Movies

Subterms

    More stories

    • 113 Shares119 Views

      in Theater

      Michael Schultz on Breaking the Mold for Black Directors

      by

      When Michael Schultz began work on his first film, in 1971, there was no road map for a lengthy career as a Black director in Hollywood. The first two studio movies to employ Black directors — Gordon Parks’s “The Learning Tree” (1969) and Ossie Davis’s “Cotton Comes to Harlem” (1970) — had only relatively recently left theaters. And the movement that would soon be known as Blaxploitation — mimicking the work of Davis, Parks and the trailblazing independent filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles — did little to suggest a promising future.Schultz was 32 at the time and a rising star of the New York theater scene. He had been tapped to direct a public television documentary, “To Be Young, Gifted and Black.” Though he didn’t know it, Schultz had already begun an improbable course that would take him to the heart of the mainstream film and television industry, where he has essentially remained for the past five decades.Although he has cast a more modest shadow than some of his peers, Schultz holds a singular résumé. He has directed more than a dozen films, including the classics “Cooley High” (1975), “Car Wash” (1976) and “Krush Groove” (1985); is responsible for the first feature-film appearances of Denzel Washington, Samuel L. Jackson and Blair Underwood; and has worked consistently in television since the 1990s.At 83 — and due behind the camera this fall, for Season 5 of the CW drama “All American” — he is probably the longest-working Black director in history.Last month, I met Schultz in New York at the offices of the Criterion Collection, which in December will release a remastered special edition of “Cooley High” — a coming-of-age drama set in the 1960s at a school in Chicago. Schultz is slim and energetic, with an easygoing manner and a guitar-pick-shaped face framed by wavy silver hair. In a darkened editing suite, he directed a sound engineer to raise the soundtrack of a pivotal scene by four decibels.“I wanted to make sure that people can hear it,” he said. “They’re going to be watching at home, and all kinds of stuff is happening at home.”At lunch later that afternoon, and over several earlier phone and video interviews, we discussed the winding trajectory of his career. These are edited excerpts from our conversations.From left, Corin Rogers, Joseph Carter Wilson, Glynn Turman and Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs in “Cooley High.”Olive FilmsWhen you look at “Cooley High” today, what do you see?I see really good performances by Glynn Turman, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, Garrett Morris. I see some things I wish I could have done better.Like what?Like showing Larry as a basketball superstar. That little swish he does is pretty hokey. It would be nice to set his character up a little better. Little nitpicky things like that.Do you always have that feeling when you’ve completed a film?You’re never satisfied. Because there’s always something you missed or something that you didn’t think of in the shooting of it. But there’s also always wonderful things that happen that you didn’t think of because of the communal creativity of the actors and the cameraman and all of the elements that make up the film. It’s a dual universe: good and evil, black and white, up and down.How did “Cooley High” come to you?The editor of a film I’d done, “Together for Days” (1972) [a kind of gender-swapped, post-civil rights-era update of “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner”], connected me with the producer Steve Krantz. He had met the writer, Eric Monte, and they had a script based on all of these incredible stories Eric had from growing up in the Cabrini Green [housing project] of Chicago. But the script wasn’t really a script — it was still mostly just stories. So I met with Eric for seven or eight hours a day for four weeks. Every night, me and my wife [Gloria Schultz] would cut everything down until we had the completed script.What did you see in Eric’s stories? What was the vision?It had this perfect dramatic twist in the death of a friend that sends the main character off to pursue his dreams. That really happened to Eric. And I thought it could be a window into the lives of Black kids that had never been seen before. My theory was that if it was as culturally specific as possible, and as Black as possible, it would translate across the racial divide and people would fall in love with these kids and their humanity.It’s become famous for its soundtrack, as well, which is wall-to-wall Motown — The Supremes, the Temptations, Smokey Robinson. How did you get all of those songs?I was using Motown music on the set and in the editing room, just because I loved it. But nobody valued that music at the time.Really?Yeah. We were able to get it for a very reasonable fee, which was good because the budget for the whole film was like $900,000. The problem came when they wanted to put it out on cassette, because by then the music had had this resurgence and the studio couldn’t afford it. It wasn’t until much later, after Motown got bought by Universal, that they were finally able to do a deal.You started out in the theater in New York, with the Negro Ensemble Company. How did you end up there?I had moved to New York after studying theater at Marquette in Milwaukee, where I grew up. My wife and I were working with the McCarter Theater in New Jersey when Douglas Turner Ward and Robert Hooks were just starting the Negro Ensemble Company. My wife suggested I drop my résumé off with them before we went on the road to do a play that she was acting in and I was directing. Douglas Turner Ward ended up coming out to Yellow Springs, Ohio, to see it and offered me any of the plays in the Negro Ensemble Company’s opening season. I chose “Song of the Lusitanian Bogey” [Peter Weiss’s drama about Portuguese colonialism in Angola], which ended up being their very first production.Schultz, left, with Douglas Turner Ward, working together at the Negro Ensemble Company.Edward Hausner/The New York TimesYou made the transition to features in the same year “Super Fly” (1972) came out; right after “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song” and “Shaft” (both in 1971). What did you make of Blaxploitation?I thought what Melvin [Van Peebles, the director of “Sweet Sweetback”] was doing was very inspirational. He self-distributed that film. And I learned a lot from watching Gordon [Parks, the director of “Shaft”]. But when it devolved into all this stereotypical stuff, “Hell Up in Harlem,” “Sheba, Baby,” all the pimps and fur coats, I said, “Wait till I get my break, because I’m gonna do it a lot better than this.”There was a huge backlash at the time within the Black community — in editorials in Ebony; from the Coalition Against Blaxploitation, which included the N.A.A.C.P.; from Jesse Jackson. The argument was that the movies were degrading and setting us back. Did you participate in those debates?I agreed with [the criticism] in a way. But to me, providing work for actors who couldn’t get work was a very important thing to do. And so it wasn’t so black and white. Yeah, they’re putting white people on top of the pyramid [most Blaxploitation films, after the initial wave, were directed by white men], but they’re keeping Black people working. I was against the tired imagery, especially given the power of the medium and the influence that it has on people’s minds. Unless you have a counter, unless you can see other versions of who we are, it’s damaging.When you started working in Hollywood, did people ever think that you were white, because of your name?All the time. And there was an assumption that I was Jewish, even though it’s a German name. It happened in New York, actually. My agents got me a meeting with the producers of a big Broadway show. They had seen my name on other hit shows in town, but they had never seen my face. I’ve never done a lot of PR. So I walk into this meeting and all of the faces in the room just fall. They couldn’t even keep it together.Oh, wow. What happened?I didn’t get the gig. It was “Oh. Oh — we thought … well, it’s good to meet you.” And then I didn’t hear from them again.Do you have German in your family?Not that I know of. I did the DNA thing and there’s significant European [ancestry], but it’s so far back that who knows?After “Cooley High,” you did “Car Wash,” which was a big hit for Universal. It was also the first of three movies