Oscar Time, Again

And so we are once again at Oscar time. On Sunday, March 7th the awards are handed out. Expect Kathryn Bigelow to win Best Director for the excellent The Hurt Locker and Avatar to win Best Picture. Avatar should win Best Picture because it has the momentum, and has had it for months. Makes no nevermind to me since I'm no fan of that film anyway and will probably nod off somewhere around the fourth musical performance of the night. Still, my indifference to each year's specific Oscars never seems to diminish a misplaced affection I have for the award in general, for reasons I cannot entirely put into words, but will try anyway.


I still credit the Oscars in many ways for pushing my early cinephilia along. You see, I was one of those kids that read encyclopedias religiously. The "Motion Picture" section was my favorite and I read through it again and again and again. At the end of the section was the Oscars listing, going all the way up to the publication date of the encyclopedias, 1968. Yes, 1968. Anyway, I used the Oscars as my first ever guide as to what movies to see. Since there were no video stores, cable tv, Netflix, Amazon or i-tunes it meant I had to get lucky and have one of them air on PBS or network late-night tv but nevertheless, it provided me with a basic list of movies to see.

It didn't take long once I started seeing movies from around the world, movies listed on the Sight and Sound poll and movies from directors with whole books devoted to them to discover that the Academy didn't hold the art of cinema to a very high standard. So many of the movies honored over the years haven't been the Best Picture, haven't had the Best Performances, haven't had the Best Screenplays or haven't had the Best Cinematography that it became a kind of pastime to poke fun at some of the Oscar picks while still, somehow, holding them in a certain esteem. I think it was Pauline Kael who once remarked that the Oscars are extraordinary in that one can use them interchangeably as examples of either the highest standard or the lowest standard of cinema and people will understand the difference. In other words, someone can dismiss a performance by saying its the kind of performance that wins Oscars, meaning sentimental, overdone and filled to the brim with noble posturing. In the next breath someone can extol the virtues of a great performance by declaring it to be "Oscar worthy!" We all understand "the kind of performance that wins Oscars" means "not very good" while an "Oscar worthy performance" means "excellent." We all know what the Academy members do award, but we also know what they should award and therein lies the difference.

Still, with each passing year I find myself mellowing to Oscar's past transgressions as the thought of anything important being associated with them becomes more and more humorous. There was a time when Cimarron or The Greatest Show on Earth or The Sound of Music winning Best Picture would have really bugged me but now, despite not thinking highly of any of them, I actually get nostalgic to see them again. So they won Best Picture, who cares? Are Morocco and The Front Page from 1931, Singin' in the Rain from 1952 or Repulsion from 1965, all from the respective years of those three winners, forgotten now because they didn't get the Oscar? No, of course not. And you know what? How Green Was My Valley is a damn fine movie! I like Chariots of Fire too. And The Sting won Best Picture in the year when Cries and Whispers, The Exorcist, American Graffiti, The Long Goodbye and Spirit of the Beehive were all eligible but I don't begrudge it that. Quite frankly, if many of these lesser films hadn't won Best Picture I might never have seen them and many of them are a lot of fun even if they're not the most shining examples of the cinematic art form.


So this Sunday watch the Oscars or ignore them completely but whether you're a casual movie fan or a true dyed-in-the-wool cinephile try not to get too upset at the outcome. While the ideal of the award may still be the highest achievement in the art of cinema we all know the real award doesn't mean a thing. And if a movie's greatness, like that of a Citizen Kane or a La Règle du Jeu, can sustain it in perpetuity without any Oscars for Best Picture, why not let the lesser works go ahead and win it. In many cases, it's the only chance they have of being remembered at all.

Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Bullock.

Live-blogging is dead. Long live Facebooking the Oscars. Or at least according to me and Bill and Ryan. The three of us Facebooked the Oscars rather than live-blogging them and it was quite enjoyable. We were joined by Pax and Rory and Deidre and Neil and many others and this morning I awoke to 42 notifications from late commenters on each of our many updates. However, don't think this means I'll be reviewing the show because that's what the Facebook updates were all about. We updated throughout, and we're all quite pleased that The Hurt Locker, despite it being none of our first choices for Best Picture, won out over the box office juggernaut Avatar (one of the few cases ever where I can use the term "box office juggernaut" and feel that cliche is completely justified) in both the Best Director (Kathryn Bigelow) and Best Picture categories. But I didn't post anything on that. My last update was about Sandra Bulluck in which I, not so delicately, said I liked her despite her sorry rep around the movie blogosphere. I stand by that (and thank all those who agreed).

