New Directions

It feels like just yesterday when I posted the "Declaration of Principles" here at The Cinema Doctor.    Yet, it was four and a half months ago and I have now had enough time to evaluate the endeavor.  I left my good friends at Pajiba in mid-July out of dissatisfaction.  This had nothing to do with Dustin, Dan, or Brian and everything to do with me.  I wanted to review more new releases, as I felt like I was getting pigeon holed with the film retrospectives, and yet the site had too many smart, funny, and amazing writers with seniority to make that dream a possibility.  


I thought that starting my own site and putting more of an emphasis on media at large from a more academic standpoint would prove fulfilling but dream of turning what is essentially a personal blog into a widely read site for criticism just was not feasible.  Between a 9-5 job, dissertation revisions, academic job hunting, and a personal life, I was lucky to post one or two articles a week.  I watched as web traffic gradually declined on a monthly basis because I simply could not keep interest in the blog single-handedly.  For every early review like Hugo (2011), which spiked traffic immensely thanks to the embargo-free sneak preview I attended, I found myself with ten reviews that I had put a lot of time into and only a few people read.  I slowly resigned myself to that outcome.  There just aren't enough hours in a day...  


Yet, I found out last week that I had been slightly underestimating myself.  I was contacted by some old college friends from UW-Milwaukee who were starting a new web publication.  They had followed my work since my undergrad days of writing for the UWM Post and asked me if I might have time to serve as the chief film critic for Cultural Transmogrifier.  I agreed and started producing content for the site, which launches this week.  I am thrilled to be a part of a loving family of writers again and I hope that this new project can fulfill both my desires to produce the content I want and to reach a proper audience.  Some of my fondest memories at Pajiba came out of our dynamic as a team, supporting one another when commenters went crazy and ribbing one another when we disagreed about the latest Tarantino film.  I look forward to working with my old friends and you can follow us over at www.ctzine.com.  The site is still in the design phase, but we'll be launching this week.  


As for The Cinema Doctor, I'll be shutting up shop for the most part.  I may run the occasional piece of Comics Studies or Video Game criticism or post a course syllabus once in a while, but the bulk of my work will now be running at Cultural Transmogrifier.  I just want to take a moment to thank a few people for their support over the past couple months.  First, to Pajiban Mswas at BGW Designs for the wonderful logo.  Secondly, to Dustin, Dan, Joanna, and Brian at Pajiba for the support.  Third, to my wife Nicole who had the patience to let me sit out a couple adventures to write up reviews.  Another thank you to Grae Drake at Popcorn Mafia for inviting me onto her podcast.  Finally, a big thank you to the readers who migrated over from Pajiba and the friends who kept the faith.  

The Best Media of 2011 (Version .80)

Another month, another revision...  This time with the beginnings of a ranking and links to my reviews!  

The Black Keys-El Camino (2011)

I was more than a little skeptical when I heard that The Black Keys's Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney had been able to record another album in just over a year after their phenomenal Brothers (2010).  Sure, The Beatles were able to harness that kind of energy in the 1960s and both The Roots and Kanye West have been able to produce quality work in a short period of time.  However, for every group that is able to pull off that manic work pace, there is a Mars Volta that seems to miss the target more and more with each hastily prepared album.  Thankfully, and this has been a damn strong year for music, Auerbach and Carney fall into the former category and their seventh record, El Camino (2011), is a hell of a ride.  

A Dangerous Method (2011)

A brief disclaimer is in order before I follow through here.  I haven't picked up much psychology reading in quite a while.  I read Sigmund Freud as an undergraduate in literary theory courses but we never read Carl Jung.  I took a couple classes in psychology as a sophomore in college.  The bulk of the psychoanalysis I've encountered in the past six years has been in the form of film theory and, never being much of a devotee to such approaches to spectatorship, my understanding is crudely general.  Essentially, if you're looking for a scholarly analysis of David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method (2011) from such a context, I am unable to provide it.  

The Artist (2011)

The midst of the annual awards season has given cinephiles two tremendous treats in Martin Scorsese's Hugo (2011) and Michel Hazanavicius's The Artist (2011).  While Hugo attempts to redeem the overlooked - outside of introduction to film courses at least - career of film pioneer Georges Méliès, The Artist takes willing viewers back to late 1920s Hollywood as the industry was transitioning from silent film production to early talkies.  Hugo is one of the best films of the year thanks to Scorsese's potent mixture of heartfelt redemption, film history lecture, adventurous dissection of three dimensional space, and support of film preservation.  The Artist, a heartwarming and nostalgic dollop of cinematic whipping cream, never goes beyond the superficial.  