you did with Richard Pryor [followed by “Greased Lightning” and “Which Way Is Up?,” both released in 1977]. What was your bond with him?Richard and I were supposed to do another movie before “Car Wash” called “Simmons From Chicago,” a comedy about a pimp who becomes president. It never got made, but I went to his house to talk about it and we got along very well. I thought he was a brilliant comic — my friends and I all loved listening to his stuff — but he hadn’t really broken onto the scene in films yet. And he respected the work I had done in the theater. We were simpatico. Even though we had completely different backgrounds, we had similar energies. We were both dedicated to the work and wanted to make an impact.Schultz on the “Carbon Copy” set with George Segal and Denzel Washington.Avco Embassy Pictures/Getty ImagesYou also cast Denzel Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, and Blair Underwood in their first feature films (“Carbon Copy” in 1981, “Together for Days” and “Krush Groove”). What was your secret?Sam was a student at Morehouse. We were shooting “Together for Days” in Atlanta and he came in to audition for a background role. When I watched him, I said this guy needs a speaking part. He was very natural. He was the kind of kid who you didn’t see the acting with — there was a certain ease.When Denzel came in for “Carbon Copy,” [a race comedy, also starring George Segal, about a white businessman who finds out he has a long-lost Black son], I knew immediately that he was the guy. He was centered and focused, with a real self-assuredness that made him seem mature for his age. He wasn’t in awe of any of the things around him. And he was very handsome. I did tell him, though, “Hey, if you want to be a leading man, you better get that gap in your front teeth taken care of.” [Laughs] And he did.Wait …He did. I said, “It’s not a requirement. You got the part. But I’ll tell you one thing, I’ve never seen a leading man with a gap in his teeth.” [A representative for Washington declined to comment.]And Blair?Another audition [for “Krush Groove,” an early hip-hop film about the founding of Def Jam, in which Underwood plays a character based on Russell Simmons]. Matter of fact, I almost hired another kid. We were getting ready to make the call, but I saw Blair out in the hallway. I said, “Cancel the call. This is the guy.” He read and he was great. He just had this energy, this aura about him.You directed the Beatles musical “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” which was a big pivot and had a big budget and a high profile. How do you get an assignment like that?Robert Stigwood [the producer of the film and the manager of the Bee Gees] was a big fan of “Car Wash.” He had wanted me to do “Grease” [which Stigwood was also a producer on]. I tried to work it out, but I was editing “Which Way Is Up?” and Travolta had a hard out because he had to go back to his TV show [“Welcome Back, Kotter”]. So then Stigwood offered me “Sgt. Pepper’s” as a consolation prize.Did you ever wish you had done Grease?It wasn’t really the kind of musical I wanted to do. I never liked musicals growing up; they always seemed phony to me. So even if I had accepted it, I would have done it differently. “Sgt Pepper’s” wasn’t like a traditional Hollywood musical. It was more like an opera or an extended music video — a different approach to music as a filmic experience. Would it have been nice to have done “Grease”? Yeah. It made a lot more money than “Which Way Is Up?”Critics savaged “Sgt. Pepper’s,” especially the Bee Gees, who were kind of in an impossible position, standing in for the Beatles, who don’t appear in the film. How did it feel when you were shooting?The Bee Gees were cool when they were playing music, but trying to get them to act was quite tedious. Peter Frampton, as well. When the guys were singing, they were fine. But otherwise it was elementary school theater. Barry Gibb couldn’t get out of bed unless he had a stogie; he was high constantly. [A representative for Gibb didn’t respond to a request for comment.] Peter was a really sweet guy, but the Bee Gees hated him. I think they resented the fact that he had this huge hit album out [“Frampton Comes Alive!”]. They were always ignoring him and trying to make his life as difficult as they could. But I ended up really liking the movie and thought it was going to be a big hit. At the very first screening, the audience loved it. The studio was ecstatic. But it got really damning reviews. It was like “The worst musical in the history of modern Hollywood moviemaking.”How did you deal with that?It was a big hit internationally. I made more money on that film than on most of my earlier films put together. But the response in America was devastating, depressing, deflating. It took me about a year to recover. I had been doing one film after the other before that and was pretty wiped out. Going through that emotional disappointment and taking that break kind of slowed down the trajectory of my career.Schultz says, “It’s extraordinarily gratifying to see the talent” of Black directors today, “to see so many avenues for young people to develop and get in the mix. And they’re coming with the goods.”Nathan Bajar for The New York TimesSince the ’90s, you’ve worked most frequently as a television director. What do you like about the medium?When I was starting out, everybody in film looked down their nose on television. I always thought that was stupid. My feeling was, “Hey, television reaches millions of people.” It’s crazy not to want to get your story out to an audience of that size.But would you rather have been making features?No. [Pauses]. Because around that same time, our family was going through some personal difficulties. Our oldest son was stricken with schizophrenia and I had to have a steady stream of income coming in.I’m so sorry.Thank you. I had to keep working to get him the level of care that he needed. I couldn’t wait around for six months to get the green light for a feature.That sounds really scary.It was. But we had really good psychiatrists, therapists and these new medicines — psychotropics. The scary thing was when he would have a relapse. You’re always afraid that they’ll end up on the street and the cops will get involved, or shoot them down. But we just weren’t willing to let him go. Fortunately, our son is OK today.How do you think you’ve been able to survive through so many seasons of change in the industry?I’m good at what I do and focus on what’s best for the project. Maybe it’s my theater background, but I like to work very collaboratively and make everyone a part of the process. I don’t need to be Michael Bay or James Cameron, or whoever. I remember, after we finished “The Last Dragon” [a 1985 Black kung fu comedy, produced by the Motown founder Berry Gordy], Berry Gordy decided that he should be credited as the director. But the Directors Guild wouldn’t let him. So Berry went and changed the title to “Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon,” just to get his name in there. I’ve never understood that kind of ego. [A representative for Gordy didn’t respond to a request for comment.]Were you angry?Well, I was not happy about it. But I wasn’t going to spend a whole lot of energy being upset. [Gordy] is very slick. It’s no wonder he made all that money.In the last decade, there’s been a real resurgence in Black filmmaking, with many more Black directors working regularly than in the past. What has it been like for you to see that evolution?It’s extraordinarily gratifying to see the talent, and to see so many avenues for young people to develop and get in the mix. And they’re coming with the goods. I don’t think it would have happened, though, if there weren’t Black executives, as well. Ryan Coogler had a Black executive supporting “Black Panther” [Nate Moore, Marvel Studios’ vice president of production and development]. When you have the creative and the executive in sync, that’s when extraordinary things can really happen. We saw that way back when with the Negro Ensemble Company.When you’re on set today, is it still as fun as it used to be?Oh yeah. I still get the butterflies when I’m starting something new — “Am I going to mess this up?” But once I’m in there, it just flows. People keep asking me when I’m going to retire and I always say, “Retire from what? Having fun?” I’ll retire when either my body gives out or it starts to feel like work. But, right now, I’m having fun — and they’re still paying me. More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Movies

