocalypse Now (the guy Robert Duvall clears the beaches for), as well as roles in The Outlaw Josey Wales, Bronco Billy, and Seabiscuit, among other films. His role as the sweet but disabled Billy — Duane and Sonny are constantly twisting his cap around — was a great start to a too-short career.
RIP Mr. Bottoms.
Ξ December 15th, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Movies |
1954. Starring Takashi Shimura, Toshiro Mifune. Directed by Akira Kurosawa.
Akira Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai, like John Ford’s The Searchers, is mentioned so often as an inspiration for other films that to finally see it feels a bit like a cheat — I feel like I know what’s going to happen. But watching 207 minutes of subtitled 16th-century warfare, undoubtedly infused with much cultural significance over the head of this dull Wisconsin boy, was surprisingly entertaining.
Takashi Shimura plays Kambei, recruited by desperate farmers to help protect them against a return visit by marauding bandits. The farmers are tempted to give everything to the bandits and beg for mercy, but know how little mercy they can expect. Kambei is promised a little rice a day for risking his life, but he accepts, and begins to search for help. Among those he finds is Kikuchiyo (Toshiro Mifune), a samurai-wannabe whose reputation as “a wild animal” will make him a formidable killer. The seven travel to the small village, which is anxious to finish the harvest and await the bandits.
Kambei creates a strategy for defending the village and trains the farmers to defend themselves. (They really are fairly pathetic: starving and cowering early in the film, but happy warriors at the end.) Meanwhile, his young recruit, Katsushiro, has fallen for a village girl — an unwelcome impulse for a hired killer.
Kurosawa’s direction has been discussed by more-knowledgable reviewers than me; but the fact that this film moves along so quickly, even with its battle scenes confined to the final third, is due to the fascinating characters in every scene and near-constant movement within every frame. The cast is memorable, including Seiji Miyaguchi as Kyuzo, a taciturn and fearless warrior, and Daisuke Kato as Shichiroji, an old samurai buddy of Kambei’s who happily joins in. (I love the scene where Kambei explains that they are fighting bloodthirsty bandits, and may only be paid a handful of rice. Kyuzo without hesitation says, “Yes!”)
This story of a loose band of hired guns, protecting a group of frightened townspeople out of a sense of professional obligation, should be familiar to fans of great Westerns. Maybe I’ll rent the Magnificent Seven next.
Michael Lewis, who wrote about the madness of Wall Street in 1989’s Liar’s Poker, has an amazing article in the December issue of Portfolio magazine, detailing the ridiculous evolution of subprime-backed securities and the irresponsible, incompetent business culture that embraced them. This is great journalism — and I love the earthy, blunt language used throughout the article.
Here’s an excerpt:
The funny thing, looking back on it, is how long it took for even someone who predicted the disaster to grasp its root causes. They were learning about this on the fly, shorting the bonds and then trying to figure out what they had done. [Steve] Eisman knew subprime lenders could be scumbags. What he underestimated was the total unabashed complicity of the upper class of American capitalism. For instance, he knew that the big Wall Street investment banks took huge piles of loans that in and of themselves might be rated BBB, threw them into a trust, carved the trust into tranches, and wound up with 60 percent of the new total being rated AAA.
But he couldn’t figure out exactly how the rating agencies justified turning BBB loans into AAA-rated bonds. “I didn’t understand how they were turning all this garbage into gold,” he says. He brought some of the bond people from Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, and UBS over for a visit. “We always asked the same question,” says Eisman. “Where are the rating agencies in all of this? And I’d always get the same reaction. It was a smirk.” He called Standard & Poor’s and asked what would happen to default rates if real estate prices fell. The man at S&P couldn’t say; its model for home prices had no ability to accept a negative number. “They were just assuming home prices would keep going up,” Eisman says.
As an investor, Eisman was allowed on the quarterly conference calls held by Moody’s but not allowed to ask questions. The people at Moody’s were polite about their brush-off, however. The C.E.O. even invited Eisman and his team to his office for a visit in June 2007. By then, Eisman was so certain that the world had been turned upside down that he just assumed this guy must know it too. “But we’re sitting there,” Daniel recalls, “and he says to us, like he actually means it, ‘I truly believe that our rating will prove accurate.’ And Steve shoots up in his chair and asks, ‘What did you just say?’ as if the guy had just uttered the most preposterous statement in the history of finance. He repeated it. And Eisman just laughed at him.”