The Tree of Life (2011)

I feel incredibly conflicted over Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life (2011). It is, without question, one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen. The theatrical release poster, showcasing a barrage of images from the film, is a fitting marketing tool, as the film's raison d'être is not the story nor the performances by Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Jessica Chastain, and the children.  The film's being stems from Malick's work with cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki (who also shot Children of Men) and production designer Jack Fisk (and, in a few sequences, with special effects guru Douglas Trumbull, who designed some of the effects for Tree of Life's formal ancestor, 2001:  A Space Odyssey).  Each shot in the film aims for the sublime (and the film has a lot of shots...I'd love to see a shot by shot analysis, but someone would need to have a lot of time on their hands to put that together) and the formal achievements of the film should not be underestimated.  On the other hand, the vague impressions of plot that Malick attempts to tie the images together with simply does not provide enough narrative momentum to justify the 140 minute running time.  

The Best Media of 2011 (Version .75)

Another month, another revision...  

The Descendants (2011)

Alexander Payne's first film in seven years (yes, it has been that long since the wine infused, lovable snobbery of Sideways), The Descendants (2011), would be a great film if it wasn't for its familiarity.  That is not to say that the plot or the casting is necessarily stereotypical, just that it feels like Payne, despite his absence, is still drawn into the same comfort zone:  middle aged men dealing with an existential crisis.  In Election (1999), Payne gave us a portrait of a school teacher (Matthew Broderick) fraying at the edges thanks to troubles at home and his obnoxious star pupil (Reese Witherspoon).  His follow up, About Schmidt (2002), focused on a recently widowed man (Jack Nicholson) who, after discovering that his wife had cheated on him, goes on a road trip to try to protect his daughter (Hope Davis) from following in his footsteps.  Sideways (2004) continued the trend by giving us another school teacher (Paul Giamatti), this one a lovesick and struggling novelist, who quotes Bukowski.  

Three Colors: Blue (1993)

It has been almost a decade since I first gazed upon Krzysztof Kieslowski's Three Colors trilogy (1993-1994).  After re-watching his first entry, Blue (1993, on the newly issued Criterion Blu-Ray), I chastised myself for having taken so long.  While I remember being moved by Blue - Kieslowski's work as a whole affects me - and loving the trilogy as a whole, I failed to account for my own evolving position as a subjective viewer. Obviously, Kieslowski's films, like those of Robert Bresson, do not objectively change over time.  However, our impressions of the films are changed, charged, and altered by our own life experiences.  For instance, my personal impressions of the losses that Julie (Juliette Binoche) experiences in the opening moments of Blue were compounded the second time around.  The films haven't changed but I have gone from being an single teenager to a married twenty-something.  

American Comic Book Syllabus 2.0

I hadn't been on my Academia.edu account in a long time.  Recently, I started receiving e-mails that people had been googling "American Comic Book Syllabus" and had been coming across my page.  I thought that was pretty great, as I was really happy with the last draft of the syllabus I had created.  However, when I checked my Academia profile, I realized I had made an error:  the first draft, which was VERY superhero heavy, was posted...not the second, far improved draft.  

365 Days of Comics: Week One Recap

For those keeping up with my 365 Days of Comics Challenge, my week one reading list is below.  Have any recommendations?  Reviews to share?  

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Multiplayer Reaction

According to the game play counter located in the Call of Duty:  Modern Warfare 3 (2011) Multiplayer Barracks, I have played the game for roughly twelve hours...despite devoting sixteen hours of my life to the title thus far.  Here are my gut reactions to the Playstation 3 version of the multiplayer play and my favorite kits and maps.  

Hugo (2011)

Martin Scorsese's Hugo (2011), based off of Brian Selznick's children's novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret (2007), is a memorable oddity in the filmmaker's always watchable filmography.  A PG rated film that does not feature an once of bloodshed or a single curse word, Hugo lacks the most superficial of Scorsese identifiers.  Delving deeper into the production, it is also the first film that Scorsese has shot digitally and in 3D.  In other words, it's a change of direction that looks unlike anything the filmmaker has produced before.  Considering Scorsese's age and the longevity of his career, one of the accomplishments of Hugo is that it showcases the talents of a filmmaker willing to take risks...while also chronicling the career of a filmmaker who took risks and lost.  

