PrestonSturges Tagged Articles at Cinematical

The movie Be Kind Rewind is being released on DVD today. Even if you didn't see the movie, you probably remember the delightful trailer, in which Jack Black and Mos Def shoot their own low-budget, low-everything versions of blockbusters like Ghostbusters and Driving Miss Daisy. In addition, another movie about the joy of making movies is still playing in some theaters -- Son of Rambow, where two boys are inspired to shoot their own version of Rambo complete with flying dogs, nursing-home residents bribed as actors, and a fabulous French exchange student.

I can think of dozens of enjoyable movies about moviemaking (and a few clunkers, but we'll ignore them for today). But I decided to focus on seven of the most characteristic films. I didn't include films about screenwriters, because I think those would be fun to list another time, or films about moviegoing like Cinema Paradiso. Instead, I focused on the inspired and sometimes crazed filmmakers. Afterwards, you can tell me which of your favorites I left off the list.

As Leatherheads arrives in theaters, you're going to be hearing the phrase "screwball comedy" a lot, either in the barrage of pre-opening publicity or in review after review. "Screwball comedy" implies a certain snap and rotation -- a velocity to the gags and a vector to the plot -- but the people who made Leatherheads don't quite have the strength of arm or skew of angle to make Leatherheads truly screwball; it kind of fizzles out on the way to the plate. And that's not to say Leatherheads is charmless or unenjoyable or ill-made; it just isn't quite as good as the pedigrees and passions of the people involved would have you think it will (or, frankly, should) be.

When shivering to the sounds of Iron Maiden, one never dreamed that some day Bruce Dickinson, the lead singer would one day be swanking it with the stars at the Cannes Film Festival. The BBC announced Dickinson's coup, noting that he's flying to Cannes himself (he's a pilot) as well as playing on an American tour this year. Dickinson co-wrote the upcoming film Chemical Madness with director Julian Doyle, who directed the Maiden's 1988 video "Can I Play With Madness?" Principal photography wrapped in September 2007.

It's all not to be confused with Dickinson's 1998 album The Chemical Wedding which concerns such arcana as alchemy, Rosicrucian thought and William Blake's prophecies. Monstersagogo.com has the poster with a scary flaming pentagram on it, as well as a link to a Reuters interview that I couldn't open. We do know that Simon Callow -- a first-rate actor and author of an authoratative study on Orson Welles -- is going to be playing the reincarnation of Aleister Crowley (seen above in a pointy hat), the world's most intimidating asthmatic bisexual. Crowley has always put the scare into British populace in general and British musicians in particular. Jimmy Page, for one, took pride in owning Bolskine House, the address of the Beast.

And now for a classic movie tie-in: "The most evil man who ever lived" was personally known to Preston Sturges, whose mother was temporarily a disciple. Crowley referred to Sturges "the brat" in the book The Great Beast. In his autobiography Preston Sturges by Preston Sturges, the great comedy film director returned the insult, commented that Crowley's modified mohawk haircut was "nauseating," his fingers were fat, and he had the habit of cutting himself rather like a depressed female high school student. But Sturges didn't underestimate Crowley. "Reading about some of his subsequent exploits," Sturges concluded, "I realize my mother and I were lucky to escape with our lives. If I had been a little older, he might not have escaped with his."

Let me begin by extending a warm thanks to the folks at Reel Life Video in Brooklyn, New York. Were it not for them, you would be reading a review of a current DVD release--maybe Resident Evil: Apocalypse, or perhaps the Final Destination Scared 2 Death Pack. Really, it could have been anything from the new release wall, but blind luck and a surly hipster video clerk conspired instead to deliver Preston Sturges's Unfaithfully Yours to my door, labeled both "Drama" and "New" and therefore able to pass undetected into my home by way of my well-intentioned (but not very film-knowledgeable) partner. The mix-up is to be expected – this particular film, plucked from the Sturges archives and revamped by the Criterion Collection in 2005, is as unplaceable as it is brilliant. It doesn't fit easily into any particular niche, and resists, as Sturges himself did, being labeled and shelved by folks who don't know nil from nought.

A fifty-eight year old film that confuses video clerks today surely flummoxed audiences then. Now more properly dubbed a "pitch-black comedy," Unfaithfully Yours announced itself to the world as "six kinds of picture in one!" and the trailer, a bonus feature on the Criterion Collection disc (and what should be a stock feature on any DVD of any film), zips from one clip to the next, rubbernecking the viewer with rapid fire promises of "Great music! Sheer terror! Hilarious comedy! Tense drama! Sparkling dialogue and high temperature romance!" I personally envisioned six frazzled 20th Century Fox studio executives, wagging their cigars at each other, spitting invectives and cursing Sturges's name. "Comedy!" one cried, "Murder!" cried another, "Screw it! Do 'em all!" cried the last.