I haven't seen The Blind Side and don't know if she deserved Best Actress any more than 90 percent of all Oscar winners have ever "deserved" their Oscars. I just know she is a talented actress who has been in a veritable treasure trove of awful movies and it's all those bad movies that helps sink her reputation. I won't judge an actor for taking the movies that come along to keep her career going especially if that eventually leads to a moment where said actor is accepting an Oscar. Besides, she made Love Potion #9 work, and that's one of the silliest movies ever made. You know what else she made work? Speed. If you've just got Keanu Reeves and his deadpan, no, scratch that, corpse-like delivery, that movie is sunk. Bullock made it work much better than it should have. No, she couldn't save Speed 2 but that's like criticizing an ant for not being able to stop the flow of Mount Vesuvius. Jesus Christ could have stayed on the cross for three years and not saved Speed 2. Humanity, yes, Speed 2, no.

So maybe the problem, or criticism, of Bullock is that people think it says something about someone so willing to appear in so many bad films. Something about her taste or judgment. Well, how many of our favorite character actors from the past have appeared in their fair share of stinkers? We remember the great ones and forget the countless duds. Fact is, I admire someone for accepting what roles come along in an effort to keep working because too many actors find themselves atop a shining hill in which only those roles "suitable to their grand talents" will be entertained. Michael Caine taught the post-studio controlled movie world that a real actor takes what comes along and doesn't complain. And Bullock does too. And bully to that!

A Foreign Affair (1948, d. Billy Wilder)

Recently here at Cinema Styles Billy Wilder's A Foreign Affair came up in the comment section and having never seen it was excited to find out it was playing at the A.F.I. Silver as a part of the Jean Arthur Retrospective that wraps up this week. My wife and I took advantage the opportunity to see this lesser known Wilder and were more than pleased with the result.


The story takes place in post-war Berlin as a group of United States Senators and Representatives visit the bombed out city to assess the morale of the occupation troops. One of those representatives is Phoebe Frost, played by Jean Arthur, a stalwart Republican from Iowa, clean, prudish and repressed. Obviously, just her read her name again. Upon arriving Frost meets Captain John Pringle, played by John Lund, and quickly makes him her liaison to the seamy side of Berlin so she can blow the roof off of the whole occupation, one she views as being knee deep in black markets and fraternization with ex-Nazi women. And, she's right. Problem is, Captain Pringle is the biggest black market wheeler and dealer out there and happens to be having an affair with a former Nazi seductress, Erika Von Schluetow, played by the magnificent Marlene Dietrich. Trying to keep his illegal activities a secret from Frost while keeping Von Schluetow out of the labor camps becomes the new 24 hour job of Pringle. It's a job made more complicated by his growing feelings for Frost, feelings easier to succumb to when further information is uncovered that Von Schluetow may have fraternized all the way up to Hitler.


Coming into theaters in 1948 this is delicate material to say the least and it's probably true that the only way one could have presented post-war Berlin (much of the movie was actually shot there) so soon after the war was in a romantic comedy so as not to recall too many painful memories for the audiences. It's a tightrope walk at which Wilder succeeds, lightening the mood just when talk of Nazis and Hitler and concentration camps is getting a little too heavy. And what must it have been like for Dietrich doing a scene with actors made up to look like Goebbels and Hitler? Whatever the feelings were during the production, the three leads produce excellent work throughout. Jean Arthur is probably the least of the three only because her character is giving to broader, much broader, strokes while the other two characters are far more grounded in reality. Still, she makes her character strong and sympathetic, not an easy job considering how close to caricature Wilder makes the character.  Fortunately, Arthur has the talent to pull it off.  Nevertheless, had Wilder made her a little less prudish, and a lot less easily bowled over by romance, both the character and the movie would have been much stronger.

John Lund on the other hand is perfectly cast. There was some discussion in the comments here as to whether his casting was a mistake or not and I have to say it was dead-on accurate. Captain John Pringle isn't Clark Gable, Captain John Pringle is an American soldier working the black market and bedding ex-Nazis who likes to think he's Clark Gable. His Gable moustache combined with his average-to-good looks work perfectly in a kind of "big fish in a small pond" way. As far as the bombed out refugees are concerned, especially ex-Nazis like Von Schluetow who needs someone she can use to keep her out of the labor camps, this guy is the best thing going. Back home he'd be just another poser, but here he's a hot property. A Bulova in a display full of Cartier's may not look too impressive but on the counter at the local convenience store next to a row of Timexes, it looks a lot better.