365 Days of Comics

I "got into" comics in 1989, shortly after the release of Tim Burton's Batman (see above photo of me dressed up as the Joker).  My selection process was unrefined.  Growing up in Port Washington, Wisconsin, there were not a lot of comic book stores around.  I'd normally track down trade paperback reprints of Batman and Superman comics at the local Wal-Mart.  Looking at my childhood collection, I seem to have been drawn to titles based off of my favorite film and television properties (including comics based off of Seaquest DSV, Terminator, and Robocop).  Yet, I stopped reading around the time DC comics published the death of Superman (1992) and began the reign of the Supermen, getting drawn into baseball cards and, for a brief time, Pogs. 

The Best Media of 2011 (Version .7)

A few months back, when I launched The Cinema Doctor, I provided a list of my favorite media offerings of the year (thus far).  Here's my first revision as we enter into the home stretch!  

Batman: Arkham City (2011)

Batman day continues here with a short review of Batman:  Arkham City (2011).  I'd review some of the New 52 titles I'm reading, most notably Batman and Detective Comics, both of which I really like, but it's so early in their runs that I'm not sure what to say about them aside from great writing on both, better art by Tony Daniel on Detective.  In any case, I thought Arkham City was a major step beyond its predecessor, Arkham Asylum (2009).  Find out why after the jump.  

Batman: Year One (2011)

I love Batman.  I love Batman so much that when I finished the first draft to my dissertation - focused on the remediation of style in comics and film - I got a Batman tattoo.  When I was a kid, Tim Burton's Batman (1989) and The Animated Series (1992-1995) got me into comics.  When I was a teenager and moved away from comics, the Batman titles were the only ones I still kept tabs on...and then I eventually stopped reading them (there were not a lot of comic book stores in Port Washington, Wisconsin).  When I got back into comics in college, after some heckling from my friends Neal and Will, I started back up with Batman.  I read Batman:  The Long Halloween (1996-1997) and Arkham Asylum:  A Serious House on Serious Earth (1989) before I was handed a copy of Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli's Batman:  Year One (1987).  

Saboteur (1942)

I was drawn to watch and re-watch some Alfred Hitchcock movies after covering The White Shadow (1923) a few weeks back.  I decided, after polling some of my Cinema and Media Studies folks, to give Saboteur (1942) a spin.  In many ways, it embodies the formula of the classic Hitchcock thriller:  a man is wrongly accused of a horrible crime and must clear his name with the help of a beautiful woman (see also North by Northwest, The 39 Steps, The Wrong Man) and add in a cross-country chase (again, see North by Northwest, another film that reaches its climax atop a national landmark).  Barry Kane (Robert Cummings) is a blue collar worker at an airplane plant during World War II.  One day, Barry meets a strange co-worker by the name of "Fry" (Norman Lloyd) and, shortly after, a fire breakouts at the plant, killing Barry's best friend and leaving Barry the prime suspect.  

The Horror! The Horror!: The Exorcist (1973) and Session 9 (2001)

Guided by Scott Weinberg's list of 120 Horror Films now on Netflix Watch Instantly, I decided to hunker down on a rainy, October, Los Angeles day and watch two of them:  William Friedkin's The Exorcist (1973) and Brad Anderson's Session 9 (2001), one of Weinberg's favorites.  While I have documented my favorites over at Pajiba (and before that in the pages of the UWM Post), my tastes have changed and evolved.  When I last watched it, ten years ago, I wasn't a huge fan of The Exorcist.  See if my tastes towards a purported classic changed after the jump.  

The White Shadow (1923), The New 52, and Women Comic Book Readers Day

Last night was the U.S. debut of a lost, found, restored, yet incomplete print of one of Alfred Hitchcock's first credited (not directed) features, The White Shadow (1923).  Initially a six-reeler, three reels of the film were recently found in New Zealand and sent to the United States for restoration.  The film, directed by early collaborator Graham Cutts, was adapted by twenty-four year old Hitchcock from a novel by Michael Morton (no relation) and featured Hitchcock in several other significant roles including assistant director, editor, art director, set director, production designer.  It featured Betty Compson in a dual role as a set of twins - one socially "evil" (she drinks, smokes, and gambles!) and one her complete opposite - who fall in love with Clive Brook's American. 