      Where Did Those Hot Dog Fingers Come From? Daniels Explain

      by

      The directors of “Everything Everywhere All at Once” have found the reaction to their film “humbling and inspiring and confusing.”When “Everything Everywhere All at Once” opened in March in a handful of theaters, its creators, the directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, weren’t sure what to expect. The film had stars — “I thought we could bill it as ‘Michelle Yeoh fights Jamie Lee Curtis,’” Scheinert said — but was otherwise tough to pigeonhole. It was a multiverse picture, sure, but instead of superheroes and spaceships, there were fights with fanny packs, cinematic shout-outs to Wong Kar-wai and Stanley Kubrick, and a singing raccoon. And then there was the pandemic, and who knew what that might do to box office numbers? “I went in with very low expectations, because there were a lot of unknowns,” Kwan said.Instead, the movie became one of the sleeper hits of the summer, expanding from 10 screens in three American cities to 2,200 theaters worldwide, becoming A24’s highest-grossing release in the process. Strong reviews helped: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film was rated 95 percent fresh, while The Times called it “an exuberant swirl of genre anarchy” and praised its “sincere and generous heart.” The film also benefited from exuberant word of mouth, which included viewers posting photos and videos of themselves on social media having a good cry or three. “It’s been very humbling and inspiring and confusing,” Scheinert said.In the film, Yeoh stars as a laundromat owner who must call upon various alter egos in parallel worlds to battle a mysterious power out to destroy the multiverse. On a recent morning, Kwan and Scheinert, known professionally as Daniels, spoke — via video call from their separate homes in Los Angeles — about the film’s slow-burn, still-burning success; how Yeoh and Curtis ended up with wieners for fingers; and why, with a movie about infinite possibilities, they wouldn’t change a thing.The film had a pretty small first weekend release. What was it like watching audiences discover the film?DANIEL SCHEINERT I’m grateful that it’s been slow, because I think it allowed us to process how people were reacting. At those early screenings, people would stay after to talk with us, and a good number of them would cry while talking about it.Inside the World of ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’In this mind-expanding, idiosyncratic take on the superhero film, a laundromat owner is the focus of a grand, multiversal showdown.Review: Our film critic called “Everything Everywhere All at Once” an exuberant swirl of genre anarchy.The Protagonist: Over the years, Michelle Yeoh has built her image as a combat expert. For this movie, she drew on her emotional reserves.A Lovelorn Romantic: A child star in the 1980s, Ke Huy Quan returns to acting as the husband of Yeoh’s character, a role blending action and drama.The Costume Designer: Shirley Kurata, whose work defined the look of the movie, has a signature style that mixes vintage, high-end designers and an intense color wheel.DANIEL KWAN That first month was very emotional. It became this version of group therapy for certain people, especially at college campuses. For a lot of younger Asian American kids, especially children of immigrants, they’d come up to me, and they wouldn’t even be asking about the movie past a certain point. They’d be asking about their own life, like, so what do I do? How do I talk to my parents? And like, I’m not a therapist. My relationship with my parents is good, but it’s good for an Asian American immigrant relationship.Michelle Yeoh in a scene from the film, which Daniel Kwan described as “it’s like if my mom was in ‘The Matrix.’”A24“Everything” is hard to describe. How would you describe it?SCHEINERT Michelle Yeoh stars in an action-adventure movie, but it’s in the multiverse. So we get to interrupt that movie with a family drama and then interrupt that with a romance and then interrupt that with an absurdist comedy. And all of that is a fun way to play with how overwhelming life is these days. But at the end of the day, it’s a story about a family.KWAN And then the really dumb pitch is: It’s like if my mom was in “The Matrix.”In one universe, Michelle Yeoh (as Evelyn Wang, an embattled Chinese American laundromat owner) and Jamie Lee Curtis (as Deirdre Beaubeirdra, her I.R.S. auditor and nemesis) have hot dogs for fingers. How did that come about?SCHEINERT We were just high and hungry. No, that’s not true. When we were writing this, we were engineering that particular universe to be the one that pushes Michelle the furthest out of her comfort zone. It was like, how do we make Evelyn hate the multiverse? And so it was like, oh, well, you’re in love with your auditor, and you have floppy useless hot dogs for fingers.KWAN They’re just dumb ideas. The hot dog fingers idea is something a 5 year old would come up with. The only difference between us and a 5 year old is that we are adults with budgets to actually execute the ideas. A lot of these ideas are really dumb. They’re the kind of thing that anyone could come up with.You have an extended and weird shout-out to “Ratatouille,” which is already a really weird movie. Instead of a rat under a chef’s toque, controlling his every move, you have a singing raccoon riding atop Harry Shum Jr.KWAN There’s a phrase that we picked up from working with comedians. When a joke stacks on a joke and stacks on a joke, it’s called a hat on a hat. It’s a problem. It’s like, don’t put a hat on a hat. You’re messing up the purity of the joke and it’s not funny anymore. But we do the opposite. We love to put a hat on a hat on a hat on a hat.SCHEINERT The hope is that the tiny hat on top of the other hats is the one that makes you cry. It’s not good comedy writing, but it’s fun to play with.KWAN I think you saying that “Ratatouille” is already a really weird movie is probably why we love that movie, because it is weird. A rat controlling a man by his hair is hilarious and strange. And so that already feels like a hat on a hat. Or maybe a rat on a hat.SCHEINERT A rat under a hat.The famous hot dog fingers, which Daniel Scheinert said were devised in response to the question, “How do we make Evelyn hate the universe?”A24“Everything” deals with alternate realities and what one might do differently if you had a second shot at life. Is there anything you might do differently if you had a second shot at this film?SCHEINERT Not really. I think our takeaway from the whole exercise of making a movie about alternate lives is that it made me reflect on all the little forks in my life that got me here. How precarious and miraculous the good stuff in my life is. I feel like just one really charming [expletive] friend in high school and my life would just be garbage right now. Just one persuasive butthead who convinces me to join a cult or be a misogynist, and I wouldn’t be here.KWAN It was the same thing with this film. There were so many moments where we thought the movie was going to fall apart, and those moments ended up making the film better. So it’s like, I don’t want to touch it. It’s not a perfect movie. It’s very strange and messy. But I have no regrets.What’s coming up for you?KWAN We might try to make something really small. Just the opposite of this movie, you know, to disappoint all of our new fans. [Laughs] We think a lot about the way the Coen brothers work. Right after they did “No Country for Old Men,” which won the Oscar and is probably one of the best films of the past 50 years, they followed up with “Burn After Reading.” I love “Burn After Reading,” but it’s like a farcical, nihilistic, stupid joke about bureaucracy. I think they’ve been able to build a long career because they’re constantly playing with expectations, and just kind of doing whatever they want to do. I wish, I hope, that we can have that kind of bravery. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Television

