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Some Brief Questions About the Movies

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One of the best things about films–both good and bad–is that they inspire us to inquire. We ask while watching them: Did it really have to happen that way? Or maybe: What’s with the lighting in that scene? How does so-and-so get out of that scrape? We’re always exploring this universe. There always are questions that come up during the course of a picture.

Recently, I began to wonder if the ones I’m asking while watching certain flicks are the same as those being posed by other viewers. Perhaps we’re all thinking similarly … or perhaps not. In that interrogative light, here are my latest musings, as unattached to each other as they may be:

Does anybody really like the character George Berger in Milos Forman’s film version of Hair?

Which is more disturbing: The discovery in David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia that Gasim, the man T.E. Lawrence saved from death in the desert, has murdered another man, or Michael Corleone’s lie to his wife Kay in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather about killing his sister’s husband?

Would Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus be a heckuva lot better without Alex North’s excruciatingly bombastic score?

What would have happened in Kenji Mizoguchi’s The Life of Oharu if the eponymous character had rejected the advances of her suitor at the beginning of the film?

Where did Antoine Doinel go at the end of Francois Truffaut’s The 400 Blows? How about Kevin at the end of Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits?

Couldn’t Louis Mazzini just have gone back into the prison to retrieve his memoirs at the conclusion of Robert Hamer’s Kind Hearts and Coronets?

I’m just wondering. How about you?

 

 

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Kvelling Over ‘PN & Friends’: A Review

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Ever watch something so ridiculous and silly that you can’t help but guffaw?

That’s how I feel about PN & Friends, the hilarious webseries on YouTube from the folks who brought you comedian Todd Montesi. Well, actually, it’s from Montesi himself, who’s surrounded by a cast of players that includes, uh … other folks. But you get what I mean.

We freakin’ looooove this show.

OK, it’s amateurish. OK, it doesn’t make sense. OK, it’s often about wrestling or something tangentially related to wrestling.

Those are positives, by the way. I just used the “OK” type of phrasing to provide a concise segue.

Montesi, a veteran of the standup scene who hosts the UG Comedy Show in NYC and has appeared in programs such as HBO’s Crashing, is kind of a brilliant guy. I would call him an auteur, but that would be pretentious. How about I call him a meta-auteur? ‘Cause his series, which in a nutshell concerns the adventures of one “PN” (played by Montesi) as he journeys throughout Brooklyn, NY, and other parts of the Big Apple in search of things to get annoyed at, is meta like you won’t believe. Among the meta-dudes who turn up in this meta-fest: his comrade-in-humor David Voice, who’s always yelling and wearing bizarre outfits (love the bright green!); bespectacled buddy Joe Dixon (full disclosure: we watched part of the 2016 presidential elections together … yikes!); and some guy who lives in the bathroom.

Honestly, I really don’t know what it’s about. It’s funny, though, and that’s what counts. Because who wants to watch an incessant stream of cat videos, anyway? You want comedy, right? Well, you got it, at Montesi’s Land of Amusement.

Oh, I also don’t understand what meta means–I just like to utilize it in sentences. I think it’s a millennial term used to describe cerebral jokes. Even the word meta is very meta.

Sorry … bit of a digression. Anyway, these episodes, which so far number 14 in total, will have you chuckling throughout as Montesi’s PN protests all of the ludicrous situations he encounters. Yes, you can witness him interviewing people about Summerslam (a wrestling event) at the Barclays Center. Sure, you can observe him kvetching about his “lucky water bottle” (Todd, man, really?). Yet what you want to do for sure is watch the entire series straight through. I am hypnotizing you now in an effort to get you to do so. You … are … getting … very … sleeeeeeeepy.

My apologies, once again. I realize that hypnosis is not a very effective way to get people to watch a webseries. Also, it’s highly unethical as a marketing practice. Todd, stop making me tout your webseries through comedy hypnosis! It’s a madhouse! A maaaadhouse!

The moral of this blog post is: Laughter is rare, so you’ve gotta enjoy it when it’s real. PN & Friends will generate real laughter. As long as you aren’t expecting camerawork by James Wong Howe. Or costumes by Edith Head. Fine–you can expect cameos by a host of toys in the shapes of famous wrestlers. Plus some weird wall art. And no studio audience! Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?

I’ll end this review by saying this: In a sanctioned wrestling match, I have full confidence that Montesi would pin Voice in three rounds by using his famous “nostril lock” hold. Will any new episode use this absurd idea of mine as one of its major themes? Probably not.