Drive (2011)

In Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive (2011), mobster Bernie Rose (Albert Brooks) tells his newly hired stunt and getaway driver (Ryan Gosling) that he used to produce B-movie genre films that the critics called “European…  I called them trash.”  That description fits the abyss that Drive attempts to jump, Dukes of Hazard/General Lee-style, between trash (the heist/thriller genre) and art cinema (particularly the existentially infused crime films of Jean-Pierre Melville).  Taking on a mode of filmmaking similar to both Michael Mann and Jean-Luc Godard, directors whose films cross-pollinate pulp narratives with a cool exploration of film form, Refn sticks the landing without the danger of a catastrophic rollover, taking cinephiles on a ride beyond their wildest imaginations. 

Star Wars: The Complete Saga Blu-Ray Review

On the evening of September 15th 2011, I left my apartment in West Los Angeles to camp out for the Blu-Ray release of all six Star Wars (1977-2005) films.  I hadn't stood in line for Star Wars since a cold day in April when, at age 16, I dressed warmly in a Green Bay Packers jacket and waited outside of the Northshore cinema in southeastern Wisconsin to buy tickets for The Phantom Menace (1999).  When that day in May finally came, I walked away from Phantom Menace - like many others - with disappointment.  I had moderate expectations for the Blu-Ray and clung to a childlike hope that my disappointment would be reversed by the high-definition glory of seeing three of my favorite films on my home theater.  Was my new hope redeemed or did I walk away poisoned with bitter anger?  Continue reading to find out! 

The Cinema Doctor Meets the Popcorn Mafia

Last week, I was invited by CNN's movie critic Grae Drake to sit down and discuss two horror films (Drive-In Horrorshow and The House That Dripped Blood) with Drive-In director Michael Neel.  


You can listen to our podcast here!  

Citizen Kane (1941): 70 Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Edition

I've been dreading the task of writing a review of Orson Welles's masterpiece Citizen Kane (1941).  For years, I've avoided writing about it.  I've done so by favoring other Welles pictures when it comes to reviews (The Immortal Story, Touch of Evil) simply because the scholarship produced by André Bazin, Peter Bogdanovich, Pauline Kael, Laura Mulvey, James Naremore, and Jonathan Rosenbaum (amongst others!) leaves me with little to say.  It's a great film and far greater writers and thinkers than I have spent the past decades discovering its secrets and disclosing them to cinephiles and potential cinephiles.  That said, this review will be more focused on the features on the new 70th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Edition Blu-Ray than the film itself.  If you really want to learn about Citizen Kane, read one of those books.  If you know nothing about Kane and want a quick gloss, this is for you.  

Contagion (2011)

Contagion (2011) is much like Steven Soderbergh’s Academy award winning chronicle of the drug war Traffic (2000) except this one is about a deadly virus.  Soderbergh, acting once again as his own DP, still provides ice blue and warm yellow monochromatic shots of various plot threads focusing on a government bureaucracy that is - ideally – in a position to help but also has structures and protocols that get in the way.   Moreover, like Traffic, Contagion features an electronic score by frequent Soderbergh collaborator (and former Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer) Cliff Martinez, slick editing by Stephen Mirrione, and another Vanity Fair Oscar Party of an ensemble cast.   The key difference between the former and the latter is characterization and unfortunately Contagion takes the form of its subject:  a detached, calculated, killer. 

The Rapture-In the Grace of Your Love (2011)

The Rapture's latest album, In the Grace of Your Love (2011), sounds like it may have been produced by a different band when played along side the dance-punk rockers "Out of the Races and Onto the Tracks" and "House of Jealous Lovers."  That's bound to upset fans of the band's blend of the Cure and the Talking Heads that was highlighted by their early EP and their beloved album Echoes (2003).  It may not be as shiny sounding as the Danger Mouse co-produced album Pieces of the People We Love (2006), but it puts the majority of it's emphasis on the dance side of the dance-punk equation, making it a worthy, albeit lesser, aural companion of DFA labelmate LCD Soundsystem's This is Happening (2010).  