      What’s on TV This Week: ‘Race for the Championship’ and ‘Stargirl’

      by

      USA Network airs its NASCAR documentary series. And the third season of the CW show based on the DC Comics character premieres.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Aug. 29 — Sept. 4. Details and times are subject to change.MondayA still from “Keep This Between Us.”FreeformKEEP THIS BETWEEN US 9 p.m. on Freeform. This four-part docuseries follows the filmmaker Cheryl Nichols as she re-evaluates an inappropriate relationship she had with a teacher when she was 16-years-old. Through the lens of her own experience, Nichols evaluates the broader, all-too-common cycle of grooming and predatory relationships between teachers and students. Through the four episodes, two of which are airing back-to-back on Monday night, Nichols seeks to identify the factors that allow for this dynamic to continue and answer the question of how it can be stopped.TuesdayRISE OF THE BOLSONAROS (2022) 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). In 2018, Jair Bolsonaro was elected as the president of Brazil, solidifying the country’s general shift to the right. Throughout his campaign, he used the country’s crime and years of political and economic turmoil to advocate himself as a shift from the status quo while vocalizing his anti-abortion, anti-same sex marriage and pro-police stances. This feature-length documentary charts Bolsonaro’s rise from an unknown military officer and politician to one of the most powerful figures in South America.WednesdayBrec Bassinger in “Stargirl.”Boris Martin/The CWSTARGIRL 8 p.m. on the CW. Based on the DC Comics character of the same name, the CW version of this character is back for a third season this week. The show, which stars Brec Bassinger as Courtney Whitmore, a.k.a. Stargirl, begins when Courtney moves from California to Nebraska, where she discovers the Cosmic Staff, a rod that gives superpowers, and recruits a group of new superheroes to form a new Justice Society of America. The first two episodes of the third season feature Joel McHale as Starman, the original owner of the cosmic staff, as he trains her on how to garner power and be a good superhero.WELLINGTON PARANORMAL 9:30 p.m. on the CW. This New Zealand mockumentary is wrapping up its fourth and final season in the U.S. this week; this season (and the series as a whole) finished airing in New Zealand on TVNZ 2 in March. The show follows Sergeant Maaka (Maaka Pohatu) and officers Minogue (Mike Minogue) and O’Leary (Karen O’Leary), who all work in the Wellington paranormal unit and investigate supernatural events such as demon possession and haunted houses. This week’s finale brings the detectives back to the 1990s, where they’ve created a timeline that changes the outcome of events in current times.CMT STORYTELLERS: DARIUS RUCKER 10 p.m. on CMT. Darius Rucker, the singer and songwriter who was first known as the lead singer of the band Hootie & the Blowfish, is being featured on this one-hour special. After Rucker’s run with his rock band, he went on to create country music, including his hit song “Wagon Wheel.” In this special, Rucker will talk through his career and the inspiration behind different songs. “Storytellers” was revived earlier this spring after its original run from 1996 to 2015 on VH1, featuring musicians like Taylor Swift, The Chicks and Bruce Springsteen, to name a few.ThursdayRACE FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP 10 p.m. on USA Network. In the tradition of “Drive to Survive,” USA is airing a new racecar reality show, but this time with NASCAR drivers. This ten-part series follows the drama on and off the racetrack with the drivers Chase Elliott, Kyle Larson, Kyle Busch, Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski, to name a few. The show will feature 16 drivers as they compete in the NASCAR playoffs — with cameras closely following each race. The cameras will continue to follow the drivers as they spend their time off the racetrack with their children, partners and family.FridayCameron Diaz and Matt Dillon in “There’s Something About Mary.”Glenn Watson/20th Century FoxTHERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY (1998) 5:30 p.m. on FX. After Ted (Ben Stiller) experiences an unfortunate mishap that prevents him from going to prom with Mary (Cameron Diaz), he never gets over her. Years later, he hires Pat (Matt Dillon) as a private investigator to track Mary down — but Ted doesn’t realize that Pat is using his role as P.I. to get information about Mary so that he can date her himself. “The Farrellys display a crazy audacity that’s worth admiring, and they take sure aim for the funny bone,” Janet Maslin wrote in her review of the film. “‘There’s Something About Mary’ may be many things, but dull and routine aren’t among them.”CLUB CUMMING PRESENTS A QUEER COMEDY EXTRAVAGANZA! 10 p.m. on Showtime. Alan Cumming, who owns a nightclub in the East Village of the same name as this special, is hosting a cabaret-style evening that features up-and-coming comedians in the L.G.B.T.Q. community with a range of comedy styles. Joe Castle Baker, Julia Shiplett, Zach Teague with Drew Lausch, Nori Reed, Pat Regan, and Larry Owens will all perform stand-up, musical performances and more.SaturdayTHE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE (1946) 10 p.m. on TCM. This film noir thriller staring Lana Turner, John Garfield and Cecil Kellaway is the third (and not the last) adaptation of the 1934 novel of the same name by James M. Cain — the previous two were LE DERNIER TOURNANT (1939) in France and OSSESSIONE (1943) in Italy. The story is about a married woman, Cora (Turner), who falls in love with a drifter (John Garfield), and together they plot to kill Cora’s husband. “It is, indeed, a sincere comprehension of an American tragedy,” Bosley Crowther wrote in his 1946 review. “For the yearning of weak and clumsy people for something better than the stagnant lives they live is revealed as the core of the dilemma, and sin is shown to be no way to happiness.”SundayMCENROE 7 p.m. on Showtime. Fans of John McEnroe, known as one of the best tennis players of all time, as well as for his outbursts on and off the court, will be able to see a more intimate look into the player’s life in this documentary. The feature-length film will feature archival footage that guides McEnroe’s narration about the significant moments in his life and career. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Movies