But no matter how good Arthur and Lund are it is Marlene that steals every scene, every frame, hell, the whole movie. Marlene Dietrich is a personal favorite and this movie does nothing to change that. There is an intelligence behind the way Dietrich speaks her lines that always makes me feel like she's the smartest person on the set, even when Orson Welles is hanging around. I'm not saying I think Lund and Arthur were unintelligent people, or anyone else Dietrich worked with, just that Dietrich had something, a knowingness that she couldn't hide. It's on display here in all it's glory and if Billy Wilder ever achieved a moment of perfection in casting, it's here. Von Schluetow needs a mixture of intellect and sexual energy to keep herself out of prison and Dietrich makes you believe that this ex-Nazi could successfully convince an officer in the United States Army to manipulate her files and cover up the truth.

A Foreign Affair is not a well known Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett collaboration and is not available on DVD but it should be better known than it is. It portrays a post-war occupation army in Berlin probably much closer to reality than any serious drama of the time would have done. Showing soldiers taking advantage of desperate locals on the black market, consorting with ex-Nazis and breaking curfew to engage in illicit activities around the clock would most likely have caused an outrage had it been presented in a dramatic, expose kind of a way. But as a comedy, it seems acceptable. And quite enjoyable.

Happy St. Patrick's Day from Cinema Styles

And John Ford, who would like to remind you that...


entrances don't get much better than this.


He knew a thing or two about exits as well.

The Gift of Steve McQueen

I started going to the movies in the seventies and Steve McQueen was one of the first stars I got to know in current releases. When I saw his last film in the theatre, The Hunter, on opening weekend no less, so excited was I to see it, I felt I knew him well. I didn't. Even though I loved movies like The Blob, The Great Escape, Bullitt, Papillon and, yes, The Hunter, mediocre as it may be, I didn't fully understand Steve McQueen as an actor. I liked him and his movies but never felt he was doing the job I thought others were doing when it came to big screen acting. I certainly didn't think he was bad, I just never gave him much thought as an actor overall. But then, very recently in fact, I had a revelation.

A few months ago I watched The Towering Inferno for the first time since childhood. I was going to use it for a "Land Before CGI" post but decided against it upon realizing it was almost all stunt work (admirable enough, don't get me wrong) and very little in the way of miniature or optical effects. And it didn't matter because before my eyes I was seeing something that fully and finally explained Steve McQueen for me. I even brought it up to my wife in excitement after watching it, like I'd discovered some secret know one else knew. It starts with this: Steve McQueen as Fire Chief Michael O'Hallorhan has not one line of dialogue that hints at character depth or development of any kind. Not one. Every single line is technical: "I need to know the businesses on each floor above the fire." "Why?" he's asked. "If they manufacture polyester, that releases cyanide gas at high temperatures. If they ..." and so on. All of his lines are like that. And he's brilliant! And I am being very serious here. Truly, no flippancy. Steve McQueen carries that entire film in a walk. He is utterly, completely and absolutely convincing as the fire chief. I did not doubt for a second he was one and if I were in a building on fire and he showed up and started talking like he does in this movie I would do whatever he told me to do. I would trust him implicitly. But more than that, he is compelling and the audience wants to return to him every time he exits the screen.

And that's why Steve McQueen confused me at times as an actor: He was a star and he should've been the guy playing the technical expert in every action film ever made. The roles that McQueen excelled at, like the authority figure here in The Towering Inferno, are few and far between in the world of cinema. Fire chiefs just don't get many starring roles.

In order to explain further I need to make a claim that will seem strange to some but I am betting my fellow actors out there will understand. There is a real talent to being non-expressive in a role. Most people confuse that with being wooden. It's not the same thing. Being wooden is delivering your lines badly and flatly. Being non-expressive is delivering your lines convincingly but without flourish. And casting in those types of roles usually misses the mark. Burt Lancaster was an actor who "acted" every word of dialogue and I imagine his role as the fire chief would have been as much of a disaster as Steve McQueen playing Elmer Gantry. Each actor had his strength and in the fire chief role, Lancaster's strength would have worked against him. That's because most actors, not just Lancaster, would have instinctively given that fire chief "character" when in real life, in a real fire, all the chief does is give orders. I think it's a high compliment, and a sincere one, to say I can't imagine another actor being smart enough to play the fire chief the way McQueen did. Steve McQueen knew straight-forward, quiet and convincing authority like most people know how to breathe. He used this same style in most of his roles whether it really fit or not. And being non-expressive, but not wooden, means he never came off looking ridiculous in a role because he was trying too hard to nail a moment with the perfect delivery. But it also means he was very misunderstood as an actor and still is.