That, dear reader, is just one of many reasons why you should watch.

Over and out.

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From Skip and Setter’s Creator: Me and My Interview … in the ‘Times of Israel’

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Blog Sketch of Me 092213Well, this is my first post in months, and it has nothing to do with cinema. It does, however, concern a very important thing that happened to me after an interview I conducted 30 years ago (when I was in seventh grade) with two Auschwitz survivors was accepted to the permanent collection of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: The Times of Israel interviewed me for a feature story, which you can read here. The full link:

http://www.timesofisrael.com/how-a-rediscovered-7th-grade-history-project-ended-up-in-a-museum/

Feel free to let me know if you have any questions or comments. I think the writer of this story did a wonderful job.

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Setter’s ‘Spectives: Uneasy Blink the Eyes That Watch ‘Easy Rider’

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Setter Drawing for Blog 082613Please don’t blame me for not seeing Easy Rider all the way through until yesterday.

For some reason, I’d never got around to viewing it. I realize it’s a part of history, a seminal film of the 1960s, but I wasn’t something I felt like rushing to watch.

Well, I had the time yesterday while recuperating from a bout of food poisoning, and I have to question whether it was worth the wait.

Sure, it has fine cinematography. A terrific rock soundtrack. A bit of ambition from director/star Dennis Hopper mixed in with the counterculture ethos.

Unfortunately, it also has pretentious dialogue and quite a few dull moments, many of which are spent on the highway while the United States landscape flits by. Politically, it’s interesting, perhaps a bit dated, but I don’t think it’s enough to carry the film. The picture meanders, doesn’t go anywhere. And for a road movie, that’s a real issue.

Sure, it’s important. It played a role in stitching the American fabric. But I have no desire to see it again. Once was enough.

Not the mark of a true classic, in my opinion. Sadly, I think Easy Rider, as Peter Fonda’s Wyatt says in the end, blew it.

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Skip’s Quips: Continuing to Relish ‘A Hard Day’s Night’

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Blog Sketch 082813After watching a sobering documentary on the 1960s TV band The Monkees last night, I tuned in to more lighthearted fare: Richard Lester’s classic Beatles film A Hard Day’s Night.

And I wasn’t disappointed. I’d seen it countless times, yet in each instance it remained as fresh as ever. Nothing changed on Friday evening. The jokes were still funny, the cinematography superb, the editing slick, the direction sharp. Plus there was that Beatles music. You can’t go wrong with that.

Well, maybe you can with songs such as “Wild Honey Pie.” But thankfully, AHDN didn’t showcase ditties such as those.

The Monkees definitely tried to replicate the style and substance of The Beatles. But in my opinion, they didn’t come close. The material wasn’t the same. AHDN was an innovative picture. It changed the face of rock ‘n’ roll and its appearance in the cinema. To this day, there’s nothing like it, not even the myriad music videos that followed the flick years later. It’s one of a kind.

So I will continue to enjoy it, as I’ve done for decades. It may be a product of a bygone era. Yet there’s nothing dated about it. That’s the mark of a great movie. That’s the mark of art.

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Setter’s ‘Spectives: Criticizing ‘The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies’ … a Lot

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Setter Drawing for Blog 082613Somehow I knew The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies wasn’t going to be good.

Oh, sure, I hoped it would be magnificent. Better than its predecessors. A real winner.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t. It was a mess. And it had none of the soul that director Peter Jackson’s previous installments in the series featured, despite its sizable length and myriad characters.

It’s a shame. I would’ve liked a greater film. But I expected this, sadly. Drawing out the last part of J.R.R. Tolkien’s book didn’t seem like a good idea to me, and the picture felt bloated, padded. It didn’t feel real.

The battle scenes had little excitement. The dialogue seemed stilted. And there was the introduction of a fight to save the wizard Gandalf that smacked of falseness, artificiality. It didn’t work.

Too bad. I wanted it to succeed. I like Jackson’s work a lot. I just didn’t like this one.

And that makes me sad. I don’t know why, but it does.

Will I see it again? Who knows. Maybe it’ll be more interesting on second viewing. I doubt it, though. The idea of that doesn’t appeal to me.

I wish it did.

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Skip’s Quips: Turn Off ‘Girls,’ Please; I Can’t Stand It!

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Blog Sketch 082813Count me as one of those who dislikes the TV show Girls.

