Welcome to the 230th Edition of my long running series. This week I pay tribute to the late Alex Chilton and Jaime A. Escalante. As you can see, I am now in GUYS AND DOLLS in Noblesville which opens in June. I will get more details closer to time.
Thumbsucker (2005): I open up with this tribute to Alex Chilton who wrote the song THIRTEEN which was featured in this film. Mike Mills directed and wrote this screenplay based on the novel by Walter Kirn. Lou Taylor Pucci stars as the title character named Justin Cobb. Justin is a high school teen who has not gotten past the habit of sucking his thumb. Tilda Swinton plays his mother who seems normal but has an obsession with a tv doctor, played by LAW AND ORDER alum Benjamin Bratt. LAW AND ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT alum Vincent D'Onofrio plays his father who is determined to break his son of his habit but his advice is not working. Keanu Reeves plays his unorthodox dentist who uses hypnosis to try to break him from that habit. He is also diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder which he is prescribed with pills for that problem. Justin is now broke from the habit, winning debates for the debate team, and feeling much better but other problems still await. Vince Vaughn plays the coach of the debate team and I did not mind him in that part unlike some parts he plays. It is a pretty good story about the hardships of growing up.
The Best of Youth (2003): This is my Italian film for the week which was directed by Marco Tullio Giordana. This Epic film centers around two brothers in Rome named Nicola and Matteo and look at their lives from the years 1966 to 2000 with the events that happen in those years. Matteo gets a good job as a psychiatrist and Matteo joins the Italian police force hoping to write all society's wrongs. Each of them meet different people and through the years the brothers fall out and reunite through all of the happenings. This was originally a tv mini-series but was then released for theaters. It is a great story of an Italian family which as I point out is most notable between the brothers. I am not going into too much detail on this six hour film. I watched the first three hours one day and the last part the next day and is really worth it if you are willing to invest six hours of your time.
Stand and Deliver (1988): This is my tribute to the late Jaime A. Escalante who recently left us and MIAMI VICE alum Edward James Olmos plays. So this is based on a true story where Escalante gets a job at an urban school where he has many dropout prone students who might be in gangs and seem to have no hope. He believes there is potential and decides to teach them algebra and calculus. Lou Diamond Phillips plays one of the students who is very difficult but begins to embrace a more structured life. This is a very inspiring story of a teacher who motivated many teens who were thought to have no hope left to become top class in SAT testing. Andy Garcia has a small part as a member of the SAT board who is investigating the class because he believes the whole class scored too high for an urban class which is a big part of this film.
Frozen River (2008): Courtney Hunt wrote and directed this independent film. Melissa Leo stars as Ray who is a single mother in a dead-end job. She meets a woman named Lila who is part of the Mohawk tribe and desperate for money, she agrees to join her in smuggling immigrants across the border between Quebec and New York. Her teenage son also resorts to some rather unscrupulous methods of making money for the family. This is not a very upbeat film but unfortunately it is pretty believable. It is interesting to see what lengths people would be willing to take when desperate for money where a mother and son have different methods and the mother really does not have the right to criticize the son because she was also committing crimes. Melissa Leo and Charlie McDermott who plays her son are very good in the movie and work well together. The other performances are pretty good and make for a pretty decent film as long as you're not looking for a love story or some family story of redemption. This was not my first choice for my movie on 2008 or later and in fact I went through three others which will be featured in the next couple weeks but I am glad I ended up with this one.
Blood of Dracula (1957): I found this one of AMC and I guess this could be considered my guilty pleasure for the week. First of all, let me remind you this movie does not feature the iconic vampire whose name is in the title. This is about a young girl whose father and mean stepmother put her in a boarding school. The science teacher is a vampire and puts this young girl under hypnosis to become a vampire so that she can do her dirty work. There you have it, a pretty absurd vampire film but can be enjoyable when in the mood as long as you can forgive the title.
I Never Changes My Attitude (1937): This is my animated short film for this week which features Popeye. We start with Popeye crying because he has a letter from Olive Oyl that she left him to be with an aviator. As it turns out this aviator is Bluto who is holding Olive against her will on an airplane. Popeye then takes to the sky to help save Olive from his arch-enemy. Looking back, I realize how violent these cartoons are and this is no exception. I also realized that each Popeye cartoon usually uses the same formula. A villain, usually Bluto, is taking advantage of a damsel in distress, usually Olive, and then Popeye comes to the rescue but is not a very strong guy until he eats his can of spinach. This one was still entertaining though and was an enjoyable six minutes.
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928): This is my French and silent film for the week. In the few silents I have seen this may very well be the best in my opinion of what I have seen. I found this on TCM . Carl Theodore Dreyer directed this film which covers the trial of Joan of Arc through transcripts that were found of the real trial. Theater actress Maria Falconetti pulls of the title role very well in her first and only screen appearance. The next highlight was the music score which was added later in some found footage of the film and they use Richard Einhorn's VOICES OF LIGHT which fit this movie so well. There is no evidence that Dreyer even settled on a score. The next highlight was the close-up shots that were very done very well. There were some pretty surreal shots done where words can't even describe the awe I was in while watching this. Make no mistake, as much I include the occasional silent I am not a fanatic of them and this one had the most effect on me that I have seen. It is thought that Dreyer was very mean to Falconetti so that he could get the facial expressions he wanted. Footage of this movie was thought to be lost until it was found in a mental institution in Oslo. I do not know the story there. Another interesting image I saw was a baby breast feeding and the nipple was actually shown which the US would have never gotten away with.
Fall Time (1995): I found this one on IFC and co-stars Mickey Rourke in what I call his "transitional period". To be honest, if I had not seen that name I would have passed it when looking for something to record to my DVR. It did turn out to be rather interesting and different. We see three high school friends, David Arquette, Jason London, and Jonah Blechman, go out on a joyride who then decide to stage a mock kidnapping. What they do not know is that there is a real robbery going on and mistake Stephen Baldwin, who is one of the robbers, for their friend and abduct the real robber instead. This leads to far more than they bargained for when they are captured and tortured. Mickey Rourke is the leader of the duo of their crime gone wrong because of an immature practical joke gone wrong. Country music singer Sammy Kershaw has a small role as of the police officers. This is not for everyone but the performance of Mickey Rourke kept me connected but if you don't like him you might not like this one.
Shampoo (1975): Hal Ashby directed comedy that takes place in late 60s Beverley Hills. Warren Beatty stars as hairstylist George Roundy. He is looking for a relationship and his own salon but having an affair with the wife, daughter, and mistress of one of his backers does not help his situation. Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn, and Lee Grant are his women of the movie that he just cannot settle with which lead to some funny situations of sexual revolution. Jack Warden plays his backer. Carrie Fisher makes her screen debut in a small role. Beatty co-wrote this script with Robert Towne.
Eyes of Laura Mars (1978): Irvin Kershner directed this thriller which was co-written by John Carpenter. Faye Dunaway stars as the title character who is a very controversial fashion photographer. She soon starts to have visions of some very brutal murders. Tommy Lee Jones co-stars as detective John Neville who finds the connection of the murders and the photos she features in her magazine. STAR TREK and BOSTON LEGAL alum Rene Auberjoinous has a very interesting performance as her very flamboyant manager and even wears a dress. Brad Dourif and Raul Julia also co-star. This is nothing great but the performance and the music really make this worth watching. I really got hooked in by the theme called PRISON which was sung by Barbra Streisand. I am not really a huge fan of Streisand but I really liked this very haunting song that she sung so well.
Well, that is it for this week, stay tuned for next week which so far includes a documentary, Sally Hawkins, and many others.
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