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Keeping Score: David Shire Appears at LA's New Beverly Cinema Thursday
Filed under: Fandom, Interviews, Retro Cinema
On Thursday, January 28, iconic composer David Shire will appear in person at the Los Angeles revival house New Beverly Cinema. He will be on hand to talk about his vast body of work and answer questions in conjunction with screenings of the original 1974 film The Taking of Pelham One Two Three and the 1975 disaster epic The Hindenburg. Additionally, on January 29, Shire will participate in a discussion of Steve Horowitz' "The Re-Taking of Pelham One Two Three," a reinterpretation of Shire's music for Pelham that will be performed at the Roy and Edna Disney/ Calarts Theater (REDCAT). Finally, he'll also be on hand January 30 at Burbank's premier horror and fantasy bookstore, Dark Delicacies, to sign autographs and sell copies of some of his most famous music scores.
Shire's appearance in Los Angeles -- not to mention at three high-profile events -- is something of a fulfillment of a film score fan's dreams: the longtime composer worked steadily since the 1960s to create some of the most haunting and memorable scores in movie history, including the music for All the President's Men, The Conversation, Saturday Night Fever, and of course, The Hindenburg and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. In anticipation of his tour of Los Angeles film fandom, Cinematical spoke to Shire via telephone to discuss the significance of the films and film music these events are celebrating; in addition to discussing the origins and inspirations for some of his most famous movie music, Shire talked about his technique and approach to composition, and offered a few reflections on his expansive body of work, which spans film, television, theater, and even pop music.
Their Best Role: Matthew Broderick in 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off'
Filed under: Comedy, Fandom, Retro Cinema, Stars in Rewind
Real talk, folks: Matthew Broderick is never going to get another role as good as the whip-smart, adorably sarcastic Ferris Bueller, the quintessential high school hero of the '80s. Broderick was perfectly cast in John Hughes' 1986 classic Ferris Bueller's Day Off in a role that required of him three key skills -- mischievous charisma, comedic timing, and that which he had in spades: boyish charm. He was so good, so epically iconic, that he pulled off shenanigan after shenanigan while wearing a leopard-print sweater vest, for goodness sake. And therein lies the rub; will Matthew Broderick ever chance upon another role as stars-aligning-in-the-heavens-perfect as that again?
My money says no, but it's not like Broderick hasn't enjoyed his fair share of great roles. My personal favorites came in The Early Years, when he appeared as a young hacker in WarGames (1983) and as Rutger Hauer's cute monk sidekick in the prog-rock period piece Ladyhawke (1985), two Oscar-nominated adventure films that fed my young girl-crush on the burgeoning actor.
After Ferris Bueller's Day Off debuted in the summer of 1986 and became a hit, Broderick seemed to turn towards more serious fare. He starred in the sometimes comic, sometimes very dark animal experimentation thriller Project X (1987) opposite Helen Hunt (also known as Aww, He's Friends With Monkeys!). In 1988, Broderick parlayed his newfound screen stardom into two films based on stage plays he'd starred in, Neil Simon's Biloxi Blues and Harvey Fierstein's Torch Song Trilogy, and then led the 54th Massachusetts Regiment in Ed Zwick's 1989 Oscar-winning Civil War film, Glory.
Stuart Gordon Programming Film Series at LA's New Beverly
Filed under: Horror, Fandom, Quentin Tarantino, Retro Cinema
Starting January 15, 2009, Stuart Gordon will launch his programming series at Los Angeles' New Beverly Cinemas. The revival house, which is owned by no less than Quentin Tarantino himself, successfully launched several director and actor-driven programs over the last several years, including series by Eli Roth, Edgar Wright, Patton Oswalt, Diablo Cody, and Tarantino himself, and cult director Gordon joins their ranks with an odd and irresistible collection of films. Additionally, Gordon's festival will be followed by one programmed by Up in the Air and Juno director Jason Reitman.
Gordon fans looking for autographs or public appearances should know that the programming filmmaker, not to mention special guests, often attend these screenings to offer insights about each film or production. Also, the New Beverly also recently implemented online ticketing through their website at www.newbevcinema.com, so you can purchase seats in advance and pick them up at the box office. Most amazingly, tickets for all double features are only $7, and their concession stand is a marvel of affordability.
Gordon, of course, is the writer-director of Re-Animator, easily one of the greatest horror-comedies ever made, so bring your zombie cats and disembodied heads and come on out!