Green River Killer: A True Detective Story (2011)

Writer Jeff Jensen (AKA Entertainment Weekly's Lost fanatic "Doc" Jensen) and artist Jonathan Case's Green River Killer:  A True Detective Story (2011) is the graphic novel equivalent of David Fincher's Zodiac (2007).  It is a tale of obsession, on behalf of both Jensen's father, Green River Killer Task Force Member Tom Jensen, and the Green River Killer (GRK) himself, Gary Leon Ridgway, the most deadly serial killer in American history (nearly fifty women were confirmed to have been killed by Ridgway).  It's chilling, gripping, and rises to the best levels of what sequential art can achieve.  

A Trip to the Moon (1902)

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hosted an extraordinary program entitled "A Trip to the Moon in Color, and Other Travels Through Time, Color, and Space" the other night.  The program, hosted by Serge Bromberg (film historian and archivist) and Tom Burton (head of preservation at Technicolor) featured more than ten short films ranging from the San Francisco city symphony/actuality A Trip Down Market Street (1906) to early experiments in hand-colorization (Gwalior, 1907), sound (one of the first sound print shorts was shown), 3-D (Méliès had a camera that shot two lenses and negatives side by side for quick duplication, which actually created rudimentary 3-D prints), and Deco animation (Joy of Living, 1934).  The evening culminated with the screening of a restoration of a handcolored print of Méliès's famous A Trip to the Moon (1902).  

The House That Dripped Blood (1971)

Anthology films are often hit and miss.  Using 90 to 120 minutes to introduce new sets of characters and separate plots leaves a filmmaker - or filmmakers - with very little cinematic canvas to work with and, as a result, a miniscule margin for error.  To further complicate the construction, anthology films often utilize a framing plot to bridge the short films together, eating up further screen time to provide the narrative glue to a diverse set of stories that can, on occasion, embrace a wide range of aesthetic options.  Peter Duffell's The House that Dripped Blood (1971), a British horror anthology produced by Hammer rival Amicus Productions (who also produced anthologies based off of the EC Comics series Tales from the Crypt and Vault of Horror), is no exception to the hit and miss rule.  Yet, it comes in - for the most part - on the winning side of the equation. 

Fright Night (2011)

Tom Holland’s Fright Night (1985) is one of those films I’ve seen bits and pieces of on cable but I’ve never bothered to sit down and watch entirely.  After watching Craig Gillespie’s remake (2011), the cinematic equivalent to the contents of a pumpkin shaped trick or treat pail, I may need to remedy that blind spot.   Fright Night may not be F.W Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922) or Guy Maddin’s Dracula:  Pages from a Virgin’s Diary (2002) when it comes to great vampire movies but it is, like Sam Raimi’s romp Drag Me to Hell (2009), a hell of a funny, scary time. 

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009)

Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009) is a difficult film to evaluate. Like Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (1999) or Orson Welles’s The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), the film contains more than the usual quota of stunning images and inspired sequences. However, like the films by Kubrick and Welles, Gilliam’s is a film that cannot escape the shadow of its production history. As most readers are no doubt aware, Parnassus stands as the last film featuring the talents of the late Heath Ledger. Yet, Ledger’s death occurred before the film was finished shooting and Gilliam was forced to shut down production to contemplate a means of constructing a film without one of his key personnel. Eventually, Gilliam settled on re-casting the part with Ledger’s friends (Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell) in his role over expensive CGI solutions. Unfortunately, while it was the most cost effective and arguably the most tasteful creative choice Gilliam could have made, the solution costs the film dearly.

Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills (1996)

A week and a half ago, after serving nearly twenty years behind bars, Jessie Misskelley Jr., Jason Baldwin, and Damien Echols – also known as the West Memphis Three (WM3) - were released from prison after entering Alford pleas (a plea which allows the defendants to assert their innocence while acknowledging  the existence of substantial evidence that could be used for a conviction) with the Arkansas court system.  The release of the trio was bittersweet.  On one hand, three men who appear to be innocent are free to walk to the street.  On the other hand, three innocent men were convicted because their interest in Stephen King and Metallica made them different from the bulk of the West Memphis population and they lost almost twenty years of their lives.  Most significantly, the killer or killers behind the murders of three, eight year old boys (Stevie Branch, Michael Moore, and Christopher Byers) have yet to be found. 

