Funny, sexy, thrilling and...did I mention damn Funny?

Where the Bears  Are (2012)

d- Joe Dietl
w- Rick Copp
dp- Jeffrey Wylie

The Gay comedy genre is often rife with poorly written and directed misfires that usually, in this writer's opinion, try too hard to appeal to the uber hip, uber phoney gay stereotypes. They end up missing the point, the comedy, and the attention spans of their audience. Exceptions to this rule which come to mind are "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" "Jeffrey", "The Sum of Us" to name a few old favorites. One to be counted among this minority is certainly to be found in "Where the Bears Are", a feature length presentation of the first season web series

Now I have to make a couple of points clear before I go on. Firstly, I must disclose that I am longtime friends with several of the cast and crew. I can only say that from the first, I have attempted to lay aside bias and look at the piece objectively. This is indeed not the first time which I've had to do this. I'll leave it to your good judgement to decide if I've succeeded. Secondly, this is a discussion and analysis of the film, and as such I will be revealing"spoilers". So, if you haven't seen the film, please by all means buy the DVD and do so first. You are so warned.

The morning after the fifth anniversary party of his 40th birthday, Nelson (Ben Zook) awakens to find himself in bed with "Hot Toddy" (Ian Parks) - the newest hunky bartender at the Eagle. Todd Stevens is also roommate to J-Cub (Julio Tello, pictured above and to the far right), a hot young member of the party who winds up dead in Nelson's bathtub, under very suspicious circumstances. Todd immediately begins acting suspicious, and for the next hour and 50 minutes we follow Nelson and his two roommates Wood (Joe Dietl) and Reggie (Rick Copp) as they try to stay ahead of the killer, the police, and a bevvy of crazy, but HOT bears, cubs, twinks and gangsters and attempt to solve the murder and exculpate themselves in the process.
The script, By Rick Copp with, I understand, contributions by Ben Zook, borrows many conventions from the sitcom, detective thriller, and screwball comedy genres and effectively freshens them and makes them work here by filtering them through the lens of the Los Angeles "Bear" scene. If you don't know what a bear is in gay parlance, go look it up.
Copp has extensive Television writing credits, having written for, among others, "The Golden Girls", and much influence of that landmark series can be seen here. For Example, the three main characters, the roommates Nelson, Wood and Reggie resemble very closely (and intentionally) the three characters of Rose, Blanche, and Dorothy. The scenes between these three click beautifully because Copp knew who he was writing for and the chemistry between those three is spot on. I don't think this series would ever have gained traction without this main strength.  

obvious chemistry -Copp, Zook and Dietl

There are only a couple of instances where the pacing slows a bit, as this was originally produced as 26 or so 5 minute stand-alone episodes. However, every time it would start to lag, it took off again in a new direction. The constant introduction of guest or cameo players kept it fresh. And lord above, what a collection of characters and performances, each one a centerpiece of the scene and all total scene stealers.

 I must here pause to talk about Ian Parks. A LOT of ink has been spilled about his obvious superior looks and body, which has generated incredible buzz on the internet for this show. That's all great, but I want to talk a little bit about his acting, which to me was much more amazing to watch. Ian is what directors call a "thinking actor" - there is a performance happening in the eyes and facial reactions of such actors which is a dimension or so beyond the normal. You can see the wheels turning behind their eyes. That's what Parks does. His seemingly effortless comic delivery, combined with a truly creepy undertone of  sketchiness make him fun to watch every time he shows up.

Ian Parks as "Hot Toddy"

   There are two sequences which stand out for me that combine some amazing writing, direction and acting. One is the scene in the LA County Coroner's house. Wood has gone there because he went to high school and to the prom with Susie Collins (Loretta Fox), who is now the Coroner. He hopes to cajole information out of her about the murder. What follows is pure comedy gold. Such well executed farce is always a joy to come across. Loretta Fox takes this role and absolutely makes it a major series highlight - she gets every comedic facet and polishes it till it sparkles. The absurdity and the awkwardness of the situation make it glide. The addition of Pete Cincinnato as her assistant coroner who strips on a dime is brilliant. Notice how well Fox and Dietl play off of each other. Dietl plays by turns dumb, coy, and awkward without a blink.

 

Loretta Fox with Joe Dietl - comedy gold

super sexy and funny Pete Cincinnato as "Hairy Potter"

 Brooke Dillman plays Honey Garrett, a would-be Rachael Ray usurper shooting a demo reel for the cooking channel. 

Brooke Dillman as Honey Garrett and her god-awful blender decorating tips.

Nelson had hired her for his ill-fated birthday party as a caterer, so he attempts to get details from her about the deadly night as she's attempting to fight her own ineptness in shooting her demo film. Dillman, who has one of the best rubber faces since Carol Burnett first guest starred on the "Gary Moore Show" 50 years ago, is funny as all HELL. Her parting line which she spits out at Nelson is one of the best ever. PERFECT delivery!

Mario Diaz as Rrramone Santiago

Rick Copp as Reggie, surrounded by the hottest kidnappers on the planet

the superb Greg Whipple as the caped, argyle clad improv teacher

Mario Diaz plays the EVOL gangster/Eagle bar owner with obvious glee, as does Greg Whipple as the director of the comedy improv class. Other great performances are brought in from Tuc Watkins, Chad Sanders, and the marvelous George Sebastian as the deliciously pervy George Ridgemont, a wankerfan of Woods who stalked him the night of the party and provides clues.

