Tuesday, November 5, 2024

MY FAVORITES: THREE BEST POLITCAL MOVIES

 I won't coment on who is running for president today or who I am going to support. If I wanted to be political, I would start another blog. Here is a look at what I think are the three best classic Hollywood poltical movies...



1. Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (1939)

Have you watched it lately? You should. (And by “you,” we mean every sentient being on Capitol Hill.) Frank Capra’s classic is still the granddaddy of America’s small-d democratic, participatory ideals. And James Stewart’s portrayal of a small-town nobody and his quixotic battle against self-dealing politicians still claims pride of place as Hollywood’s most stirring, convincing and timeless reminder that the Constitution is a sacred trust that all American citizens — and their representatives — have responsibility for bearing.



2. All the President’s Men (1976)

For many viewers — especially the untold number who became reporters after being inspired by it — this flawlessly crafted Watergate procedural is a journalism movie. But in the process of untangling the skein of lies, malfeasance and coverups that defined the scandal, Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) wind up exposing the seamy underside of partisan realpolitik, and underline the crucial role of a free press in holding leaders accountable. Bonus points for featuring Jason Robards as history’s best big-screen Ben Bradlee.



3. The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

The 1960s and ’70s produced their share of great paranoid thrillers, but this one proved shockingly prescient, not only regarding the era of assassinations that immediately followed its release, but of today, when foreign influence on our elections poses a credible and escalating threat. Masterfully directed by John Frankenheimer and featuring Frank Sinatra’s finest acting performance, this hallucinatory masterpiece still manages to be darkly funny and queasily discomfiting in equal measure. (Which unfortunately can’t be said of Jonathan Demme’s forgettable 2004 remake.)

Whether your political leanings, you can not complain about our politicans if you don't vote. Go out there and VOTE!



Saturday, November 2, 2024

MEMORIES OF SOME LIKE IT HOT


When Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon first put on the female makeup and costumes for "Some Like It Hot" (1959), , they walked around the Goldwyn Studios lot to see if they could "pass" as women. Then they tried using mirrors in public ladies rooms to fix their makeup, and when none of the women using it complained, they knew they could be convincing as women. There is a scene on the train recreating this moment.

Lemmon got along with Marilyn Monroe and forgave her eccentricities. He believed Marilyn simply couldn't go in front of the camera until she was absolutely ready. "She knew she was limited and goddamned well knew what was right for Marilyn," he said. "She wasn't about to do anything else." He also said that although she may not have been the greatest actor or singer or comedienne, she used more of her talent, brought more of her gifts to the screen than anyone he ever knew.


Lemmon wrote that the first sneak preview had a bad reaction with many audience walkouts. Many studio personnel and agents offered advice to Billy Wilder on what scenes to reshoot, add and cut. Lemmon asked Wilder what he was going to do. Wilder responded: "Why, nothing. This is a very funny movie and I believe in it just as it is. Maybe this is the wrong neighborhood in which to have shown it. At any rate, I don't panic over one preview. It's a hell of a movie." Wilder held the next preview in the Westwood section of Los Angeles, and the audience stood up and cheered.

Many years after the film's release, a movie reviewer asked Curtis why his Josephine was so much more feminine than Lemmon's Daphne. A laughing Curtis explained that he was so scared to be playing a woman (or a man pretending to be one) that his tightly wound body language could be read as demure and shy, traditionally feminine traits, whereas Lemmon, who was completely unbothered, and "ran out of his dressing room screaming like the Queen of the May," kept much more of his masculine body language...



Thursday, October 31, 2024

PHOTOS OF THE DAY: ANOTHER CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD HALLOWEEN

 Another year - and another look at some of the great classic Hollywood Halloween costumes. Halloween really is my favorite holiday of the year. Classic Hollywood has been celebrating the holidays for decades!


Charlie Chaplin


Doris Day


Elvis Presley & Jeanne Carmen


Joan Crawford & Douglas Fairbanks Jr


Nancy Carroll



Marion Davies

Prior Classic Hollywood Halloweens:

2021

2019

2014

2012


Tuesday, October 29, 2024

RIP: TERI GARR

Teri Garr, offbeat comic actress of ‘Young Frankenstein’ and ‘Tootsie,’ has died. She was 79.

Garr died Tuesday of multiple sclerosis “surrounded by family and friends,” said publicist Heidi Schaeffer. Garr battled other health problems in recent years and underwent an operation in January 2007 to repair an aneurysm.

Admirers took to social media in her honor, with writer-director Paul Feig calling her “truly one of my comedy heroes. I couldn’t have loved her more” and screenwriter Cinco Paul saying: “Never the star, but always shining. She made everything she was in better.”

The actor, who was sometimes credited as Terri, Terry or Terry Ann during her long career, seemed destined for show business from her childhood.

Her father was Eddie Garr, a well-known vaudeville comedian; her mother was Phyllis Lind, one of the original high-kicking Rockettes at New York’s Radio City Music Hall. Their daughter began dance lessons at 6 and by 14 was dancing with the San Francisco and Los Angeles ballet companies.