When I finished watching The Towering Inferno I reassessed Steve McQueen as an actor. We associate great acting with great range but really, expertise in one specific area is quite an achievement. And few actors in movie history could do convincing non-expressive like McQueen. Turns out he was a damn good actor after all, I'd just been looking in the wrong direction the whole

Gone Fishin

Spring break has sprung, or will soon enough. Starting Monday the kids are on Spring Break which means the house will be bustling with nervous energy, especially when the teens wake up around two in the afternoon. But seriously, I'll be offline, blogging-wise, most of next week. I'll still be around for comments on blogs, Facebook and Twitter but no update activity here, most likely, until late next week. Besides, I've got at least four CD reviews for Mondo Cult Magazine due in the next two weeks so I should definitely be working on those anyway. If you've got a Spring Break vacation you're taking I hope it's a nice one. Be back with updates late next week. Thanks.

P.S. Here's an old-school Cinema Styles banner for nostalgia's sake. Made it the other day but didn't use it, committed as I am to keeping the look around here clean, crisp and, outside of pics in postings, black and white. This one marks the 398th banner created for Cinema Styles, just two to go to 400. On the 200th I used 1776 (banner bicentenial), for the 300th, you guessed it, 300. But what film should be used for 400? Hmmmm, if only there were a prominent movie in film history with "400" in the title. Oh well, I guess I'll have to improvise. Maybe a good run to the beach will help me think.

The Return of the Cinephile Native

It's been a long time since an update here and I apologize. Spring Break for schools in this area runs a full week and two days so today is the first day back. I've got plenty so say, which I'm working on, but for now it's probably best to just get out whatever unedited, unformed thoughts on movies I have in my head to break the long silence.

*A couple of weeks ago my wife and youngest went to see Mon Oncle at the AFI and I maintain that not only does Jacques Tati work on the big screen (and with a cheerful audience) where he may be slightly mystifying on the small screen, but he triumphs. The film was a delight, yes, but visually Tati is a brilliant observer lacking in all sentiment. It was my wife who noted, "There's not one close-up in this movie." There is not and as she also noted, during the wagon ride scene, it's in close-up that sentiment works its magic. Without it we are only observers to the scene, and the scene thus carries only delight and no goopiness. What a terrific movie! If you ever get the chance to see it on the big screen I highly recommend it.

*My wife and I were watching Keys to the Kingdom the other night on TCM and both remarked that Gregory Peck's relentless solemnity made him perfect for roles like this, and perhaps not much else. He had a great, deep and resonating voice, one made for missionary priests and righteous lawyers (To Kill a Mockingbird) but I don't care for him much outside those limitations.

*Also while watching Keys to the Kingdom we received an alert from the Associated Press' International Duh Division: Thomas Mitchell is one of the best character actors that ever lived.

*Some of those old ABC Mysteries (Columbo, McCloud, McMillan and Wife) were pretty good. We watched some on Netflix Instant and had a great trip down memory lane in the process.

*We also watched some Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Not as good as I remember but one of the ones we watched, Our Cook's a Treasure, with Everett Sloane and Beulah Bondi, was terrific.

*Hell, we watched a lot of classic tv quite frankly. Maybe Spring Break put us in a nostalgic mood but we also watched Kolchak: The Night Stalker and The Rockford Files.

As to the first, it's about as hit or miss as they come and it was quite clear the network was just throwing shit together to hook in the horror/supernatural crowd. The lizard man in The Sentry doesn't even resemble a man in a Halloween costume, he resembles a man in a second-hand, discounted, retrieved-from-the-dumpster Halloween costume. The Trevi Collection, however, about a witch trying to take over the world of fashion, was fairly decent and achieved low levels of creepiness with the mannequins coming to life.

As to the second, it's too bad James Garner couldn't have stayed young forever and had one new show after another throughout the decades. The Rockford Files may be an average detective show, and is, but Garner's charisma makes each episode worth watching. And the opening credits, with the still photos fading one into the other, just may make a special tv version of "Opening Credits I Love."

Back to School

And we're off! My wife, daughter and I are hitting the road for a college campus tour this weekend as the oldest daughter explores her collegiate options. See you next week!

The One You Might Have Saved (Redux)

That crazy Arbogast is at it again. More savings for the ongoing One You Might Have Saved Blogathon. I'm always game for saving a doomed character in movie history with whom I feel a certain degree of connection so what the hell, let's do it again, but beware, SPOILERS ABOUND!