George Sebastian, with Joe Dietl, Rick Copp, and Ben Zook

  The principal's performances are, as mentioned before, great to watch for the chemistry between them, but also I want to stress their individual strengths. All three actors shine in their own scenes but I must give additional props to Ben Zook as Nelson. Ben has been acting for many, many years, as well as having a successful career as a writer, so his performance is, not surprisingly, excellent. He's damn funny. Delivery...timing... and ability to add pathos. His character seems so pathetically needy for attention, recognition. Ben finds these threads and, at the right time and without hitting us over the head, brings these feelings to light. Particularly great is the final scenes in Palm Springs when it dawns on him that the killer really is - seemingly - Todd. His mixture of comedy befuddlement with dawning terror are starkly genuine. Again, the writing and direction of these scenes is so skillfull - we go from screwball comedy to genuine thriller in an instant. The scenes are played for maximum tautness, and when the REAL killer is revealed, it's done in such a way that still, seeing it several times over, still gives me chills. Scott Beauchemin, as the killer Cyril really, REALLY transforms into creepy in the climactic garage scene- he still gives me chills.

Scott Beauchemin as Cyril, the psychopath with the killer's eyes

 

There is one nit to pick with the film's structure and it's this: They break an unwritten rule of cinema in that they are not honest with a flashback scene, which presents a false narrative to put the audience off. Alfred Hitchcock did this with "Stage Fright" in 1950 whereby the opening narration, by what is later revealed as the killer, tells a story in flashback which portrays a false truth, a narrative lie. The film makers do the same here when an early flashback clearly shows Todd as the presumptive killer, albiet he's wearing a ski mask, but we are obviously seeing him. Later, the same scene is revisited in flashback, but it is now Cyril we see behind the mask. This is dishonest filmmaking, and in 1950, it cost Hitchcock a lot of money in pissed off audiences. He cites it as one of his few mistakes that he regretted later.

It's not nearly so important here, as the deceptive device is smaller, but it bothered me because it unfairly, I believe, swayed my assumptions. I had my doubts that Todd was the killer early on, because of the obviousness of it, but when I saw that the "villain" was clearly him (I use freezeframe), my empirical sense took over. Of course, I do admit to being lousy at whodunits. I thought it was Reggie till the end. So what do I know? Well, I know that I'm giving this film....wait for it.....FOUR AND A HALF MORRISES!

The Life of Pi

The LIFE of Pi (2012)

d- Ang Lee
w- Davis Magee
dp- Claudio Miranda

"The Life of Pi" is a story about one boy's search for God, and the tragedies in his life which bring about his spiritual growth. It's part allegory, part fable, part good old fashioned yarn, but as such, doesn't quite knit together into a consistent whole.
Pi is a young boy living a middle class life in India in the 1960's. His father owns a zoo in a town on the Coast, what's described as the "Indian Riviera". He leads a normal life, but it's clear early on that he's not an average, normal boy. He's extremely bright, soulful - what you'd call mature for his years. One of the inmates at the zoo who fascinates young Pi is a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker (the hunter who caught him was mixed up with the animal on the ownership papers). When Pi's family decides to move to Canada, they book passage on a Japanese freighter, so that they can take the whole menagerie with them and sell the animals in Canada, and make a profit to live on till financial solvency is found. During the journey, a huge storm is encountered in the region of the Marianas trench, the ship founders, and Pi is the only survivor, cast at sea in a single lifeboat. But he is not the only survivor in the boat. A Zebra, a Hyena, and an orange Orangutan names Orange Juice make it also. Oh...and and Richard Parker, the full grown adult, angry Tiger. (SPOILERS) The hyena kills the zebra, the Orangutan clubs the hyena, the hyena then kills the orangutan, and the tiger kills the hyena. Only Pi, who has managed to improvise a raft of oars and flotsam, is able to fend off the hungry, angry tiger. What follows is their months long effort to survive and forge a co-dependency and truce.

The photography is breath taking, though I continue to find little value in the 3D thing. It's a distraction and an annoyance to me. The images would be just as stunning in NormalVision. Lee's use of surrealistic scenes of the ocean's iridescence via jellyfish, etc. subtly imply an alternate reality without being overt.
The film is structured as a memory play, and the performances by both the young Pi (Suraj Sharma) and the older Pi (Irrfan Khan) , as he tells, in monologue, the story, are extremely effective. I can't honestly say on one viewing who's is the better. Certainly the young Pi is given an opportunity to show an astounding emotional range, which he uses brilliantly. (MORE SPOILERS) The scene where he is almost mad with hunger and he places the dying Richard Parker's head in his lap and says "Richard Parker, we are dying." was a big tear jerker for me.
Structurally, the pacing was inconsistent, and some bits dragged a little. There could have been a bit of judicious pruning, but what I took away was a moving film experience, well worth it. There is an interesting ending, which I won't reveal, except to say it leaves the viewer with food for thought. The themes explored of faith and belief, as opposed to objective evidence and critical analysis, and how it is, in the storyteller's mind, capable of balancing both, were for me very resonant. It's what I'm pondering a lot today. It almost makes me see room for a belief in faith and God.
I'm gonna give this....... wait for it...

 

three and a half morrises

"Skyfall" (2012)
d-Sam Mendes
w-Neal Purvis, John Logan and Robert Wade, based on characters created by Ian Fleming
dp- Roger Deakins

First may I please begin by inaugurating my first change to this rather pathetic, pustulating little piss spot of a blog. Henceforth, all film reviews and analysis, whether of first run films or examinations of classic films shall be given a rating. For this blog, the chosen patron saint is Dick Morris. So films will be rated thusly: One morris - dud - worse than Karl Rove's arithmetic.
Two morrises - Meh. not worth seeing again and you'll forget all about it before your next piss.
Three morrises - Good film. Not great, but entertaining.
Four morrises - Excellent film. Your inner Roger Ebert is pleased and extremely happy.
Five morrises - Masterpiece. Spencer Tracey is smiling in heaven.

Why, might you ask, Dick Morris? Fair question. The simple answer is that this blog is called CinemaDope - 'cause any dope with a WiFi connection can be a film critic. Well, please find me a bigger dope than Dick Morris, and I'll name it after him (or her).

Now - to the film...