She was 16 when she joined the road company of “West Side Story” in Los Angeles, and as early as 1963 she began appearing in bit parts in films.

She recalled in a 1988 interview how she won the “West Side Story” role. After being dropped from her first audition, she returned a day later in different clothes and was accepted.

From there, the blonde, statuesque Garr found steady work dancing in movies, and she appeared in the chorus of nine Presley films, including “Viva Las Vegas,” “Roustabout” and “Clambake.”

Her big film break came as Gene Hackman’s girlfriend in 1974’s Francis Ford Coppola thriller “The Conversation.” That led to an interview with Mel Brooks, who said he would hire her for the role of Gene Wilder’s German lab assistant in 1974’s “Young Frankenstein” — if she could speak with a German accent.


“Cher had this German woman, Renata, making wigs, so I got the accent from her,” Garr once recalled.

The film established her as a talented comedy performer, with New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael proclaiming her “the funniest neurotic dizzy dame on the screen.”

Her big smile and off-center appeal helped land her roles in “Oh God!” opposite George Burns and John Denver, “Mr. Mom” (as Michael Keaton’s wife) and “Tootsie” in which she played the girlfriend who loses Dustin Hoffman to Jessica Lange and learns that he has dressed up as a woman to revive his career. (She also lost the supporting actress Oscar at that year’s Academy Awards to Lange.)

Although best known for comedy, Garr showed in such films as “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “The Black Stallion” and “The Escape Artist” that she could handle drama equally well.

“I would like to play ‘Norma Rae’ and ‘Sophie’s Choice,’ but I never got the chance,” she once said, adding she had become typecast as a comic actor.

It was also during those years that Garr began to feel “a little beeping or ticking” in her right leg. It began in 1983 and eventually spread to her right arm as well, but she felt she could live with it. By 1999 the symptoms had become so severe that she consulted a doctor. The diagnosis: multiple sclerosis.


For three years Garr didn’t reveal her illness.

“I was afraid that I wouldn’t get work,” she explained in a 2003 interview. “People hear MS and think, ‘Oh, my God, the person has two days to live.’”

After going public, she became a spokeswoman for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, making humorous speeches to gatherings in the U.S. and Canada.

“You have to find your center and roll with the punches because that’s a hard thing to do: to have people pity you,” she commented in 2005. “Just trying to explain to people that I’m OK is tiresome.”

She also continued to act, appearing on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” “Greetings From Tucson,” “Life With Bonnie” and other TV shows. She also had a brief recurring role on “Friends” in the 1990s as Lisa Kudrow’s mother. After several failed romances, Garr married contractor John O’Neill in 1993. They adopted a daughter, Molly, before divorcing in 1996.

In her 2005 autobiography, “Speedbumps: Flooring It Through Hollywood,” Garr explained her decision not to discuss her age.“My mother taught me that showbiz people never tell their real ages. She never revealed hers or my father’s,” she wrote. She retired from acting in 2011. Garr is survived by her daughter, Molly O’Neil, and a grandson, Tyryn.



Sunday, October 27, 2024

THE RETIREMENT OF ARTIE SHAW

In 1949 bandleader Artie Shaw, the so-called "King of the Clarinet" who had rocketed to fame at the end of the 1930s on the strength of hits like "Begin the Beguine," had been off the jazz scene for a couple of years, for any number of reasons—he was more interested in playing classical music, there was a recording ban on by the musicians' union, and the economic climate for big bands was turning frosty. But, as was the case several times throughout his career, Shaw started a new band- partly out of artistic restlessness, and partly out of financial need.
"Everybody liked it but the people"

Shaw tapped young, bop-influenced writers like Tadd Dameron and Gene Roland, and put together an outstanding saxophone section that included Al Cohn and Zoot Sims. They toured throughout the autumn and early winter, and at the end of the year Shaw took them into the studio for several marathon sessions that constitute the whole of their recorded legacy.

Shortly afterwards, Shaw dissolved the orchestra. "I had a really great band in 1949 — one of the finest bands I've ever led," he told Fresh Air's Terry Gross in 1985. "The musicians, man for man, the arrangements, everything. I had the best arrangers in the world writing for me. And everybody liked it but the people, as the gag goes."
Shaw goes longhair

Ironically enough, Shaw had considered abandoning jazz not long before putting the big band together. "There is more to music than ‘Stardust,'" he told Downbeat, and throughout much of 1949 he devoted himself to playing classical music—tagged by media wags in those days as "longhair"—with several city symphonies and doing some recordings for Columbia as well. In April he brought a large classical orchestra into New York's Bop City, drawing a huge but ultimately bored and indifferent audience.


Shaw's forays into classical music would have a profound effect upon his playing on the jazz records he made between 1949 and 1954. "My entire concept of what a clarinet could sound like changed," he later said. "It got pure, and a little more refined. Instead of a vibrato, I tried to get a ripple."
"George Shearing with a clarinet"

From 1950 to 1953 Shaw waxed a series of commercially successful but artistically indifferent records for the Decca label. In the autumn of 1953 he formed a new version of his 1940s small-group the Gramercy Five, partly to perform for money that would help pay off his tax bill, and partly because he wanted to have a go at serious jazz again. The new Gramercy Five, actually a sextet, had a modern, cool-jazz kind of sound; one critic called it "George Shearing with a clarinet." The group's performances in New York City got great reviews from the critics, and in 1954 Shaw took the band into the studio on several occasions. Over the next 50 years he'd often refer to these Gramercy Five recordings as the best he ever did.