The Schedule:
The Absence of Hype: Ozu at the BFI
Filed under: Foreign Language, Retro Cinema
Are Up in the Air, Avatar, The Hurt Locker and Precious really good films? Is it at all possible to see them at this point divorced from their hype? By sitting down to them, can they really make us forget everything we have ever heard about them? Fortunately, there is one filmmaker who can do that.
If you're lucky enough to live in London (or to be vacationing there in the next month), you will be able to see a nice selection of the films of Yasujiro Ozu, including extended runs of Tokyo Story (1953) and Late Autumn (1960), at the BFI. Most cinema buffs have at least heard of Tokyo Story, which is generally cited as one of the ten best films ever made, but once you dive deeper into Ozu's work, it's hard to understand why just that one film should be singled out; they're all great. Yet Ozu has always been a hard sell, as Ian Buruma writes this week in The Guardian. He was seen as old-fashioned, conservative, and/or slow and boring, and -- famously -- as "too Japanese" for Western audiences to understand.
Exploitationeers! Get Ready for the Cinemapocalypse!
Filed under: Action, Classics, Foreign Language, Horror, Independent, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Thrillers, Mystery & Suspense, Guilty Pleasures, Retro Cinema
So if you've spent more than three or four nights at Austin's Alamo Drafthouse theater (Ritz or South Lamar, take your pick), then you're already somewhat familiar with the movie mania that pours out of the place(s). Well, a good deal of that geekery comes from on high, starting with Head Alamofo Tim League and leading directly to his lunatic lieutenants Lars Nilsen and Zack Carlson.Aside from being ridiculously nice guys who love really weird things like Ball Rooms and Doris Wishman movies, Zack and Lars can often combine, not unlike the Wonder Twins, and create the biggest movie geek you've ever seen. All the pre-show Alamo stuff? These guys. All the wacky trivia shows, cult-favorite guest appearances, and sleazoid extravaganzas? Zack and Lars. Hell, they even have days of the week to call their own: Terror Tuesdays are all Zack's and Weird Wednesdays are Nilsen's domain. Yes, this is how I talk about all my friends. Especially when they concoct something like Cinemapocalypse! A whole bunch of old-school, sticky-floor, grindhouse-level C-grade movies hand-picked by Zack and Lars, and soon to be touring all across the left-hand side of the nation.
A flick through the event's official blog indicates that there'll be no shortage of sweaty cinema to sift through -- but of course I'll name my favorites: Oooh, a double feature of Vice Squad and Tourist Trap. Bring it on. Bill Lustig's Vigilante, followed by the outrageous Raw Force and the undeniably awesome Escape from New York? Dear lord, that's fun. Chained Heat, Gator Bait, AND The Return of the Alien's Deadly Spawn? Ugh, now that's just unfair. For a whole lot more on this event, the flicks at hand, the venues to invade, please do point your browser on the Cinemapocalypse blog and tell 'em Weinberg sent you. (I get slightly discounted sodas if you tell 'em I sent you.)
Retro Review: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Remakes and Sequels, Retro Cinema
The prologue to Steven Spielberg's irresistible Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade tells you all you need to know about the upcoming movie: It's going to be fast-paced and energetic, nostalgic and warm, fun for new fans ... but definitely a treat for the faithful. It's a fantastic early-career mini-adventure for Indiana Jones, here played quite wonderfully by the late River Phoenix, as he bounds through caverns, races across the desert, and turns a circus train into a chaotic mess. This opening sequence is a fantastic mini-movie all by itself. And then the real fun begins ...
After taking a lot of finger-wagging from the mommies of the world, series creators George Lucas and Steven Spielberg decided to lose the nasty edge that was so prevalent in the previous film (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) and hearken back to the old-fashioned charms found (everywhere) in the original Raiders of the Lost Ark. The treasure this time around is nothing less than The Holy Grail, but (as usual) the relic means a whole lot less than what it does to the people around it. Plus we've also got a sneaky, sexy German spy; a big fistful of meticulously crafted action scenes; and, of course, the stately presence of Mr. Sean Connery as Indiana Jones' papa. (Seriously, who else could be Indy's dad besides James Bond?)