For this entry I choose Sam Bell number five. The movie is Moon, directed by Duncan Jones and starring Sam Rockwell as Sam Bell, which is, for what it's worth, the fifth time in his career he has played a character named "Sam." If you've seen Moon you know that there are an endless number of Sam Bell clones who all serve mining duty on the moon for three years until they are disposed of, or die, to make way for the next clone who will serve for three more years and so on. None are allowed to know they are clones or that they will never leave. Each clone works alone and is under the impression that he is the real Sam Bell and will go home after a three year tour of duty.

If you think I just spoiled the movie for you I didn't, not really at least. For one thing, I did give a spoiler warning at the top of the post but mainly, the movie itself is not concerned with a big twist/reveal at the end of the movie. The clone element of the story is revealed fairly early on and the movie quickly becomes a tale of two clones, Sam Bell 5 and Sam Bell 6, who become dependent on each other in much the same way Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight do in Midnight Cowboy. While many reviews, like this excellent one from This Island Rod, rightly mention nods to 2001, Blade Runner and Outland, none I have seen so far mention Midnight Cowboy and to me, that's the primary influence.



Like all the best science fiction, it's not about the setting or the technology, it simply uses setting and technology to explore character. And so, while Midnight Cowboy and Moon may take place in worlds some 235,000 miles apart, they tell much the same story: two men struggling to make their way in the world, realizing too late for one that helping each other is what they needed to do all along. And what they need to do in this case is get off of the moon before a "rescue" team shows up to correct a mistake in the system, that is, eliminate one of the clones.

The newer clone, Sam 6, is awakened to start his tour of duty, memory implants of a life on earth in place, after Sam 5 has an accident leaving him stranded on the surface in a large moon rover. The glitch in the system occurs when Sam 6 finds Sam 5 and brings him back to base. There are two of them now, and they were never supposed to know of the other. This presents a problem for the company running the operation. See, they don't know the two know of each other. They think Sam 5 is still stranded on the surface and are sending that previously mentioned "rescue" mission to get rid of him before Sam 6 discovers him, which, of course, he already has, unbeknownst to them. Sam 6 sees all of this coming and devises an escape plan while the older clone, Sam Bell 5, gets sicker and sicker. Constantly hacking and walking with an odd limp, more vulgar and unkempt than Sam 6, he is the lunar spiritual brother of Ratzo Rizzo.



By the end, a plan is devised and an escape is made but one that Sam 5 can never enjoy. His diseased body is too battered and bruised for this world and while the journey home may give him hope, as the trip to Miami does for Ratzo, it's a trip we know he'll never survive. And so, placed back in his rover for the rescue team to find, he dies and while we know he must, we still don't want him to. He's so helpless and filled with the desire to see his daughter, a daughter that does exist for the real Sam Bell, but is nothing more than a stranger to Sam 5, that we want him to make that journey home, desperately. Which brings us around to the whole point of this post and of Arbogast's ongoing blogathon. If I could, I'd walk into that station with the best medical team I could find and, by God, we'd make Sam better. We'd get him well and bring him back to earth safely. And even though his daughter wouldn't know him, since her real father, the real Sam Bell, is fifteen years older, I'd make sure, somehow, he got a chance to at least see her. And all of this is a testament to just how well Sam Rockwell pulls this whole thing off. He takes two identical characters and makes them so different, I forgot, and easily, that it was the same actor playing them. Rockwell makes Sam 5 so sympathetic that when he finally does shuffle off this mortal coil we wish only that we could've saved him. And if I could, I'd go all the way to the moon to do so.

The Cinephile Emerges

It's been over two weeks and it's time to get back down to business. Cinema Styles will be returning to full time posting starting this Monday. I enjoyed a somewhat successful hiatus; the story I was working on is pretty much complete with but a few changes necessary before sending it off to my friend for the screenplay part of it all but the short film I'd hoped to finish seems like an aimless disaster to me at this point. I can't get my mind around it no matter how hard I try and forcing inspiration isn't very... inspiring. Still, I'll keep at it.

In my time away from Cinema Styles I watched many movies but mainly documentaries, on subjects ranging from the Manhattan Project (for the millionth time) to Howard Zinn to Sacco and Vanzetti to revisiting Ken Burns' superb The Civil War. I also re-watched Malcolm X and was more impressed by Denzel Washington's performance this time than I was when I first saw it. Also, it's one of the few biopics that doesn't feel like pure drudgery even if it does follow the standard mold. And it does but it does so with a vigor absent from so many biopics outside of the more recent The Aviator which I also liked much better the second time I saw it.