Shaw broke up his Gramercy Five ensemble in 1954 and played a few desultory gigs with as part of an all-star jazz tour before putting down his clarinet and retiring from the music scene. He lived another 50 years, but he never recorded or performed in public again. (Shaw did organize a new big band in the 1980s and occasionally conducted it, but he did not play clarinet; that role was assigned to the orchestra's general front man, Dick Johnson.) His 1949-54 recordings stand as the final, brilliant chapter of a musical legacy that Shaw referred to as "a good-sized chunk of durable Americana."


Friday, October 25, 2024

RECENTLY VIEWED: REMEMBERING GENE WILDER

I always had a great admiration for actor and comedian Gene Wilder. I always thought he was an amazing man, and after seeing this documentary I discovered I am right. He is amazing. I got the opportunity to watch the documentary on Netflix, and it is one of the best biographical documentaries I have seen in a long time. Remembering Gene Wilder is a 2023 American biographical documentary film about Gene Wilder's life and career, as well as his battle with Alzheimer's disease. It was directed by Ron Frank and executive produced by Julie Nimoy and David Knight.

With rare home videos and scenes from Wilder's films, the documentary looks at the life and career of actor, writer, and director, Gene Wilder. It includes interviews with former cast and crew members as well as personal memories from family and friends, who share their love for his comedic genius. Among them are Mel Brooks, Wilder's wife, Karen Wilder, Alan Alda, Carol Kane, Harry Connick Jr., Mike Medavoy, Rain Pryor, Dick Cavett, Eric McCormack, Ben Mankiewicz, and Peter Ostrum.

The idea for the film stemmed from Wilder's friendship with Leonard Nimoy, which began when Nimoy directed Wilder in Funny About Love, in 1990.

Producers Julie Nimoy and David Knight saw a press release announcing that Karen Wilder was partnering with the Alzheimer's Association to raise awareness about the disease that ended her husband's life. Nimoy and Knight had produced the 2017 documentary, Remembering Leonard Nimoy, and suggested the idea of a similar film to honor Wilder. Karen Wilder supported the project and granted the filmmakers access to personal photos and home movies from the estate incorporate into the film.

Wilder's narration, also part of the film, is taken from the audiobook version of his 2005 memoir, Kiss Me Like a Stranger: My Search for Love and Art. Production was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the filmmakers were finally able to interview Mel Brooks, whose participation Knight said "made the difference" in the final film.

The film made its world premiere at the Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival in May 2023 and won the Audience Favorite and Best Film Awards. In January 2024, Kino Lorber acquired all rights worldwide to the film and planned a theatrical release in March 2024, followed by home video, non-theatrical, and digital releases. The documentary made its streaming debut on Netflix in June 2024.

The producers acknowledge their mutual support with the Alzheimer's Association and the BrightFocus Foundation.It was a wonderful look at a wonderful man. It is as simple as that...

MY RATING: 10 of 10



Wednesday, October 23, 2024

THE CONTROL OF LIZA MINNELLI

Liza Minnelli's rumored "controlling" best friend Michael Feinstein is allegedly ruling over her decisions, as he wants to be included in all of the legend's projects.

It seems like every part of the stage and screen star's life is apparently at the hand of her longtime friend, leaving pals anxious that she might not even realize it.

Friends are reportedly worried about Minnelli after noticing her 'controlling' friend has been making decisions in her life. In a recent chat with Interview magazine, the legendary EGOT winner made a surprising request: To have the interview conducted by none other than Michael.

Sources told us that Minnelli "didn’t care about the usual demands like control over the photographer or makeup team."

Feinstein was previously put under fire when fans noticed he had Minnelli's father's Oscar in his house.

An insider said: "To get Liza, you have to put up with Michael," adding the piano player "now controls every aspect of Minnelli’s life." Friends of the Cabaret star are reportedly "concerned about her well-being," questioning if she’s even aware of the demands he’s making on her behalf.

However, concerns over Feinstein’s behavior are nothing new.

In 2019, fans questioned seeing Minnelli’s beloved Oscar, awarded to her father Vincente Minnelli in 1959 for Gigi, on display at Feinstein’s house — he posted a photo of the statuette and claimed Vincente gave it to him.

The post stirred worries among her inner circle, with many doubting she would ever part with such a cherished keepsake.

Billy Stritch, Minnelli’s frequent accompanist, sarcastically commented on the post to ask Feinstein why the Oscar had previously been in Minnelli's apartment if it belonged to him. Stritch later deleted his comment, which left eagle-eyed fans even more puzzled. Feinstein eventually blamed his assistant for the "misinformation" and edited his post to clarify the situation.

The EGOT winner described the importance of taking care of her physical health in a new interview after sparking conce rns earlier this year.