Wet Hot American Summer (2001)

The always likable Paul Rudd hits theaters this weekend in Our Idiot Brother (2011) and, in homage, I decided to pop in one of my favorite Rudd comedies:  State member David Wain’s directorial debut Wet Hot American Summer (2001). The film, one of my favorite comedies, was what introduced me to the those cloudy bootlegs and cued my anticipation and interest in Reno 911! (2003-2009), Stella (2005), and the recent series Michael & Michael Have Issues (2009), the latter two series were short lived.  

The Iron Giant (1999)

It has been twelve years since of the release of Brad Bird’s animated feature The Iron Giant (1999). The film, as some of you may know, opened to rave critical reviews and won nine Annie Awards (the animation equivalent of the Academy Awards) yet floundered at the box office, earning only half of its $48 million dollar production budget. The poor box office performance of The Iron Giant, along with the failure of Osmosis Jones (2001) and Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003), resulted in a scaling back and re-structuring of Warner Brothers Animation. Yet, one company’s loss was another’s gain as one admirer of the film, Bird’s former classmate and computer animation guru John Lasseter, hired Bird to work for Pixar.

The Way of the Gun (2000)

“There is a natural order. The way things are meant to be. An order that says that the good guys always win. That you die when it’s your time, or you have it coming. That the ending is always happy, if only for someone else. Now at some point it became clear to us that our path had been chosen and we had nothing to offer the world … So, we stepped off the path, and went looking for the fortune that we knew was looking for us. Once off the path you do what you can to eat and to keep moving.” — Mr. Parker in The Way of the Gun (2000)

Strange Days (1995)

Before The Hurt Locker (2009) won Best Director, it won my award for the most overrated film of the year. Don’t misunderstand, The Hurt Locker is far from a bad film, it’s actually quite suspenseful and well-crafted for an action film but it is not a groundbreaking or earth shattering piece of art. The characterization is weak (war is a drug…got it!), the dialogue has its share of bumps (just look at that exchange regarding the wedding ring, filed under devices that almost killed the protagonist), and the action is shot in wash-out, hand-held, 16mm with nearly as many cuts as a Michael Bay film. In other words, the action sequences, which have traditionally been one of director Kathryn Bigelow’s strong suits, are rather cliché with the noted exception of the grueling sniper duel.

Why have critics and the film community in general been so compelled to oversell a rather standard combat film? First, there seems to be a desire to finally be able to hold up a film dealing with the Iraq war as being relevant. Secondly and perhaps more significantly, Bigelow is one of the most prominent female directors working in Hollywood and perhaps there is a desire to shake up the status quo.  The issue of female presence behind the camera has become an area of increased attention during the past two years. In 2007, the American Film Institute updated their Top 100 Films and the absence of a film by a female director (one of my favorites, the oft-cited Meshes of the Afternoon by avant-garde filmmaker Maya Deren was disqualified because it is not feature length) stirred much debate. This debate was further aggravated with the 2008 Academy Award nominations when Danny Boyle’s credited co-director Loveleen Tandan did not share the Best Director nomination with him (this also occurred in 2004 with City of God) for Slumdog Millionaire.

I’m not denying that both awards organizations and film canonization have left women by the wayside, which is a incredibly sad truth. Nor am I debating Bigelow’s talent, which she obviously possesses in spades. What I am attempting to argue is that if you want to find an example of Bigelow at her best, don’t look at The Hurt Locker … look at her extremely underappreciated film Strange Days (1995).

The PCA and Critical Reaction to The Big Combo (1955)

Joseph H. Lewis's The Big Combo (1955), one of my favorite film noirs, is now on Netflix Watch Instantly.  Between John Alton's cinematography, the homoerotic subtext, the graphic and creative depiction of torture (with a hearing aid!), and hardboiled dialogue, I cannot recommend it highly enough.  Here are some notes I took during a research trip at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Margaret Herrick Library from the Production Code Administration (PCA) file and the news clipping files for the film.  Note:  I was unable to import my footnotes.  For those interested, I can either e-mail the below text with footnotes or I can comment on the exact sources below.  

Tag, You're It: Going Ape on Tag, Mid, and Post Credit Scenes

Spoilers ahead. 