I'll start by saying that I can't give much of a synopsis because I don't want to give anything away for those who haven't seen it yet. Please take this advice, and DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES allow yourself to know the detailed plot beforehand. The pleasures and pain of the film lay largely in the surprises throughout.
So the synopsis is this:

Shit happens to Bond
LOTS of shit happens.

Shit happens to M
Lots.

end of synopsis.

                                                   Daniel Craig as James Bond, 007

This film, the 23rd in the Eon Films series, is quite possibly the best of the lot so far. I would argue that it's up there in "Goldfinger" territory easily. It's that good because this film has more depth of character, more meat in it's dialog and more deftness in it's direction and execution than almost anything out there in the last few years, in any genre. It really is that good.
Daniel Craig takes Bond to emotional places never even hinted at in any earlier film. His intensity is delicately balanced with a subtle humor. His Bond is a man wounded physically and psychologically by his chosen career. Craig's portrayal hews much closer to Ian Fleming's original darker, moodier Bond than the featherweight, glib character that dances through the series from Roger Moore onward. His performance and interpretation have kicked it up several notches into a new sphere of storytelling. This is the real deal, character and performance-wise.

Dame Judi Dench plays Bond's boss M with real gusto and a keen enthusiasm. She has a hell of a lot of fun getting into and exploring this character and it damn well shows on screen in spades. M has more to do in this film than in any previous Bond film, as she is central to the plot. She's the macguffin here, and all action takes place because of her. And Dench plays it to the hilt, lifting this to one of her best screen performances in a career filled with an embarrasment of riches in performance. To watch the emotions play across her face and in her eyes is a marvel. Robert Wise once said that a fine performance by an actor who really knows his craft is in his eyes. You can see the wheels turning inside. Well, that is spot on what Dench delivers here.  Watch her eyes. Watch her face. Stunning. If they gave oscars to "action films" Dench should be a shoo-in for Best supporting actress. If there is any justice, she will be nominated.

Which brings us to Javier Bardem, who plays the villain of the piece, Silva. Silva is an ex MI6 operative who was stationed in Hong Kong in the 1990's and was allowed to be exposed and captured by the Chinese by M herself because she wanted an exchange of 6 captured spies in exchange for the much more dangerous Silva at the time of the 1999 changeover of Hong Kong back to the Chinese.
Bardem plays the betrayed, gone-to-bugshit mad ex agent with the same intensity he gave to his celebrated Oscar winning performance as Anton Chuggar in 1998's "No Country for Old Men." It's hard to take your eyes off of him whenever he's onscreen. Is he the best Bond villian of all time? Not in my opinion, but his performance is mesmerizing nonetheless. That's just too good a rogue's gallery to claim best of.
Albert Finney shows up as an old family friend of Bonds when the action moves to Scotland, and the ancestral Bond family home, the titular Skyfall.  Ralph Fiennes plays M's new boss, who feels it's time for her to retire. Fine performances both. I must give mention here also to two Bond girls, Naomie Harris's MI6 operative Eve, and Bereniece Marlohe as the tragic Severine, the siren who tries to go straight. Harris plays the Felix Leighter who turns into Miss Moneypenny. Just see it.

This picture explores themes of change, growing old, growing away from basic truths. It's a study of the effects, large and small, of betrayal. And it's about paring down to the basics, the tried and true.  This story doesn't involve fancy, campy gadgets. It's about the systematic shedding of all but the very minimum and working with that.

Sam Mendes' direction is fluid and well paced, without at all becoming choppy and epileptic, like every other Michael Bay sucking action picture out there (I'm looking at YOU, Jason Bourne). Deakins' camerawork is fast but smooth, taking time to pay attention to composition. The opening sequence is a tour-de-force of near perfect photography, editing and pacing, making it the best action sequence filmed for any movie in years. I was giggling in my seat like a little catholic schoolgirl. Thank God it was dark and I was alone. It was embarrasing. And the plaid skirt I wore merely accentuated. But I digress.
The sequence where Bond follows the assasin in Hong Kong to his snipers nest in an abandoned office high up in a glass tower is amazing for it's use of fluid neon and reflection and shadow. Bravo on what must've been a very carefully planned and story boarded sequence. I must say also here that Daniel Craig's Bond, like early Sean Connery, does feel pain, he does get tired, he does get hurt. No longer is he a carIcature. He's real and genuine.
This picture is real and genuine, too
Genuinely FANTASTIC. Definitely one to see again, and own on bluRay.

My best morris for this?

four and a half morrises

"Lincoln" (2012)
d- Steven Spielberg
w-Tony Kushner - from a book by Doris Kearns Goodwin
dp-Janusz Kaminski

A

Steven Speilberg's new film, "Lincoln", opening wide next week, is one of his better films to date.
After the dissapointment of last year's "Warhorse", it seemed as though Speilberg had spiraled back into the vortex of Speilcrap.   Speilcrap is that awful brew of mawkish sentiment, overblown, contrived staginess, and awful 'lil cute kiddies that frequently attach to his films like barnacles and sink them totally. Early in the film, we are indeed subject to one - but only one- bit of Speilcrap (I'd say Speilshit, but this is a family blog). It comes in the first scenes, when Lincoln in reviewing troops and meeting with soldiers. Two little soldier twinks try to impress Lincoln by reciting, from memory - both of them - the Gettysburg Address. Music swells. The soldiers get about half way through and Lincoln basically tells them to bugger off. They do. Then, the John Williams goes into overdrive as a young black soldier, all voice aquiver, picks up where the twinks left off, with his battalion or unit, as they go skipping into the glittery sunset or whatever. My memory of this bit is admittedly a little murky, as I'm trying to blot it from memory. But oh please! Soldiers having a relatively recent Presidential speech committed to memory? In 1865? Really? Where did a soldier in the battlefield get access to the document?  Did they download the speech using Grandmaw's spinnin' loom? Whatever. Once it's passed, the movie quickly moves into best of Director's territory with an engrossing history lesson about what is to me anyway a little known bit of history.
In 1865, the U.S. Civil War was moving to conclusion, and Lincoln and his closest advisor, Sec. of State William H. Seward (He of Alaska's "Seward's folly), played brilliantly by David Strathairn, realized that the Emancipation proclamation was, as a wartime executive order, bound to expire when the war ended. In order to realize their abolitionist commitments, they needed to organize a constitutional amendment - it's 13th- to end slavery. And they needed to do it FAST, because if the ratification didn't come before the surrender, it never would. All support, tenuous as it was anyway, would evaporate as the war horror ended.
What follows is some fairly dense, but thoroughly engrossing delving into 19th century politicking. Eventually Lincoln, along with his political allies, such as fervent abolitionist Republican US House rep. Thaddeus Stevens, played by Tommy Lee Jones, carried the amendment to passage.