      Virginia Patton Moss, ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ Actress, Dies at 97

      by

      The last surviving adult member of the film’s cast, she played the sister-in-law to James Stewart’s George Bailey. Three years later, she quit Hollywood.Virginia Patton Moss, the last surviving adult member of the cast of Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life,” who, three years after that film was released, left Hollywood to find her own wonderful life raising a family in Ann Arbor, Mich., died on Aug. 18 in Albany, Ga. She was 97.The death, at an assisted living facility, was confirmed by her son, Michael Cruse Moss.As Virginia Patton, she began her movie career at 18. She had appeared in 10 films, mostly in uncredited roles, when she was cast in “It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946), which stars James Stewart as George Bailey, a frustrated banker in the town of Bedford Falls who, when he faces financial ruin, contemplates suicide, but who is saved by a guardian angel who shows him what the lives of everybody in town would have been like without him.Miss Patton appears in the film when her character, Ruth Dakin, steps off a train with George’s younger brother, Harry (Todd Karns), at the railroad station in Bedford Falls, bearing news that they had married. Harry introduces her as Ruth Dakin, but she adds confidently, “Ruth Dakin Bailey, if you don’t mind.”“What’s a pretty girl like you doing marrying this two-headed brother of mine?” George asks.“Well, I’ll tell you,” Ruth says. “It’s purely mercenary. My father offered him a job.”George is shaken, realizing that if Harry takes the job, he can’t flee Bedford Falls and leave his family’s building-and-loan association to his brother to run, as he had long hoped. Then, when a still dazed George catches up to Ruth, who has walked ahead of him eating popcorn, she tells him, “George, George, George … that’s all Harry ever talks about.”Before that scene was filmed, Miss Patton was worried that she would be eating buttered popcorn and that the camera would zoom in and show butter on her white gloves.“We rehearsed it,” she recalled in 2013 when the St. Nicholas Institute, which promotes the ideals of Santa Claus, gave her its first Spirit of Christmases Past, Present & Future Award. Mr. Capra, she recalled, “didn’t say anything about it. His assistant didn’t say anything about it. His cameraman didn’t say anything about it.” So, she decided, “I’ll just pretend everybody eats buttered popcorn with gloves.”Virginia Ann Marie Patton was born on June 25, 1925, in Cleveland and grew up in Portland, Ore. Her father, Donald, was an aeronautical engineer, and her mother, Marie (Cain) Patton, was a homemaker. Virginia was a great-niece of General George S. Patton, the bold World War II Army commanderAfter her family moved to Los Angeles, she attended classes at the University of Southern California and appeared in a play written by William C. deMille (the older brother of the director Cecil B. DeMille, who capitalized the “D” in his family’s last name). That performance led her to Hollywood.At 18 she appeared in a musical number with Ann Sheridan in her first film, the Warner Bros. musical “Thank Your Lucky Stars” (1943); she was in a string of other Warner Bros. films before Mr. Capra signed her for “It’s a Wonderful Life.”She appeared in four more films — including starring roles in “The Burning Cross” (1947) and “Black Eagle” (1948)— but left Hollywood for good after marrying Cruse Watson Moss, who became an automotive executive, in 1949, when she was 24.“It’s Tinsel Town,” she said of Hollywood when she was interviewed in 2010 by Lucy Ann Lance on WLBY, a radio station in Ann Arbor, where Mrs. Patton Moss lived for most of her life. “And that’s not the life that I wanted. I got what I wanted in Ann Arbor.”In that university town, she raised her three children and was a Boy Scout and Girl Scout leader; studied art history and archaeology at the University of Michigan; served on the boards of the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology and the Stearns Collection of Musical Instruments, both at the university; was a docent at the school’s Museum of Art; and raised funds for various organizations. She was also president of the Patton Company, her family’s real estate investment firm.Joseph Lam, a former director of the Stearns collection, said in an email that Mrs. Patton Moss “was very creative in setting the scenes of fund-raising activities,” adding, “Her flower decorations, and other artistic details, contributed much to the artistic and jovial atmosphere of the parties.”In addition to her son, Mrs. Patton Moss is survived by a daughter, Carol Moss Loop; seven grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. Her husband died in 2018. Another son, Stephen, died in 1997.When reminiscing about “It’s a Wonderful Life,” she spoke extensively about Mr. Capra and his message, delivered through the life of George Bailey, about the impact a single person’s life can have on his community.“Capra knew we were coming out of a war, we were in terrible shape and there needed to be some type of stimulus,” she told the St. Nicholas Institute. She then rang a bell, which, in the film, signified that an angel had gotten its wings.She added, “Go get ’em, Capra.” More