That's it for now. Next week more posts and more video, including a new The Land Before CGI. Have a good weekend everyone!

Perhaps, one day, we will be friends

"Someone remind me why we made this door so big."

Since King Kong's release in 1933, viewers have asked, sometimes mockingly, "If you built a massive wall to keep Kong out, why, in God's name, did you make a door big enough for him to get in?!" It's a logical question. After all, if any one of the villagers needs to get outside to take a stroll or have a picnic it's a simple matter of installing a 7 foot door, or doors, along the wall. Building a conveniently sized 40 foot door seems to defeat the purpose of the wall. But maybe not.

I believe the villagers are extending a welcome to Kong, albeit a guarded one. They are saying, "Now, right now, we are enemies. You are big and powerful and can eat us. Or step on us. Or even throw us around. But one day, far off in the future, perhaps, we will be friends. We will invite you to dinner and for you to accept and actually attend, you'll need to get through the wall. No problem. We already have a door big enough for you to do just that. It's locked right now but one day, we hope, it will be open."

Kong relieves himself outside the wall. Hey, when you gotta go, you gotta go.

I imagine every time Kong came to get a fresh bride he looked at that door and thought, "I've got to get past my anger for these people. They want me to know I'm welcome but for now, at least, I cannot be, for I hate them."

Kong does eventually come through that door and gets gassed for his troubles.

What might have been.

"Up yours, jerkwads!" Kong gives everyone the finger upon his triumphant entry.

The Half-Life Seven

This time of year is filled with graduations and, being a cinephile who connects even the most meaningless word or phrase to a movie, I can't help but think of The Graduate, with Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft and Katherine Ross, this time each year. And whenever I think of The Graduate I am reminded that I only like one half of it, the first half. The opening party, the seduction of Ben by Mrs. Robinson, the trips to the hotel under the name "Gladstone" and the confusion of his first date with Elaine entertain me one and all. Then comes the disturbing break-up between Ben and Mrs. Robinson and the threats and the college stuff and Mr. Roper and Richard Dreyfuss giving Ben a hard time and bleh, I'm done with it. After Ben's first date with Elaine The Graduate holds no interest for me. And it's not alone.

There are plenty of movies that I call "half-lifers," borrowing the term from the scientific identification for the period of time an object in decay will deteriorate by half. My term has nothing to do with decay and everything to do with half of the movie coming alive for me and the other half being dead to me. And it's not that any of these movies are bad, just that only one half holds any interest for me and it is, almost always, the first half. So none of this is intended as a review of any of the films concerned, simply a statement of personal preference for one half over the other. Starting with The Graduate above, here are six more, in chronological order, that round out my Half-Life Seven. There are more but these are my most extreme cases of Half-Lifers, movies where I am really not interested for almost 50 percent of the movie while very much enjoying the other 50 percent.

Gone with the Wind (1939): Overall I'd have to say this is a movie I don't very much care for and yet, the first half does entertain me. I love all the buildup to both the war and the relationship between Scarlett (Vivien Leigh) and Rhett (Clark Gable) up through the war itself and the burning of Atlanta. And then, I stop watching. If this is on TCM and I happen upon it while the first half is running I'll watch it. As soon as they get to the post-war story and the marriage of Scarlett and Rhett, brother, I am outta there!

Julius Caesar (1953): I guess I should blame Bill Shakespeare for this one but the fact is, I'm with this story as they plot and scheme to kill Caesar (Louis Calhern). I'm with it further as Brutus (James Mason) stands before the Roman masses to justify his actions and I'm really with it as Mark Antony (Marlon Brando) delivers that ingeniously written speech that at first reassures Brutus that Antony will not incite revolt before twisting the rhetorical knife into Brutus' gut. Wow! What a speech! And then... I pretty much just turn it off.

The Ten Commandments (1956): The first three have all been the first half of the movie I like. With The Ten Commandments it's the opposite. Moses' (Charlton Heston) journey from noble prince to exiled shepherd bores me to tears. But once that angry God of his starts killing firstborns and blighting the land and parting seas, oh boy, just try and stop me from watching it! Still some of the most amazing effects of the fifties.

Vertigo (1958): This is the first film on the list that I would qualify as a great film (along with the next film on the list) but I could still survive just taking in a little over half of it. And that half is Scotty (James Stewart) following Madeleine (Kim Novak) around and falling in love with her. Once he goes catatonic after her faked death the movie holds much less interest for me. In fact (BLASPHEMY ALERT) I've always kind of wished that the movie really had been about a woman possessed with the spirit of a long dead, long suffering ghost. When it turns out to be just a piece of a murder plot I'm always a little disappointed.

