Gateway Cinephiles

Film Diary: Blazing Saddles

2007
Director: Mel Brooks
Viewed: May 16, 2008
Format: DVD - Warner Bros. (2004)

I’ve heard this called one of the stupidest movies of the 20th century–and it was meant as a compliment. I would never call Mel Brooks stupid.  Even his grossest moments are matched with rapid-fire dialog, flawless slapstick, and hilariously catchy musical numbers. However in terms of films that are “good-stupid,” this is one of two truly classic Brooks comedies (the other being Young Frankenstein). I’ve seen it about 600,000 times, and I still enjoy every joke, every filthy reference, every fart.  And when Mongo punches the horse, I laugh out loud every time.

3-Minute Intro: Radio Days

Screened: May 16, 2008
Format: DVD - MGM (2001)
Selected By: Libby

Woody Allen’s 1987 comedy Radio Days may be the filmmaker’s most ambitious and sentimental work in a substantial and wide-ranging filmography. Describing what happens in the film is futile, as there is no overarching plot to speak of. Rather, Radio Days features a parade of amusing and touching vignettes, some spun from Allen’s own recollections of a 1940s New York City childhood, some plucked from the legends of radio’s Golden Age. The film serves as an homage to a vanished America and a wistful examination of nostalgia itself. Allen is occupied with recreating not the reality of a particular time and place, but a time and place as it is remembered.

Although he is now New York’s most recognizable auteur, Allen’s began his career as a wunderkind comedy writer for the likes of Ed Sullivan, Sid Caesar, and The Tonight Show. He eventually parlayed his success into standup, acting, and filmmaking, where he perfected an enduring persona as a nebbish New Yorker. His early films were broad comedies, but beginning with 1977’s Annie Hall, the director’s output took a more sophisticated turn. The 1980s remain Allen’s most well-regarded period, encompassing significant works such Hannah and Her Sisters, Crimes and Misdemeanors, The Purple Rose of Cairo, and Radio Days itself.

The number of characters and storylines in the film is dizzying, but it never feels directionless. It spins one witty anecdote after another, all set to a brash, romantic Big Band soundtrack. The cast is enormous. There is Mia Farrow, then Allen’s partner and frequent collaborator, as aspiring radio star and gossip columnist Sally White. Then there’s a young Seth Green as Allen’s childhood alter ego, Joe, running through the streets of a gloriously grubby 1940s Rockaway Beach. Julie Kavner and Michael Tucker claim memorable roles as Joe’s harried parents. The cast brings together a host of recognizable faces—Dianne Wiest, Danny Aiello, Wallace Shawn, Jeff Daniels, Diane Keaton—with the voices of the Golden Age itself, such as Kitty Carlisle and Don Pardo. Together, the cast and filmmakers craft a mash note to an era that is fast fading from living memory, acknowledging that its magic was fictitious and fleeting, but still to be cherished.

Not Archeology: The Moral “Super-Plot” of Indiana Jones

[This post is a part of the Indiana Jones Blog-a-Thon, hosted by Ali Arikan’s Cerebral Mastication.]

One aspect of the Indiana Jones series that has always intrigued me is the way that the filmmakers link the episodes together without utilizing the cause and effect of conventional plotting. When making three (or four) films about the same character, the filmmakers could presumably connect the events of the films together directly, such that an audience will be compelled to return to the series to find out “what happens”. Significantly, the Indiana Jones series doesn’t do this.

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Film Diary: Teeth

2007
Director: Mitchell Lichtenstein
Viewed: May 13, 2008
Format: DVD - Weinstein (2008)

Film Diary: Lars and the Real Girl

2007
Director: Craig Gillespie
Viewed: May 12, 2008
Format: DVD - MGM (2008)

Review: The Visitor

2007
Director: Thomas McCarthy
Viewed: May 10, 2008
Format: Theatrical Print

Thomas McCarthy’s The Visitor is a sweet, noble film. Its parameters are comfortable and appealing (and perhaps a bit tired). This is a curious thing in a film that tackles the perils of comfort quite forcefully. The film tells the story of Walter Vale, an economics professor who, by his own admission, is no longer engaged in his own life. We follow Walter’s encounter with an immigrant couple—him a Syrian drummer, her a Senegalese jewelry-maker—and the friendships and trials that emerge from this meeting. The film succeeds so effortlessly in sketching a moving story of decent and flawed humanity, that to dub it a “feel-good movie” seems an offense. McCarthy keeps usurping our expectations, and when he slips in a polemic against callous, absurd immigration policies, it doesn’t seem out of place.

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Film Diary: Hello, Dolly!

1969
Director: Gene Kelly
Viewed: May 10, 2008
Format: Television - PBS

Film Diary: I’m Not There

2007
Director: Todd Haynes
Viewed: Mary 11, 2008
Format: DVD - Weinstein (2008)

Film Diary: Send a Bullet (Manda Bala)

2007
Director: Jason Kohn
Viewed: May 10, 2008
Format: DVD - WEA (2008)

Film Diary: Bamako

2006
Director: Abderrahmane Sissako
Viewed: May 10, 2008
Format: DVD - New Yorker Video (2008)