“With all due respect, sir,” Daniel told the C.E.O. deferentially as they left the meeting, “you’re delusional.”
I’ve always said that one thing that’s been pounded out of people over the years is healthy skepticism. If there were more people on Wall Street with “negative attitudes,” we’d all be better for it. We need more cynical people in commerce, in politics, in journalism — in every field. We have to demand answers and not be satisfied with the easy ones.
Lewis makes the point that this economic catastrophe has been a long time in development — he suggests that it may have begun when Salomon Brothers became the first Wall Street public company, making shareholders take all the risk while Wall greed advanced its risk-taking methods. Through years of increasing home prices, the development of mortgage-backed bonds, through boom and bust, short selling and “mezzanine CDOs,” the industry charged toward disaster, blinded by insane profits gained at the expense of everything else.
The End of Wall Street’s Boom (Portfolio magazine site)
Last weekend began with an AP news item that Bettie Page, the 85-year-old iconic pinup model, had been hospitalized after a number of strokes and was in intensive care. I’ve been checking for updates all week, avoiding the practice of some major newspapers of writing about her life in the past tense until she passed away. She apparently never regained consciousness, which can be a blessing.
Bettie Page’s face and figure are so well-known that, I bet, anyone who doesn’t recognize her name will recognize her photo. Even her hairstyle was iconic. She began her career in somewhat more innocent days: an amateur photographer saw her on the beach and asked to take her picture. Her gaze into the camera was usually direct and always playful, even when the subject matter grew a little more. . .intense. She made the suggestiveness of her photos seem like fun, and while that contributed to her popularity, some of the photos made her a target of a congressional investigation. She grew older, got married, had some troubled years and disappeared from the public eye. A renewed appreciation in the past couple decades gave her a well-deserved revival, although she no longer wanted to be photographed, saying that she wanted to be remembered as she was. I have no doubt that she will be.
From all accounts, Bettie Page never lost the earthy nature apparent in her smile. She claimed to be “born again” but didn’t regret her earlier life, glad to have played a role in changing society’s feelings about nudity. I’m one of many fans — more so of her bikini photos than any of the infamous bondage stuff. She just always seemed nice. I know how weird that sounds, but she seemed nice and seemed like she was having fun. I hope she was.
RIP Ms. Page.
1965. Starring Ida Kaminska and Jozef Kroner. Directed by Jan Kadar and Elmar Klos.
The banality of evil is truly underrated. And the desperation and denial of human beings in challenging times remains endlessly fascinating, even when portrayed with some slapstick.
In Shop on Main Street, there is plenty of desperation and denial, and evil is gathering strength every day. Antony (Jozef Kroner) likes the simple things in life, wandering around with his dog, doing the occasional carpentry job and a drink now and then. His wife complains about his idleness, his lack of ambition — why can’t he be more like his brother-in-law, empowered as a local authority for the Nazis. He has money, food and power, and no lack of ambition. Unable to earn Antony’s allegiance, the brother-in-law has arranged to install Antony as the “Aryan manager” of an old woman’s button-and-fabric shop. Now it’s up to him to become a rich man.
Antony is henpecked, clumsy and lazy — the perfect manager for the incoming regime. But the appointment may be a trick played on him. The store has almost no inventory, the Jewish widow he is to lord over (Ida Kaminska as Mrs. Lautmann) is nearly deaf, and the work isn’t really fitting for a man. But the daily requirements of the shop keep him away from the wife, and the money provided by the local Jews (paid mostly to benefit the widow) keeps Antony out of the doghouse.
Then a curious thing happens. Antony is unable to explain that he is the new owner of the shop, so Mrs. Lautmann takes him on as an assistant. He spends most of his time restoring her furniture, and she dotes on him like a son, giving him her late husband’s suits and cooking meals for him. He becomes happier, regains his self-respect and comes to adore her gentleness and generosity. But outside the shop, the local fascists are building a monument to their new nationalistic sickness. There have also been rumors of deportation of the town’s Jewish citizens.