Lawrence of Arabia (1962): There must be something about first halves because this is another one where the first half hypnotizes me and the second half doesn't. Lawrence's (Peter O'Toole) introduction to the desert and his almost instant connection with it is truly mystical in its presentation. The journey across the desert to attack Aqaba plays like a dream, taking its time, watching, following, always moving towards an unseen destination. Then the second half of the movie loses that mystical quality as it focuses on battles and political maneuvering. The second half is certainly great too and I'll watch it all but given the choice between the two, I'll take the first half.

The Ruling Class(1972): Finishing up the Half-Life Seven is The Ruling Class from 1972. While this film continues the tradition of liking the first half over the second half the difference lies in how dramatically different my feelings are for both halves. The first half with Jack under the delusion that he is Jesus Christ plays like some of the best British comedy of the seventies and I love it. I love the stupid jokes, the barely choreographed song and dance numbers and Peter O'Toole running around delivering bizarre platitudes intended to be taken as gospel. But if ever a movie didn't know when to shut off the valve and roll the credits it's this one. I really can't stand much of the second half as the sledgehammer satire takes over with Jack becoming Jack the Ripper and entering the House of Lords. The problem is that the second half isn't delivering anything the first half didn't already deliver, and better, but it keeps on delivering anyway until everything starts to feel run down. The movie doesn't feel so much like it concludes as it does that the editor just finally said, "Let's put 'The End'... oh, I don't know... um... here!"

And that's The Half-Life Seven. There are many more that could make the list but their splits are not as even. For instance, M*A*S*H kind of loses me at the football game but that's less than half the movie by far. Or Titanic (1997), which is another rare one where I can watch the second half (when the ship sinks) over the first half (when the movie sinks) but even then there's plenty I could do without, like, for example, the cast. And there are plenty of movies where I love the whole thing but because I've seen them so many times I'm happy missing the exposition of the first third or so of the film to get to the major action (too many titles to list).

While I want to love every movie I see, inevitably, many disappoint me. Some the whole way through and others only part of the way. When it's part of the way it's sometimes more disappointing because the promise, the potential, was there but petered out. Still, I'll take whatever solid filmmaking and entertainment I can get, even if sometimes it's only by half.

The Perspective of George Mille Mad Max (1979)

The Exit

There and Everywhere

The world is littered with stories of new technologies, ideologies and innovations getting snuffed out of existence by the competition before they even have a chance to make a go of it. The funny thing with history is, eventually, the new technology takes over one way or another because as time progresses, the old ways start to feel, well, old. In the mid to late seventies, laser discs came on the scene, as seen in the 1977 cover of Popular Mechanics to the right (click to enlarge). But they were expensive, hard to market and you had to flip the disc over like a vinyl LP to see the whole movie, part two of which was on the other side. Video tapes with their ease of use and much lower cost won the market by 1982 as video stores began to dot the suburban landscape and VCR sales headed north (and even within the VCR market there was a battle staged between VHS and Beta with VHS emerging the victor). Videotapes didn't have the proper aspect ratio, wore down quickly, had to be physically rewound or fast-forwarded to watch a specific scene which had to be located via the 'stop and watch every 10 seconds to see if you're there yet' method and on top of all of that, the visual quality left much to be desired (although the average VCR owner didn't seem to care a whole hell of a lot in that area).

After a couple of decades of domination though, videotape fell to digital laser video. It was no longer the bulky laser disc but a smaller compact version, a video sister of the audio compact disc. It was the DVD and it didn't take long for the average VCR owner to suddenly want what they finally realized they had been missing, that is, clear picture, proper aspect ratio and special features. And that's often how it happens: Resistance, which forces the new technology to hone itself, edit itself and make itself more appealing and more needful in the eye of the consumer, followed by acceptance. Business models usually work this way too.

Starting in the early days of Hollywood and going through the seventies, movies slowly opened across the nation, sometimes taking as long as six months to make their way to every state. The average movie would get a two week release date in several big cities and eventually get two week release dates in progressively smaller cities and towns along the way. If the movie proved popular, it would be "held over," meaning it would be booked for longer than its initial two week run. Moviegoers in their forties and up probably remember seeing marquees announcing "Held over for the 17th week!" or "20th week!" or "35th week!" depending on the popularity of the movie. I remember seeing such a marquee for The Godfather in my childhood with the held over number being somewhere in the upper forties.