Retro Review: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
Filed under: Action, Fandom, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Remakes and Sequels, Retro Cinema
Early on in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Indy turns to his soon-to-be love interest and his newfound sidekick – a singer in Shanghai's Club Obi Wan (Kate Capshaw) and a scrappy pickpocket (Ke Huy Quan), respectively – and intones, "I think we got a big problem." He's not kidding: the warning comes toward the end of a miraculous 20-minute opening sequence during which Dr. Jones gets poisoned while trying to exchange the remains of a dead emperor for a legendary diamond, plays floor hockey for the diamond and the antidote, impales someone on a kebab, crashes through a window behind a rolling metal gong, and stows away in a plane full of poultry only to have the pilots ditch and take the only parachutes with them. He then proceeds to leap out of the plane on a rubber life raft, which crashes off a cliff and careens down some vicious Indian whitewater. "Big problem" doesn't quite describe it; the torrent of obstacles and challenges that Spielberg and Lucas hurl at their hero in the first reel of this first sequel seems downright cruel. But their unkindness aside, the barreling momentum, brilliant staging, and breezy nonchalance of Temple of Doom's opening evoke something rarely found in Raiders of the Lost Ark and more rarely still in the rest of Steven Spielberg's career: a sense that Spielberg -- the master, the magician -- is at play.
Retro Cinema: Raiders of the Lost Ark
Filed under: Action, Fandom, Home Entertainment, Retro Cinema
Imagine this: The Paramount Pictures logo fades away into a real mountain as a fedora-topped man and his men travel through the jungle. We see this man in the shadows, from behind, and from the chest down -- all shots obscuring his face. Finally, when they get to a stream and the fedora man pulls out a map, one of his men pulls out a gun. However, before he can shoot, the gun is whipped out of the man's hand with a simple flick, and a thick, mustachioed Tom Selleck walks out of the darkness.
This is what Raiders of the Lost Ark could have been -- a Magnum PI-led adventure film -- had that same show not spirited Selleck away and forced Steven Spielberg and George Lucas to find someone else. They tested Tim Matheson, Otter from Animal House. They tested Peter Coyote -- an actor who went on to play Keys in ET. But no one compared to Harrison Ford, who came in and made Indiana Jones an ageless icon of adventure and archeology.
SFIFF Review: The Golem (1920), featuring Black Francis
Filed under: Classics, Music & Musicals, Festival Reports, San Francisco International Film Festival, Retro Cinema
Given how well the classic song "Where Is My Mind?" worked at the end of Fight Club (1999) and given his "loudQUIETloud" (see Karina's review of the 2006 documentary) method of crafting songs, Black Francis (a.k.a. "Frank Black," a.k.a. Charles Thompson) would seem the perfect candidate to compose a fantastic new score for a classic silent film. And so an eager, sold-out crowd of fans lined up at the 51st San Francisco International Film Festival for a Friday night screening of Paul Wegener and Carl Boese's silent-era, German Expressionist horror film The Golem (1920), hoping for just that. Francis -- deliberately billed with his Pixies-era stage name -- set up underneath the screen at the Castro Theater with his seven-man band (strings, horns, keyboards, etc.) and started the proceedings with a blast of guitar (the "loud" portion of the evening).
Surprisingly, Francis' raspy, yowling vocals also emitted from the darkness; he has composed an album of songs to go with the film, rather than a traditional score. The trouble is that they don't always seem to go. The effect is rather like synching Pink Floyd to The Wizard of Oz. Sometimes some magical cohesion happens between image and music, but most times the two forms are battling for your attention. The most distracting thing of all was a snarky commentator/narrator whose job was to make fun of the film between songs. ("There has to be a 12-step program for this!") At least once he spoke over the film's intertitles, and so viewers were forced to choose between trying to read or listen.
Retro Cinema: Blood Simple
Filed under: Drama, Noir, Retro Cinema
The films of the Coen Brothers tend to split their admirers into different camps. Some love everything they do, many favor their loonier comedic endeavors (Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou?), and still others pledge allegiance to their more straightforward and violent dramatic offerings (Miller's Crossing, Fargo, No Country for Old Men).
I fall into the latter camp, having first encountered the unique sensibilities of Joel and Ethan Coen on a tiny television in my tiny Brooklyn living quarters in the late 1980s. Even in a bowdlerized version for television, interrupted for commercials every 10 minutes, Blood Simple held me mesmerized from its opening shot -- an extreme low-angle view of a two-lane highway, shredded rubber tire in the foreground -- to its last.
Watching the film again last night, I was struck by how accomplished the film looks. You could play it on a double bill with No Country for Old Men and be reminded that the Coens already knew the power of silence way back in 1984. They also knew a great image when they saw one, appreciated the value of underplaying a performance, recognized the allure of shadows and silhouettes, and treasured subtle nuances. They've grown and matured, expanding their thematic range, but their debut demonstrates that they've always been uncommonly assured filmmakers.
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Spin-ematical: New on DVD and Blu-ray for 2/9
Watch This: Brilliant Oscar-Nominated Short 'Logorama'
Chris Nolan to Lead 'Superman' Reboot!?
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