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in Movies

      ‘The Invitation’ Review: Nathalie Emmanuel Brings Down the Haunted House

      by

      Nathalie Emmanuel stars as the unwitting belle of an English manor in this middling gothic horror movie that leaves her blind to the blood-red flags waving at every turn.“The Invitation,” a brittle, droning excursion into gothic horror, primarily takes place at a manor in the English countryside. The setting is admissible, if unimaginative: the exterior of the estate appears constructed of Playmobil; coated in cobwebs, its dingy indoors most closely resemble a dungeon.Outside of the cinema, an invitation to such an abode would ring a cacophony of alarm bells and leave a guest clambering for the door. Not so for Evie (Nathalie Emmanuel), a jaded ceramist in New York who unwittingly becomes the belle of the dwelling after a long-lost cousin, Oliver (Hugh Skinner), invites her to a wedding on its grounds. An only child who recently lost her mother, Evie is tickled by the prospect of extended family, even if the stuffy brood are uniformly white and ominously keen for her company.But soon, Oliver and his vast array of blond brothers and uncles hardly figure into the equation. Once Evie arrives on the property, she takes a shine to the lord of the residence, Walter (Thomas Doherty), a smirking bachelor dripping in wealth and vampiric good looks.What follows is an escalating sequence of creaky-freaky jump scares interspersed with beats from a budding romance between Walter and Evie. Dressed to the nines, the pair drink champagne and smooch under a flurry of fireworks. At the same time, the estate’s maids are sucked into a menacing string of set pieces that invariably end in shrieks over a black screen.The juxtaposition of these events might be exciting — or even mischievously funny — if each scene wasn’t so tedious. For a fright-fest as broad as this one, there’s an awful lot of banal dialogue, and the scare patterns are repetitive enough that even the easiest startlers (I count myself among them) grow immune early on.Directed by Jessica M. Thompson, “The Invitation” makes feeble gestures at issues of class and race, but its efforts are as diffuse as the whooshing specters haunting Walter’s estate. Emmanuel, for her part, admirably endeavors to imbue Evie with smarts and sass, but confined within a story that leaves her blind to the blood-red flags waving at every turn, her scrappy heroine is hard to cheer on. Had the movie emerged as a friskier game of eat the rich, it might have had a fighting chance of survival. Instead, it’s middling, morbid pap.The InvitationNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 44 minutes. In theaters. More