                        L to R ~ Daniel Day Lewis, Sally Field, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Along the way, courtesy of a master performance by Daniel Day Lewis, we are given glimpses of the Presidents private family life in the White House, his marital problems with his grief crazed wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, played by a devastating Sally Field, and his delicately sweet relationship with his young son, Tad, as well as his older, adult son, Robert. We are shown Lincoln's folksy, disarming humor, and his penchant for storytelling, with a couple of really good ones, that he used as a way of disarming his opponents. Lincoln's genius for coalition building, as they fought and lobbied to get the votes for passage, is portrayed, and we get to watch a group of lobbyists, using any tactic - even Tamany hall type bribery, to achieve the President's ends. Everyone used deception to achieve his ends, as happens still today, tomorrow and till the earth stops spinning.
Now about the performances. Every one of them was amazing. Lewis's performance I have already mentioned, and I'll predict an Oscar win. It's everything Oscar loves to honor. Deservedly so. And I'll say that I think that Sally Field  deserves another Oscar for her excruciating, devastating performance as Mary Todd Lincoln. It was everything I hoped it would be - and then some. I liked her. I really really liked her!
 Joseph Gordon-Levitt Plays the rebellious older son Robert effectively. He's most especially good in a scene where he witnesses the gruesome violence of war, replete with mangled, dismembered limbs dropped into a pit and covered with lye. That overall is one of the more memorable scenes in the film. Memorable also is the scene where Lincoln and Mary show down in an electric scene where she accuses him of blaming her for their young son's death three years previously and she completely breaks down in hysteria.
And Tommy Lee Jones is ....well... is the man even capable of a bad performance? is there no film he can not or will not steal?  A riveting, mesmerizing display as Stevens, a man who uses deception at a crucial moment in order to achieve freedom for millions.

                                      Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln

                                     Tommy Lee Jones as Rep. Thaddeus Stevens

Also amazing was James Earle Haley as Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens.
The list of top shelf performances is long.

Attention to period detail was extensive, and the art direction, makeup, wardrobe all was excellent. Kaminsky's camera was staid and unobtrusive, with some interesting compositional shots. There was an excessive amount of grain I noticed. I know Spielberg will never make the leap to digital shooting. He told me so Himself (shameless name drop). I saw a digital presentation, and the grain was a little distracting. What? did he shoot amamorphically, in 35mm?
A any rate, a fine picture, and a well written, meaty one. Light on the Spielcrap.

KISS OF DEATH

Damn, but Richard Widmark was awesome. He’s definitely in my top 10 favorite actors of all time. I just saw, for the first time, “Kiss of Death” (1947 d-Henry Hathaway) In it, Widmark plays Johnny Udo, a totally, completely, utterly psychopathic hitman. He plays the role to such black evil prefection that the role made him an instant star. Widmark himself said that it took years for him to exorcise the character from his head.
In the most memorable scene, excerpted below on YOUTUBE, Udo goes to the apartment of a suspected mob squealer, intent on killing him. When it becomes evident that the squealer has split, leaving his invalid mother behind, Udo decides to kill the old lady. Watch his face as he 86es her. TOTAL glee. Man, this is what cinema is all about, folks.
R.I.P. Mister W.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHHJsXH3BiU

---

“The Ox Bow Incident”

“The Ox-Bow Incident”
w-Lamar Trotti d- William Wellman

















Henry Fonda and Harry Morgan play two drifter cowboys who blow into town just as a local rancher is found to have been murdered and his cattle stolen.This rancher was well loved in town, so the local townsfolk form a posse, which quickly turns into a lynching mob, bent on revenge for their friend’s death.They come upon three transients in the wilderness and quickly assume them to be the guilty parties, and make ready to hang them. Conflict comes when several of the posse, including Fonda and Morgan, who have fallen in with them, voice objections to the apparent lack of due process, particularly since to anyone with a rational mind, it’s clear that these men are anything but guilty of the crime. Unfortunately, the mob posse is headed by a bloodthirsty deputy, a failed phony civil war officer, who’s trying to compensate for his son’s obvious homosexuality, and an uber butch cowgirl dyke from hell, played by Jane Darwell (Ma Joad from “The Grapes of Wrath“), Who’s only interested in hangin’ the bastards, guilty or not.
Through the everyman character of Fonda, it puts its audience into the dilemma of what to do when you know what’s happening is dead wrong. Will you face the possibly deadly consequences of opposing the mob? Or will you acquiesce, assuming that there’s nothing you can do to stop it?Dana Andrews plays the bewildered head of the little group of drifters who protests his utter innocence and only asks for time to write his wife a note of farewell before they force the noose on him.
(spoiler)
In the end, sanity fails and the men are hanged, only to have the Sherriff ride up from town (he was away when they rode out) to tell them that the thieves have already been caught and confessed.In the final, powerful scene, the horrified, guilt ridden mob posse are assembled in the saloon, awaiting their fate. Fonda pulls out the letter that Dana Andrews had written to his wife and reads it to the stricken group.
William Wellman directed the extremely economic and tight script, and he was a director known for a tremendous social conscience. The Black and White photography is some of the best I’ve seen. Why is this film not a better known classic? Well, for one, it bombed at the box office.  Made in 1941 and released in 1942 -after the outbreak of WWII – audiences were really not in the mood to be preached to about restraint of anger. Darryl Zanuck sensed this and didn't promote this film at all. it slipped off the radar and was buried for many years. Pity. It’s a great film, one I’m glad to have in my collection.