It was a sound business model based on decades of tried and true practices. There were, however, studios and producers who broke the model, notably Walt Disney, who tried to get his movies into as many theatres as possible as quickly as possible. Somehow, Disney's success didn't clue in the other studios to what he had. It was assumed that this was something that would work well for kids movies but not other movies. After all, Disney was trying to sell toys and albums and games along with the movie (he really was the father of the modern movie marketing campaign model, wasn't he?) while grown-up movies needed "word of mouth" advertising to get the adults into the theatre. Then, in 1973, William Friedkin had it written into his contract that he would have approval over how The Exorcist was released, which he wanted because he believed the slow release model would fail for The Exorcist. He didn't want "word of mouth," that which the slow release depends upon, ruining the shock of the film for most moviegoers. He wanted it shown to as many people as possible as soon as possible. The studio agreed and on December 26, 1973, The Exorcist opened on multiple screens all across the nation. It was a hit and slowly, the old model started to break down. In 1977, with Star Wars opening on some 400 screens across the nation (a paltry number by today's standards) the slow release model was all but dead. By 1979, the success of such non-kiddie fare as Kramer vs. Kramer and An Unmarried Woman, both given wide-release shortly after their premiere dates and both enjoying great success, set the new model in stone. Wide release was the way to go. Slow release was dead.

In part, it died because the technology improved for producing prints at lower costs to theatre owners, partly because theatres expanded beyond single screen palaces and partly because both theatre owners and movie studios realized there was one hell of a lot of money to be made in wide release. Today, movie viewing technology is at the point that many cinephiles and average moviegoers are expecting, but not yet demanding, that the model change once again. The new model is called Simultaneous Release*, and it's only been tried with a few low-profile pictures, to very limited success. Basically, it goes like this: With the quality of home movie entertainment systems and the remarkable ability in the modern world to get the movie of your choice into your home without ever leaving it, why not release a new movie in the theatres, on DVD and on instant streaming all on the same day?!. Or, at the very least, release it in the theatres by itself for its big "Premiere Week" and then, the following weekend, release it to DVD and instant streaming. Currently, the model followed is oddly reminiscent of the old slow release model for movies in the seventies and before, only except being a slow release around the country, it's a slow release around the different types of media.

Not everyone agrees this a good idea, most notably, and understandably, cinema owners who fear they'll lose money. But I submit, circumstantially mind you, based solely on being a parent of teenagers, that the core audiences for multiplexes will not change. My kids don't want to watch movies at home, they want to go out, with their friends. My adult friends, on the other hand, want to stay in and see that new movie everyone is talking about without having to get a babysitter for the youngest, pay for parking, etc. And guess what? If they don't have a choice, they're still not going to see it. I can count on two fingers the number of friends I know that have been to a multiplex in the last year. "I'll watch it on DVD" is the mantra of the new age.

I venture out into the theatre fairly often myself but mainly to the AFI to see older films on the big screen with wonderfully appreciative audiences and can tell you, as a result, that I am a full convert to the notion that seeing a classic film on the big screen can redefine it for you. A recent example would be La Dolce Vita, which my wife and I saw at the AFI last month and which was an extraordinary experience. Before, I had liked the movie, after, I was absolutely floored by it. I realize the power of the big screen so I'm not cavalierly suggesting we should do away with the experience altogether. Simply saying that in this day of modern digital conveniences it may be time to switch to a simultaneous release model to get more people in on the action. How many more older movie lovers would give a look to the new blockbuster everyone is talking about if they could, easily and conveniently, right from their home? But they can, you say, when the DVD is released. True, but the excitement is gone. Let me explain.

Often I find myself curious about some blockbuster in the theatres. Is it really as bad as everyone says it is? Is it really as good? Is it a fun popcorn movie or an overblown noisemaker? In the biggest success stories, like an Avatar, I plop down my money and go see it. More often than not, I don't. And even more often than not, when it's released on DVD I've already read everyone's reaction and no longer care and never bother seeing it. If simultaneous release were in play that wouldn't be the case. I believe the cinema owners would make the same money they're making now and the distributors would make even more as simultaneously released movies would rake in far more than delayed release DVDs do now.

I believe the time has come for simultaneous release to become the standard model, giving every movie, especially adult fare, the chance to have a wider audience. We're almost there. I've already noticed what I call the "Netflix Instant Effect" more and more on the movie blogs. That is, when a new movie or classic movie becomes available on Netflix Instant, suddenly there are a lot of blogs writing it up. We all want to be a part of the same conversation and simultaneous release would allow more of us, especially us cinephiles, to enjoy the feeling of seeing the same movie together, no matter how far apart we are.