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in Movies

      Foreign Films, English Titles and the Dilemma Distributors Face

      by

      Leave as is? Translate? Change altogether? A movie’s success doesn’t depend entirely on what we call it, but it can have a big effect.Two years ago, international film releases in the United States reached a new pinnacle with the crowning of Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite” as best picture at the Academy Awards. But before “Parasite” or any other non-English-language film even hits theaters, a basic question has to be settled: the title.Distributors say the title can be the first impression a movie makes on prospective audiences, and so they give it a great deal of thought. How do you translate the original title? Do you add a word or two to clarify? Or do you leave the Spanish or Korean or French as is?Titles have been a consideration at least since the influx of foreign films in the 1950s and ’60s. When a title sticks, it has a way of enduring: it’s hard to imagine Michelangelo Antonioni’s “L’Avventura” being translated as simply “The Adventure.” The cryptic title “The 400 Blows” didn’t prevent people enjoying that film’s riches. (It’s a reference to a French idiom “faire les quatre cents coups,” commonly rendered as “to raise hell.”)The Korean title for “Parasite” was essentially the same word, and more often than not, a straightforward translation makes sense, said Richard Lorber, the president of Kino Lorber, a major distributor of international films.But occasionally a title is changed for clarity. The French coming-of-age drama “Water Lilies” (2008) had a completely different French title for its romantic story centered on three teenage girls who swim at the same pool.The original name translated as “Birth of the Octopuses.” “It’s a tricky title,” Lorber said.The Korean title for “Parasite” was essentially the same word.Neon“Water Lilies” was proposed as an alternative by the film’s sales agent, the professional who sells the rights to distribute films in specific territories like the U.S. The new title (still evocative but a little more straightforward) stuck for the release, which was the debut feature of the director Céline Sciamma (whose latest, “Petite Maman,” opened in the spring).Sometimes a translation or alteration of any sort is unnecessary. The 2020 Brazilian thriller “Bacurau,” another Kino Lorber release, is named after the fictional town where the action takes place.And an English translation may not capture the full meaning of the more evocative original. The title of Pedro Almodóvar’s 2006 “Volver” (“to come back” in Spanish) was not translated for its U.S. release by Sony Pictures Classics, unlike, say, his 1999 drama “All About My Mother.” (Almodóvar’s name recognition no doubt aided the profiles of both films.)Whatever the reasoning, distributors agreed that they didn’t assume a non-English title was an obstacle for audiences.“I think the resistance to foreign titles and foreign-language films has certainly been eroded for the better, along with the resistance to subtitles,” said Ryan Krivoshey, who runs Grasshopper Film. He pointed to the success of the Oscar-winning “Drive My Car” and the prevalence of foreign series on Netflix. Grasshopper Film recently distributed “Il Buco” (literally, “The Hole” in Italian) and even has a forthcoming release with a Latin title (“De Humani Corporis Fabrica”).On a wider platform like Netflix, foreign films and series can vary as to whether they are translated, left alone or rephrased.The five-season hit series “Money Heist” received a makeover from the original Spanish, which translated as “The House of Paper,” while the dystopian thriller “The Platform” was originally “El Hoyo” (“The Hole”). But for a number of foreign features it has acquired, Netflix leaves their lyrical titles more or less intact: “Happy as Lazzaro,” “Atlantics” (tweaked from the French, “Atlantique”), “I Lost My Body.” (A Netflix representative declined to comment.)Carlos Gutiérrez of Cinema Tropical, a nonprofit that specializes in presenting Spanish-language cinema, saw a shift in titles at the turn of the millennium.“I think ‘Amores Perros’ opened up the door that it was cool to leave a title in Spanish,” Gutiérrez said of the 2000 film from the future Oscar winner Alejandro González Iñárritu (“Birdman”). Shortly thereafter, “Y Tu Mamá También” was released to widespread acclaim, opening up more doors.The French coming-of-age drama “Water Lilies” (2008) had a completely different French title, which translated as “Birth of the Octopuses.”Koch Lorber Films, via PhotofestGutiérrez also saw a growing potential Spanish-speaking market for films going by their original titles.“After the census of 2000, I think this country realized that there was a big consuming Latinx group that we were not tapping into,” Gutiérrez said, noting that the openness to original-language titles lasted even as the box office share of international features shrank.The journey for many international releases begins at festivals. A sales agent might have already determined how a title is translated or marketed, anticipating the first wave of reviews and other coverage.Last fall, two films directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi crossed over from festivals to open commercially in the U.S. “Drive My Car” shared its name with the Haruki Murakami source material (a story that also used the Beatles song as its title, but transliterated into Japanese); it went on to win the Academy Award for best international feature. But Hamaguchi’s second release in 2021, “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy,” used an extension of the original Japanese title, roughly translated as “Coincidence and Imagination.”The film had already received admiring reviews and recognition, even if some saw an echo of a long-running game show in the title.“Often your feelings about the title per se are secondary to its awareness out in the market, and that’s fine,” Maxwell Wolkin of Film Movement, the movie’s distributor, said. The extended title stayed.The right to change a title might not even be contractually granted to a distributor when it acquires a film, or the approval of the director or producer may be required. But distributors offered up examples of the delicate calculus involved in connecting films with potential audiences: punching up the recent Norwegian oil-rig thriller “North Sea” to the more vivid “Burning Sea” or retaining the Spanish title for the 2019 family drama “Temblores,” partly to avoid referencing a 1980s horror film about underground worms (“Tremors”).Once in a while, a film openly adopts an established title but puts its appeal to entirely fresh uses. Bi Gan’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” (2019) is a mind-expanding riff on film noir that features an hourlong sequence shot in a single take and rendered in 3D.Despite the name, it’s not an adaptation of the Eugene O’Neill play. Adding to the mystique, the film’s Mandarin-language title echoes that of a Roberto Bolaño story.“Everybody sort of scratched their head,” Lorber said of the O’Neill reference. “But Bi Gan just liked that play, and he liked the name, and he just wanted to go with it. And the film stood out on its own.” More

    • 113 Shares159 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Me Time’ Review: In Search of Lost Dad Jokes

      by

      Kevin Hart and Mark Wahlberg star in this boys’ night out comedy that fails to find its laughs.The hero of the uneasy comedy “Me Time” begins the movie in a flashback, in free-fall. Sonny (Kevin Hart) has just tried to bail on a day of wingsuit gliding with his longtime friend Huck (Mark Wahlberg), but a burst of propelled air has sent him plummeting down the side of the cliff face. Huck dives after, guiding his friend away from certain death. Sonny is saved, but the movie never shakes off this initial sense of panic.In the present, Sonny is a stay at home dad, whose wife Maya (Regina Hall) is a prominent architect. Sonny fears that he doesn’t measure up to his accomplished spouse, and so he brings an overachiever’s anxiety to parenting. With tension at home, Maya offers to take the kids away for a vacation, so Sonny can take a break from superdad duties.Sonny uses his solo time to join in his old friend Huck’s birthday celebrations, and he finds himself drawn into Huck’s daredevil ways. Together, they indulge in a boys’ night binge of bad behavior. They break into the house of Maya’s most solicitous client, engage in a bacchanal at Sonny’s home and, most damningly, Sonny lends Huck some of his family’s money.“Me Time” is written and directed by John Hamburg, and his movie attempts to include domestic conversations that speak to the lives of men who keep house. But this boys’ night out is light on the wisecracks, pratfalls and gags that might produce laughs. There is a flatness that feels apparent in every shot — and not just because the movie is filmed in bright, low contrast lighting. The film’s experienced cast punches their lines in search of jokes that never materialize, leaving the comedy to nosedive.Me TimeRated R for language, drug references, sexual references and brief nudity. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