“The Manchurian Candidate” – a photo study

“The Manchurian Candidate” 1962
D- John Frankenheimer
W- George Axelrod
D.P.- Lionel Lindon

 dream sequence: juxtaposition

I‘m going to reprint a brief plot synopsis of the film, but my main focus will be to highlight a few of my favorite pictorial moments from the film, and to discuss a few plot points, and how they relate to the novel by Richard Condon, which I’ve just read. The sections in boldface are by film critic Roger Ebert. The rest is mine.
So here we go.





“The picture plays some wonderful, crazy games about the Right and the Left; although it’s a thriller, it may be the most sophisticated political satire ever made in Hollywood.”
– Pauline Kael, 5001 Nights at the Movies (1992)
“…The Manchurian Candidate was a bold venture in 1962, with its flashy technique and political themes. Now re-released…its mobile camera and fluid editing still dazzle. And its story of Cold War intrigue, murky East-West dealings, assassination, brainwashing — and the idea of a glorified cue-card reader playing president — resonates today like never before.”
– Desson Howe, Washington Post (February 12, 1988)
“Here is a movie that was made more than 25 years ago, and it feels as if it were made yesterday. Not a moment of The Manchurian Candidate lacks edge and tension and a cynical spin. And what’s even more surprising is how the film now plays as a political comedy, as well as a thriller… For more than 25 years, memories of The Manchurian Candidate have tantalized those who saw it at the time…
“Was it really as good as it seemed? It was.”
– Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times (March 11, 1988)




The title of “The Manchurian Candidate” has entered everyday speech as shorthand for a brainwashed sleeper, a subject who has been hypnotized and instructed to act when his controllers pull the psychological trigger. In the movie, an American patrol is captured by Chinese communists during the Korean War, and one soldier is programmed to become an assassin; two years later, he’s ordered to kill a presidential candidate. That such programming is impossible has not prevented it from being absorbed as fact; this movie, released in 1962, has influenced American history by forever coloring speculation about Lee Harvey Oswald. Would the speculation about Oswald’s background and motives have been as fevered without the film as a template?
The film has become so linked with the Kennedy assassination that a legend has grown up around it. Frank Sinatra, the film’s star, purchased the rights and kept it out of release from 1964 until 1988, and the story goes that he was inspired by remorse after Kennedy’s death.  Sinatra says it was the high point of his acting career; nobody mentions why it was unseen for 24 years.
Seen today, “The Manchurian Candidate” feels astonishingly contemporary; its astringent political satire still bites, and its story has uncanny contemporary echoes. The villains plan to exploit a terrorist act, “rallying a nation of viewers to hysteria, to sweep us up into the White House with powers that will make martial law seem like anarchy.” The plot cheerfully divides blame between right and left; it provides a right-wing demagogue named Sen. John Iselin, who is clearly modeled on Sen. Joseph McCarthy, and makes him the puppet of his draconian wife, who is in league with foreign communists. The plan: Use anti-communist hysteria as a cover for a communist takeover.- Roger Ebert
In fact, the whole Right wing McCarthy paranoia of the late 1950′s is deftly skewered in this film. The Iselins are portrayed as obvious right wing demagogues. There is even a scene where the Iselins are argueing over dinner about how many communists that Senator Iselin is suppose to say are in the state department. Iselin is totally controlled by his wife. He’s nothing more than a moron puppet for her power mad ambitions. He’s too dim to remember a number himself, so she, with obvious revulsion, notices the ketchup he’s plowing onto his steak. In the next scene, The idiot Senator says that there are 57 varieties of communists in the state department. How’s that for product placement?




Another interesting use of visual symbolism used in the film is the presence of Abraham Lincoln iconography whenever we see the Iselins. Their various homes and offices are filled with Lincoln, as you can see in the visual exhibit below. Frankenheimer obviously wanted it clear which side of the political spectrum his villains were coming from. In former times, Lincoln was the primary symbol of the Republican party.




The film trusts its viewers to follow its twisting, surrealistic plot, especially in the way fragmented memories of the Korean brainwashing leak into the nightmares of the survivors of that patrol. A flashback shows us what happened: After being hypnotized by their Chinese captors, they think they’re attending a meeting of a garden club in a New Jersey hotel, while we see their communist hypnotist lecturing a room of other party officials. To show how strong the programming is, he orders Staff Sgt. Raymond Shaw (Harvey) to strangle one of the Americans and shoot another; the film’s point of view cuts freely between the different versions of reality.-Roger Ebert