I’ve tried watching it, albeit sporadically. The verdict: Yuck.

Creator Lena Dunham has talent; there’s no doubt about that. I don’t always care for her work; Tiny Furniture was, in my opinion, tedious and unconvincing. But she does have a certain style and, well, je ne sais quoi. She can write.

If only Girls used her talents better.

There’s something about the program that seems off-the-cuff, in a bad way. It feels forced, uninvolving. I’m not invested in the characters, who generally aren’t compelling. And the whole thing smacks of navel-gazing, to the extent that it’s hard to watch. I may be in the minority on this, but I strongly believe in what I say. Girls, to me, is artificial, plastic. I bounce off it, as a viewer, rather than get absorbed by it.

So why am I watching it? Well, it’s a not-so-long story. My wife enjoys it greatly, and when it’s on, I tune in. Then tune out just as fast. Without an engaging storyline, it doesn’t drive me to stick with it. I invariably end up checking out clips of wacky animals on my cell phone.

A good TV show won’t give you the chance to do that. A good TV show will force you to watch and avoid those charming YouTube videos.

I need a good TV show in my life. I don’t need Girls.

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Setter’s ‘Spectives: The Pain of Bothering With ‘Nancy Goes to Rio’

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Setter Drawing for Blog 082613When you’re looking for Carmen Miranda to save a movie, you know something’s really wrong with it.

I was hoping for a bit of that salvation from Miranda while watching Nancy Goes to Rio, a generally flat, dreary musical starring the famous Latin personality, along with Ann Sothern and Jane Powell. Try as she might, however, Miranda wasn’t able to salvage quality from the wreckage, and I ultimately had to turn the film off in frustration.

It wasn’t funny. The songs were poor. What more could you not want?

All kidding aside, I do like Miranda a lot; I just wished this movie was a little better … and that she was onscreen more often. She did liven the proceedings to a certain extent, but unfortunately she seemed to take a back seat to the blah storyline and uninteresting main characters played by Sothern and Powell.

My biggest concern with the flick, though, was the music, which was remarkably subpar. That includes the dreadful title number, a repetitious little ditty with a dull melody and weak lyrics. The other songs didn’t fare much better. In a musical, you just gotta have good tunes. There’s no way around that.

Needless to say, I won’t be watching the rest of this picture any time soon.

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Skip’s Quips: Reconnecting With ‘Darby O’Gill and the Little People’

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Blog Sketch 082813Sometimes movies that were childhood favorites remain just as good when you see them through an adult’s eyes.

I felt that way while watching the classic, leprechaun-filled Disney fantasy Darby O’Gill and the Little People last night. Boy is this a fun picture, and just as charming as I remembered it, with lovely, lilting dialogue, colorful cinematography and brilliant effects work … including some stellar scares via the depiction of a banshee that used to creep me out big time when I was a kid.

Oh, yes: And you have Albert Sharpe as the title character, plus Sean Connery as a young man. What’s not to like?

I was actually surprised at how well this film stands up today. It really is quite entertaining, and I even relished parts of it. I don’t think it’s a masterpiece, but as a piece of escapist movie-making it’s just fine. Certainly better than many flicks I’ve seen recently.

In truth, I probably shouldn’t have waited so long to revisit it. Maybe it’ll become a personal favorite for me as a grownup; I sure wouldn’t mind seeing it again. Not right away, of course, but give me a few months.

I might just develop the taste for it once more.

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Setter’s ‘Spectives: Some Incoherent Thoughts About ‘The Warriors’

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Setter Drawing for Blog 082613One of these days, the film community is going to recognize Walter Hill’s movie The Warriors as the classic that it is.

I think it gets short shrift because of the controversy it generated when it came out in the late-1970s owing to its depiction of New York City gangs and associated violence. But the truth is, it’s an exceptionally well-made film, with brilliant direction, strong performances, sharp editing and terrific cinematography … including some great slow-motion camerawork during the myriad fight scenes.

Surprisingly, it also has a sensitive script that calls attention to class discrepancies, most notably in a sequence set on a subway car. Not your average action flick, methinks.

So this is more than a guilty pleasure. It’s a quality picture, one that I can watch over and over again. I don’t really get tired of it. Maybe it’s because I was born and raised in The Big Apple, and I have an affinity for the film’s depiction of my city. Or maybe it’s just because I like good movies.

Of course, it could be both. Still, one thing’s for certain: It should be in better cinematic standing. And that’s something I’ll advocate with all my heart.