    • 88 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Funny Pages’ Review: Ordinary Life, Complex Stuff

      by

      Owen Kline’s wonderful feature debut about an aspiring comic-book creator delves into a buzzingly alive, if anxious, world of cartooning.The young director Owen Kline packs worlds of cringe into “Funny Pages” — shame, disgust, embarrassment, sweaty sexual panic, acres of pustules — it’s all here in this terrific, tonally flawless feature debut. Scabrous, painful and true, it tracks a high school senior who, in his ambitions to be a comic-book artist of the highest, purest order, steamrollers over nearly everyone in his life. No one is spared in this portrait of a young artist as a pain in the butt.It’s startling how good the film is, partly because independent American cinema is clogged with bland coming-of-age fictions about nice kids. There’s nothing obviously nice about Robert — a fantastic Daniel Zolghadri — a churlish 17-year-old whose talent is engaged in an escalating war of dominance with his narcissism. Or at least his bad attitude: Robert talks big (and mean), but is desperate for validation, one problem being that he seems to despise almost everyone.The economic if event-filled story fits the coming-of-age template in its broadest, less romantic outlines. In classic striver mode, Robert yearns to become what he isn’t yet, in this case a great cartoonist in the vein of Robert Crumb and his underground comix brethren. Our Robert hopes to attend art school, an ambition that doesn’t sit well with his mentor and teacher, the shambolic Mr. Katano (an indelible Stephen Adly Guirgis). Lavishly praising Robert — and dividing his cartoons as either Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant great — Katano urges him to submit his work straight to Mad Magazine.“Funny Pages” announces its parameters in its inaugural scene, which finds teacher and student yammering in Katano’s office as Robert eagerly flips through some infamous, old-time dirty comics known as Tijuana Bibles. Published first in the 1930s and small enough to hide in your pocket, these comics were explicit parodies of characters like Popeye (he is what he is, but more so) and Mickey and Minnie Mouse, as well as Hollywood stars. Kline fills the frame with panels from one Bible (a parody of “Henry,” a long-forgotten comic-strip) so that the images loom with humorous, unambiguously smutty absurdity.The opener establishes the claustrophobic milieu as well as the open, visceral intimacy between Robert and Katano, admiration radiating off the student’s face as the teacher blows cigarette smoke out the window. It also puts the viewer on notice, announcing the movie’s unflinching embrace of the impolite and the incorrect. Among the film’s virtues is that it’s exhilaratingly free of the do-gooder, aspirational current that runs through so many ostensibly independent features (unless you too aspire to Crumb-like artistry), and that effectively repackage the same Sunday school moralism the old-studio movies did.Caught between childhood and adulthood, Robert struggles, though he often just squirms. He argues with his exasperated parents (Maria Dizzia and Josh Pais), insults other teachers and sneers at Marvel superheroes. (Kline knows his target audience.) Robert’s rebellious gestures are puny and transparent. He reveres Katano but continually hurls brickbats at his closest friend, the unfailingly loyal Miles (the newcomer Miles Emanuel), another comic-book artist. Yet while Robert can be cruel, especially to Miles, Kline never is. He’s deeply fond of all his characters, even the most abject, which is an ethos in itself.Shortly after “Funny Pages” begins, Robert’s life is upturned by a traumatic loss that sends him quietly spiraling and sets the story on its way. Things happen quickly, and before long he’s arrested, drops out of school and moves out of his family’s house. These milestones give the narrative rough shape, but are less the point than Robert’s textured, buzzingly alive, if anxious and pointedly cloistered male world. Both he and Kline have touchstones and influences, and each is working within established frames — the comic-book panel, the movie screen — while also pushing against limits, finding their voices, making their marks.Robert has a ways to go before he catches up to Kline, whose filmmaking here is seamless and confident: He knows how to shoot, and how to stage a scene (an almost lost skill). “Funny Pages” was shot in super 16 millimeter film, which gives the movie a gritty texture that fits the material and, at times, evokes some classics of 1970s cinema. (The directors of photography are Hunter Zimny and Sean Price Williams; the production designers are Audrey Turner and Madeline Sadowski.) More than once, I flashed on Elaine May’s “A New Leaf” with its sui generis characters, off-the-beat comic rhythms and unforgettable faces.The faces in “Funny Pages” are critical to the film’s gestalt, its philosophy and aesthetic, and offer an astonishment of humanity in all its sweaty, wrinkly, frizzy, rheumy, comb-over, tender glory. These are the people whom Robert is drawn to and draws, the people he takes inspiration from and who feed his head and hungry soul. They’re fodder for his art (and would make Instagram influencers shriek), but as familiar as the faces most of us see in the mirror. In conventional terms, and certainly when it comes to the norms of packaged industrial entertainment, they’re imperfect just because they are real, which makes them shocking.In time, Robert takes a perilous turn, most floridly when he meets Wallace (an excellent, fearless Matthew Maher), who becomes a dubious and punishing new mentor. There are fights, a car crash, some domestic drama, but mostly there is Robert in his own wonderland, a dank, clammy, sometimes sordid place of delight, baseness and naked feeling, one that’s far from the one inhabited by, say, the status-conscious music dudes in the film “High Fidelity.” There’s nothing remotely cool about Robert or, really, “Funny Pages.” That’s because cool is entirely beside the point. What matters is a sensibility, a worldview — what matters is art.Funny PagesRated R for nudity and raw language. Running time: 1 hour 26 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More