 The dream sequence







The dream sequence was one of the most amazing pieces of virtuosity film editing ever done. According to Frankenheimer, they shot the same scene four times, with four different combinations of circumstance. there was
·        #1 the actual incident, in the Manchurian amphitheatre with Yen-lo, the Chinese psychiatrist/brainwasher, and the Chinese and Russian military brass.
·        #2 the brainwashed platoon with the imaginary ladies garden club in New Jersey
·        #3 the brainwashed platoon with the new jersey garden setting, replacing the ladies with Yen-lo and the Russians and Chinese
·        #4 the brainwashed platoon juxtaposing yen-lo/Russian and Chinese personnel with Black New Jersey ladies (representing the Black platoon member’s nightmare)
Frankenheimer gave the initial editing attempt to  George Axelrod, the writer, who assisted Film editor Ferris Webster and together they hammered out a dream sequence that seamlessly switched back and forth between versions of reality that was and is astounding. Frankenheimer never changed that initial edit. It was that perfect.
Back in the United States, Raymond is given the Medal of Honor and greeted by his smothering mother (Lansbury) and her second husband, the weak, alcoholic Sen. Iselin (James Gregory). It’s a running gag in the film that Raymond is constantly referred to as the senator’s son, and keeps repeating, “I am not his son.” Mrs. Iselin has incestuous feelings for Raymond, which in the novel lead them to bed, but in the movie are revealed through a famous full-lip kiss. Raymond hates her, hates himself and has a bitter speech about how he is not lovable.
Sinatra plays Maj. Bennett Marco, another member of the Korean patrol, whose fragmented nightmares lead him to suspect the brainwashing. He leads an Army investigation that determines Raymond may have been programmed as an assassin — but crucially fails to bring him in for questioning, because he believes Raymond’s romance with Jocelyn, daughter of a liberal senator, may cure him. The climax plays out inside Madison Square Garden, where Mrs. Iselin has ordered her son to shoot her party’s presidential candidate during his acceptance speech; Sen. Iselin, the vice presidential candidate, will catch his falling body and then, she says, deliver “the most rousing speech I’ve ever read. It’s been worked on, here and in Russia, on and off, for over eight years.”-Roger Ebert
(spoilers!)
Marco gets to Raymond and smashes his mental programming, allowing Raymond to shoot and kill his Mother and the Senator instead.
The assasination scene, pictured below, is one of the most realistically filmed scenes in movie history. It’s extremely creepy how the shaky, cinema verite look foreshadowed the Zapruder film of Kennedy’s assasination and the Assasination of Lee Harvey Oswald.




The film moves freely between realism and surrealism. Frankenheimer shows Iselin at a press conference and Senate hearing, with details lifted directly from the Army-McCarthy hearings; as Iselin waves a list of “card-carrying communists,” TV sets in the foreground show the same scene being carried on the news. Yet other scenes are from Raymond’s disturbed point of view, especially when his hypnotic trigger (the Queen of Diamonds) appears in a solitaire game. There’s a scene where Sinatra’s character holds up a deck full of queens while trying to deprogram Raymond; it’s a little out of focus, and Frankenheimer confesses on the commentary track that although Sinatra supplied several other takes, they weren’t as good, so he went with the flawed one, only to be praised for the unfocused shot showing Raymond’s disturbed perceptions.-Roger Ebert




Angela Lansbury’s portrayal of Mrs. Iselin was nominated for an Oscar. It is, in my opinion, one of the greatest slights in movie history that she lost it. Completely unforgivable. I’m sure that Patty Duke is wonderful in “The Miracle Worker”, but please! Lansbury so inhabits Mrs Iselin and informs her every move with such malevolence. It’s a performance which works on multiple levels. There’s so much unspoken emotion going on in her face, and in her body language. She seeths and exudes such evil. 
 Fierce, focused, contemptuous of the husband she treats like a puppet, she has, we gather, plotted with the Russians and Chinese to use the Red Scare of “Iselinism” to get him into office, where she will run things from behind the scenes. But it comes as a shocking surprise that her own son has been programmed as the assassin. That so enrages her that, in another turn of the corkscrew plot, she tells him: “When I take power, they will be pulled down and ground into dirt for what they did to you. And what they did in so contemptuously underestimating me.”-Roger Ebert



Frankenheimer uses a heightened visual style to underline the byzantine complexity of his story. There are tilt shots, odd angles, and the use of deep focus for his favorite composition, in which a face is seen in closeup in the foreground while action takes place behind it in the middle distance.




This look is matched by Axelrod’s dialogue, which often jumps the tracks of reality. Consider the peculiar first meeting between the Sinatra character and Rosie (Janet Leigh), who will become his fiancee. He’s so shaky on a train that he can’t light a cigarette. She follows him to the platform between cars, lights his cigarette, and then says, “Maryland’s a beautiful state.” “This is Delaware,” Sinatra says, and she replies: “I know. I was one of the original Chinese workmen who laid the track on this stretch. But nonetheless, Maryland is a beautiful state. So is Ohio, for that matter.”




Soon she has broken off an engagement and taken up with Marco, leaving us to wonder what in the hell that dialogue was about. Was it in code? Was Marco hallucinating? It seems strange that the Chinese brainwashed the entire patrol, but needed only Raymond as an assassin. Why, then, spare the others with their nightmares and suspicions? Is Sinatra’s Maj. Marco another Manchurian sleeper, and is Rosie his controller? If you look at their scenes carefully, you find that she broke off her engagement immediately after their awkward train meeting and before their first date. Reflect on the scene where she talks about Marco beating up “a very large Korean gentlemen,” and ask yourself what she means when she calls this man, who she has never seen, “the general.” I don’t know. Maybe Rosie just talks funny. It would be a nice touch, though, for this screwball story to have another layer circling beneath.-Roger Ebert
In the book, Rosie is clearly not a sleeper agent. In fact, her odd behavior is never really explained, but one weird bit of dialogue is. When he first meets her on the train, Marco asks her “Are you Arabic?” Now, it’s really strange for him to be asking the very white, W.A.S.P.ish Rosie as portrayed by Janet Leigh this. It leads you to suspect it may be some kind of subconcious pre-planted code. In the book, however, Rosie is described as having extremely sharp,exotic arabic features. So that explains it.Frankenheimer should have deleted that line, as it only served to confuse the viewer.

“The Manchurian Candidate” is inventive and frisky, takes enormous chances with the audience, and plays not like a “classic” but as a work as alive and smart as when it was first released. “It may be,” Pauline Kael wrote at the time, “the most sophisticated satire ever made in Hollywood.” Yes, because it satirizes no particular target — left, right, foreign, domestic — but the very notion that politics can be taken at face value.

“The Grapes of Wrath”

The best Motion picture that has ever been or ever will be made

“The Grapes of Wrath” (1940)
w-Nunally Johnson -from the novel by John Steinbeck
d- John Ford

 
 the opening shot

In 1939, John Steinbeck published his masterpiece, The Grapes of Wrath, and immediately, it stirred up enormous controversy because of its volatile subject matter. The book was banned throughout most of the Midwest and the central valley of California, and he was branded as a commie pinko by the right wing. Darryl Zanuck read the book and was electrified and immediately bought the film rights. The rest is cinematic history.