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

It wasn’t difficult to initially underestimate Rupert Wyatt’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011).  Tim Burton’s reboot of the series (2001), now a decade old, left a bad taste in a lot of mouths.  Between the goofy ending and the wooden performances of Mark Wahlberg and Estella Warren, the only redeeming qualities to the film were Helena Bonham Carter and Danny Elfman’s percussive score.  Although Burton’s film was a financial success - it grossed $362 million against a production budget of $100 million - Fox decided against further exploration of one of their many tentpole franchises for years because of the critical backlash against it.  When Rise of the Planet of the Apes was announced for 2011 and a lackluster trailer (The medicine the characters are working on is called “THE CURE!”) hit a mere few weeks before the film’s release, it felt as if Fox was going back to a well of poison for a second time.  Thankfully, however, Rise of the Planet of the Apes benefits from generic manipulation.  A trait which, unlike the prescription enhanced ape of the film, goes unpronounced in Fox’s marketing campaign.   

Senna (2010)

Aside from the Milwaukee Brewers and the Green Bay Packers, my knowledge of sports is often bested by my wife’s.  I’ve never really been drawn to sports and, if I was, my commitment to my graduate education has taken away most of my free time to learn about them.  I watch maybe five football games a year, a handful of baseball games, and I’m taking part in Fantasy Football for the first time since the date of my birth this year.  I mention this for two reasons.  First, prior to watching Asif Kapadia’s Senna (2010), I only knew of the existence of Formula 1 racing and I was ignorant to Ayrton Senna’s existence, let alone his racing career.  Secondly, despite this personal ignorance, I found the film to be one of the best of the year. 

The Killing (1956): Criterion Collection

Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing (1956) is not my favorite work by the visionary director. In fact, the film probably wouldn’t even make it onto a list of my top five Kubrick films. Yet, with a career that included such amazing films as Paths of Glory (1957), Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Barry Lyndon (1975), and The Shining (1980), that’s not an indication that The Killing is a film of poor quality but an indication that Kubrick’s body of work comes the closest to cinematic perfection than any director I can think of. Thus, while The Killing may not by Kubrick’s strongest, that doesn’t keep it from earning a ranking of my top five noirs.

John Huston Triple-Feature: Beat the Devil (1953), Wise Blood (1979), and Under the Volcano (1984)

Introduction 

“[John] Huston is still coasting on his reputation as a wronged individualist with an alibi for every bad movie … Huston has confused indifference with integrity for such a long time that he is no longer the competent craftsman of The Asphalt Jungle, The Maltese Falcon, and The African Queen, films that owe more to casting coups than to directorial acumen.” — Andrew Sarris, “John Huston: Less than Meets the Eye” in The American Cinema (1968).

“People often ask if I have any regrets over my rankings of directors in The American Cinema. Actually, there have been shifts and slides, rises and falls, all along the line. Film history is always in the process of revision, and some of our earliest masters are still alive. The American Cinema was a very tentative probe designed mainly to establish the existence of a subject worthy of study. The rest is refinement and elaboration.”— Andrew Sarris, “Billy Wilder Reconsidered” in You Ain’t Heard Nothing Yet (1998).

Women Comic Book Reader's Day: Reader Submission #1

Hey all!  Just a reminder that September 21st is Women Comic Book Reader's Day.  In order to trumpet the movement, I've put out a call for women readers to share their experiences with the form.  Here is the first profile to run.  Thanks for sharing, Meg!  I am still accepting submissions at damorton@ucla.edu.  Tweet it up at #womenlovecomix2!  

Rosemary's Baby (1968)

For the bulk of my college career, I tended to avoid the films of Roman Polanski. I always tried to validate my blind spot as morally motivated by Polanski pleading guilty to unlawful intercourse with a minor and subsequently fleeing to France. Yet, I came to the realization that this would ultimately write off a work of art, crafted by many people, to the poor decisions of one. Also, I was employed as a teaching assistant for a film noir class at UCLA and we had to show Chinatown (1974) and I could no longer avoid the absence of Polanski in my knowledge about film.

The Most Dangerous Game (1932)

Richard Connell’s short story, “The Most Dangerous Game,” has always held a special place in my heart. Having read the story in one of my high school English classes, I was determined to adapt it into a screenplay about a crazed Scottish hunter who breaks a man out of prison, only to hunt him down for sport. While writing the screenplay, I came to realization that even with madness serving as a motivation, this recreational sport can be hard to characterize as it either bleeds into serial killer territory or becomes the Van Pelt (Jonathan Hyde) character from Jumanji (1995). Needless to say, I gave up screenwriting and threw The Fox Hunt (Second Draft, 2002) in a filing cabinet somewhere. Watching Irving Pichel and Ernest B. Schoedsack’s 1932 adaptation only crystallized my rationale behind my abandonment of the project.