In Schindler’s List, the lead character is an opportunistic neutral who, when faced with the horrors of the Nazi cowards, risks his own life to save as many lives as possible. In Shop on Main Street, the opportunistic neutral tries to save one life, but can’t decide whether it should be the widow’s life or his own. As the fascists move ahead with their plans, Antony has to reveal the truth to Mrs. Lautmann, and hide her from the danger outside.
As Antony, Jozef Kroner transforms from a sweaty weakling of a man to a decent human being and back again. Ida Kaminska’s Rozalie Lautmann plays the sweet old lady, reverently observant of the sabbath but unaware of the hatred growing in her neighbors. The ending was devastating the first time I saw the film; it wasn’t much easier the second time. But hopefully, this film will teach us to put a flame to any more monuments to hate before they’re fully built.
Ξ December 8th, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Women |
I know almost nothing about Jenna Fischer’s career outside of The Office. I know she had a major role in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, but I haven’t seen the movie. She was also apparently in Blades of Glory — didn’t see it. I kind of remember her being on That 70s Show, but I don’t remember her character’s name or purpose.
But she has brought to life a believable and memorable TV character as Pam Beesley, the funny-while-put-upon receptionist who finally gets the love (though not the respect) she deserves on NBC’s Thursday night must-seer. Her character first appeared kind of frumpy and depressed and has blossomed as the storyline has developed. And I think the show’s writers have correctly judged that another “will they, won’t they” sitcom romance will hold so little suspense that it’s almost better to let the characters get on with it. (I feel I should here quote Cosmo Kramer, who was once enchanted with a bookstore clerk, “And that name! Pam. Pam! PAM!!!”)
Maybe it was her introduction, performed by boss Michael Scott — “If you think she’s cute now, you should have seen her a couple years ago”– or her long engagement to the unworthy warehouse lug Roy, or the distress she felt at office-buddy Jim’s declaration of love, or the yet-unfulfilled dreams of being an artist instead of a receptionist, fans have felt protective of Pam Beesley. We may not need to any longer.
In this past week’s episode, Pam plays hard ball when it comes to the employees’ recommendation on how to spend a budget surplus, obliquely threatening her co-worker/mate into agreeing with her. As much as I liked the hounded look of the ol’ receptionist, I love the daring, sexy character that she has become. Lucky John Krasinski.
And lucky us, the pathetic television-addicted guys, who have something to look forward to each Thursday.
Ξ December 3rd, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Music |
There are many songs about the pride rightfully felt by rural folk who aren’t “citified” — and by that I mean cosmopolitan, shallow and materialistic. In the early 21st century, we’ve begun to turn “simple” back into something positive, but country music always took the side of the simple folk. Nothing was more transforming than to give up the farm and head for the bright lights of the city. Bobby Bare was among many who recorded this song about fulfilled dreams that turn out to be a fork in the road.
Streets Of Baltimore (performed by Bobby Bare)
Words and Music by Tompall Glaser and Harlan Howard
Well I sold the farm to take my woman where she longed to be
We left our kin and all our friends back there in Tennessee
And I bought those one way tickets she had often begged me for
And they took us to the streets of Baltimore
Well her heart was filled with gladness when she saw those city lights
She said the prettiest place on earth was Baltimore at night
A man feels proud to give his woman what she’s longing for
And I kinda liked the streets of Baltimore
I got myself a factory job, I ran an old machine
And I bought a little cottage in a neighborhood serene
And every night when I’d come home with every muscle sore
She’d drag me through the streets of Baltimore
Well I did my best to bring her back to what she used to be
Then I soon learned she loved those bright lights more than she loved me
Now I’m a going back on that same train that brought me here before
While my baby walks the streets of Baltimore
Hard to imagine “the prettiest place on earth was Baltimore at night,” but I’ve never been there. It might be. I have been with someone who felt that her new surroundings were far superior to her old place, next to me. And that ride back home was a lonely ride, and a humbling one.
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