THE STORY
The Grapes of Wrath is the story of the Joad Family, a poor family of sharecroppers in 1930′s Oklahoma who, like thousands of others are forced off of their farms and into the road because of the great “dustbowl” drought of the 1930′s. But as Steinbeck illustrates, that was not the only reason for these people’s displacement. The banks and big agriculture used the drought as an opportunity to buy up huge parcels of land and bulldoze the small farmers off so that they could move in and build our modern corporate conglomerate super farms. ConAgra. That sort of thing.


 Henry Fonda as Tom Joad

Henry Fonda plays Tom Joad, who’s returning from a four year stint at Mcallester Prison where he was serving time for homicide. Four years earlier, he’d picked up a shovel and whacked a guys head “plum to squash” for sticking him with a knife in a fight at a dance. He was parolled after serving four years of his sentence.
On the road home, he runs into Jim Casey, the town preacher. Casey is homeless and wandering, having lost his faith and his flock.He no longer has anything to preach about, because he’s lost his faith in people and god, and he’s trying to find his way back, to find some meaning for his life. He throws in with Joad and they both make for the Joad farm.

John Carradine as Jim Casey

They come upon the Joad farm at dusk. It’s dust blown, dark and abandoned. They’re all dead or gone, Joad says, crestfallen.

Tom and Casey in the abandoned Joad cabin

In the empty house, they find Muley, one of their neighbors who’s gone feral and mad, living in the brush and abandoned houses of the countryside. Muley tells Tom that they’ve all gone and left. He explains (in flashback) how the Corporations and banks who held title to the farms have forced all of their friends and neighbors, including his own family, into the road. Muley remained behind, unable to leave the land his family had held since his ancestors, the pioneers who tamed the west, came there and built their farms.

Muley and his family watch in horror as their home is flattened by the “cat”-caterpillar tractor

After leaving Muley, they catch up to the Joads, who have been staying at their uncle John’s place. Since he also has been evicted, they are all preparing to leave and head west to California, where a handbill that’s been circulating around is advertising 800 jobs picking peaches in the San Joaquin Valley. They’ve scraped together $200.00 and bought an old truck and loaded it up with everything they own. Tom and Casey join them and Ma Joad, overjoyed at the unexpected reunion with her eldest son, is saddened still at the prospect of leaving her home for an uncertain future for her family. “I never had my house pushed over before. Never had my family stuck out on the road. Never had to lose everything I had in life. “

 
Jane Darwell as Ma Joad

The family sets out From Sallisaw, Ok, and makes their way onto route 66 and heads west, past hostile roadhouses, gas stations and government agricultural checkpoints. Finally, after passing through the oppressive Arizona desert at night, they reach Needles, California. At Barstow, Grandma dies, disconsolate and depressed at the earlier loss of grandpa, who had a stroke just after the outset of the trip. The move from his home was too much for him.

Route 66 sequence

They reach Bakersfield, and are advised that the handbill that they’ve pinned their hopes on is in actuality a scam that has been sent out to lure as many itinerant migrants to the Central valley as possible. The more people that come, the lower the wage they have to pay, due to the glut of available slaves workers.

They are told to move immediately to one of the many “hoovervilles”- shanty towns that clustered around the cities at that time. There, they see first hand squalor and poverty unimagined to them. They (and we) see Dorothea Lange’s Depression conditions up close.

 two views of the “hooverville” shantytown
 






An agent from one of the big Tulare County farms tries to con the men into coming out with him to pick peaches. When a suspicious migrant balks when no wage amount is promised, he’s branded an agitator and flees the goon cop who’s acting as an enforcer for the labor contractor. The goon cop shoots at him, hitting a woman bystander. In one of the most powerful and disturbing moments in the film, an elderly, bespectacled lady, cradling the bleeding woman in her arms,  looks beseechingly up at the cop.”This lady’s bleeding to death” she says. The cop looks impassively down at her and says “Yeah ..Boy, what a mess them .45′s make”

Pa Joad (Will Simpson) and Casey watch the shooting

Casey gives himself up as the culprit of the revolt so the cops won’t possibly question Tom and find him in violation of his parole. Casey is taken away in handcuffs and the Joads leave the Hooverville shantytown to escape the police harassment that is happening as a result of the shooting.
They are told on the road that there’s a ranch nearby in Pixley that needs pickers. They go there and are met by confusion as hundreds of people, for reasons unknown to them are in a near riot outside the ranch gates. They are escorted by cops with clubs through the mob and when they ask what’s going on, are told brusqely to mind their business and not ask questions. After being assigned a ratty little piss tank of a cabin to live in, they hit the fields to pick peaches.
Later, Tom, who’s been trying to find out what the commotion at the gate was, decides to look around and get some answers. He soon is made to realize that they are virtual prisoners in the camp and is told by the capo to go back to his cabin and shut up or he’ll be whacked.
He escapes in the darkness and comes upon a campsite of refugee workers. These workers, the same folks rioting at the gate, are striking the ranch because their wages have been cut back. They now don’t make enough to survive on. Joad then discovers Casey there with them. Casey,who was released by the cops, is the man who’s been organising them to strike. He’s found his true self and calling amongst the unrepresented, disenfranchised migrants and has dedicated himself to helping them and theirs in fighting for a fairer, better life for themselves. For the first time in years, he is truly happy, and in his element. He’s found his call.
They are found by the cops and Casey, pleading with the cops not to cut their wages and starve the children, is quickly overpowered and brained to death. Tom witnesses this and in a blind rage grabs the club from the cop and cracks his head wide open. Again, “plum to squash.”
An injured Tom flees back to the cabin and the family flees once again, this time with cops after Tom, who has indeed killed the cop.
They head north on the 99 and find the Shafter/Arvin Government worker’s camp. This place is a comparable paradise where the migrants live in decent, clean campsites and make their own rules and govern themselves. Run by a man named Tom Collins (may he rest in evelasting peace), they are allowed the dignity they deserve.