Memorable Screening Experiences

Last week, I was fortunate enough to attend a screening of Miranda July's The Future (2011), followed by a Q&A with the director. Coming out of the screening, my wife and I began discussing what film going experiences have marked our lives (through the film, format, or venue) and was curious to see what screenings my friends felt similarly about. So, in the interest in starting a bit more personal dialogue, I’d like to offer up five of my memorable movie going experiences.

Watchmen (2009)

"No. Not even in the face of Armageddon. Never compromise."-Rorschach While Rorschach's (Jackie Earle Haley) proclamation may be possible to uphold as a superhero, the refusal to compromise on behalf of the filmmaker in the process of literary adaptation is impossible. As film theorist André Bazin wrote, "Faithfulness to form, literary or otherwise, is illusory: what matters is the equivalence in meaning of the forms." In other words, Bazin is arguing that each medium has its own modes of representation, thus the struggle for formal fidelity is a lost cause and that the main objective is that the adaptation should capture the original work's essence. Bazin continues, stating, "All it takes is for the filmmakers to have enough visual imagination to create the cinematic equivalent of the style of the original."

The Immortal Story (1968)

Orson Welles’s The Immortal Story (1968) is one of the films from his second bargain basement period as an outcast Hollywood director living in Europe.  The first period occurred after the domestic box office and critical failures of his plagued production of The Lady from Shanghai (1948) and the low budget Macbeth (1948 as well).   During the first period, he appeared in Carol Reed’s The Third Man (1949) and other films and directed Othello (1952) and the ultra-low budget Mr. Arkadin (1955).  Arkadin, for me, shares a primary quality with The Immortal Story, filmed for French television after Welles was once again unable to work in Hollywood after Touch of Evil (1958).  Essentially, both are about rich men, both played by Welles, who have grown obsessed with narrative, perception, and historical legacy. 

Is Donkey Kong Fun? Because I'm Feeling More Like a Donkey and Less Like King Kong.

"You know, he's gonna have to play it perfectly, he's at the hardest part of Donkey Kong, and it's not gonna get any easier. So we may have an exciting moment here, or you know, the pressure may get to him, one of those random elements might happen. Sounds like he just cleared another board, but we could have a wild barrel, or some aggressive fireballs. I thought I was gonna be the first FunSpot kill screen, and then I had three fireballs trap me, I had the hammer in my hand, they still got me. So anything can happen in Donkey Kong. So for someone else to be mean to the kill screen would be a letdown, but lets see what happens, maybe he'll crack under the pressure and maybe I'll get my chance to do it first."-Avid Donkey Kong player Brian Kuh in The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007). 

His Kind of Woman (1951)

In his book Hollywood Genres, film scholar Thomas Schatz mobilizes an evolutionary model to describe film genres.  For simplicity sake, Schatz posits that a genre essentially moves from classical to baroque in its style and conventions as it ages. If we place the film noir genre (whose status as a genre has led to much dispute, but let’s table that as I don’t feel like taking an aspirin while writing this review) within this model, we would find Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity (1944) on the classical side of the scale and Orson Welles’s Touch of Evil (1958) on the baroque. Yet there is a major problem with concept of linear development as it supposes that all films in a genre progress towards the end goal of the baroque and are in formal and thematic unison. The main reason I love John Farrow’s film noir His Kind of Woman (1951) is that it was self-reflexive and parodic roughly five years before the “baroque” stage in film noir’s development is often thought to of occurred with the release of Robert Aldrich’s Kiss Me Deadly (1955).

Debating Roger Ebert on Video Games

Film critic Roger Ebert has been notorious amongst video gamers for writing off the form as being incapable of being art.  Last year, he elaborated on his position and I responded with the following article (which is reprinted here).   Now, I should note as a hopeful cinema studies scholar that Roger’s work pushed me to study film and I constantly find myself reflecting on his Great Movies books. However, I am also a hopeful media studies scholar, a field which includes video games, a form which I enjoy as both a player and a Ph.D. student (you can find a visual essay a produced on the Wii with two classmates here). That said, I disagree with Roger’s assessment of the medium and here are a few reasons why.