 
Grant Mitchell as Tom Collins. The real Collins was a consultant on the picture.

Eventually, the authorities have caught up and are closing in to where Tom is hiding, and he must go on alone. A distraught Ma volunteers to hide him, but Tom will hear none of it. He must move on alone and risk their entanglement with him no longer.

“But Tommy, how will I know if you’re alive or dead? How will I find you? How will I know?” 

TOM JOAD:Well, maybe it’s like Casy says. A fellow ain’t got a soul of his own, just little piece of a big soul, the one big soul that belongs to everybody, then…
Ma Joad: Then what, Tom?
Tom Joad: Then it don’t matter. I’ll be all around in the dark – I’ll be everywhere. Wherever you can look – wherever there’s a fight, so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad. I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry and they know supper’s ready, and when the people are eatin’ the stuff they raise and livin’ in the houses they build – I’ll be there, too.
Ma Joad: I don’t understand it, Tom.
Tom Joad: Me, neither, Ma, but – just somethin’ I been thinkin’ about.
In the end, after Tom has gone, the family once again is moving on. Pa has heard of an offer of a month’s work up in Fresno, so they set off. The final scene is in the truck, as Ma and Pa are reflecting on all the hardships they’ve been through and Pa admits he cant go on much more.
“Well, Pa, a woman can change better’n a man. A man lives sorta – well, in jerks. Baby’s born or somebody dies, and that’s a jerk. He gets a farm or loses it, and that’s a jerk. With a woman, it’s all in one flow, like a stream – little eddies and waterfalls – but the river, it goes right on. Woman looks at it thata way. “

[last lines]
Ma Joad: Rich fellas come up an’ they die, an’ their kids ain’t no good an’ they die out. But we keep a’comin’. We’re the people that live. They can’t wipe us out; they can’t lick us. We’ll go on forever, Pa, ’cause we’re the people.
(thanks, IMDB!)

MY FEELINGS ON THIS FILM
Wow ,this film touched me on so many levels. I saw it for the first time just this last December 23rd (2006), the morning before heading up the I-5 home for Christmas. I’d bought it several days earlier while xmas shopping. It was a $9 dvd, so I thought ‘what the hell’.
Not since Atticus Finch have movie characters moved and inspired me so deeply as both Tom Joad and Jim Casey did. These are true heroes to me. Ma Joad, too. They were beautifully simple and true and stood for what they loved and believed in. This picture gives me goosebumps just thinking about it.
I do not see this as a relic of the past to be viewed as ancient and done history. With the current controversy and hatred towards hispanic migrant workers, it’s still happening. The Arvin camp is still there, still in use. In fact, the buildings used in “The Grapes of Wrath” are still there.
 True, the “okies” were U.S. citizens, but they were treated just as harshly as today’s illegal immigrants are. The movie underplayed what happened to many who tried to pass the Arizona/California border at Needles. They were beaten and jailed, many of them. The starvation rate of migrant workers was so severe that hundreds died in boxcars and tents all along the I-99 corridor in the central valley. There must be many, many unmarked shallow graves there still.
Darryl Zanuck, the 20th Century -Fox producer, had a hard time getting this film to the screen. there were many, many protests, mostly from the right wing. They saw this as a subversive film. Well of course it was! Anything that challenges the unjust status quo is and was subversive, and damn good for it.
They saw it as a communist propaganda piece and I must admit that after it was over, I said to myself ’holy crap! A major movie company made a blatanly pro socialism movie in 1940!’ Which it was in a way, but the Arvin camp, and (too few)  others like it were works of Roosevelt’s new deal. They were run by the U.S. Dept of agriculture. So in portraying those camps, you could hardly make a reasonable arguement that the filmmakers were pushing communism. But whoever said that right wing noisemakers were ever reasonable?

JOHN FORD AND THE PRODUCTION OF THE MOVIE

Irony on the I-99 ~ a 1940 photo of a billboard advertising the movie in the very same place the story happened. Note the migrant tents in the background.

John Ford directed this film with great care and precision.  All of the elements – acting, directing, photography, editing and score came together as few films in  history ever have.
In the early 1950′s, “Citizen Kane” came to be considered as the greatest American film ever made, due in large part to it’s revival on the student film circuit. Prior to that, “The Grapes of Wrath” held that position. Both films were produced roughly within the same 2 year time period, with Kane being produced at R.K.O.  in 1941. Both films were also photographed by the great Gregg Toland. His groundbreaking, brilliant work contributes immensely to the greatness of both films. Look at the pictures in this posting and see his compositional genius.
The score, which is very, very sparse, themes “Red River Valley” throughout. However, 98 percent of the film has absolutely no dramatic underscoring, which lends greatly to the realism of the piece. Ford used a single mournful accordion. On all of his pictures while shooting, he always used the same accordionist on set to create the mood between takes. One guesses that it was during those times, while playing “Red River Valley’ that Ford got the idea to use it in the film. No existing record proves that, however.
In terms of realism, this film was 50 years ahead of it’s time. It pulled no punches in portraying the reality of the horror. In fact, Steinbeck himself praised the film highly and said that Hank Fonda brought more life to Tom Joad than even his book did. Years later, in 1961, Steinbeck wrote to Fonda and said that he’d just recently seen Wrath again, courtesy of a bootleg 16mm print, and told him he was still deeply moved and impressed all those years later.
I plan to follow the journey of the Joads this summer. I’m going to take my camera and visit those camp locations in the Central Valley and on the 99 and see if I can’t find some relics of the okies myself. I and my group of buds at the eagle go camping out there on the King River every summer, and I’ve passed those places many, many times without realising their cultural, historic significance