Soylent Green A Movie A Day Day 6

This is the best movie I have watched so far in my blog project. There are films that have higher production values, and maybe a few greater performances, but this is exactly the movie that the makers set out to produce and film. This is a classic example of how a good Science Fiction Idea was caught and made into a good Science Fiction film, without having to reinvent the wheel. There are no dramatic visual effects, there is not an amazing display of technology, there is a simple idea executed well by people who knew what it was they wanted.

A great many clever SciFi movies came out of the seventies. Obviously Star Wars started off a big trend of visualizing the future and making it part of the story. Soylent Green is from the same mold as "A Boy and His Dog", "The Omega Man", "Damnation Alley" and a dozen more; movies whose ideas are the selling point of the story, not just the production design and special effects. Oh, and buy the way, here is the Greenhouse Effect used as a plot device, nearly forty years ago. This is before all the nonsense that the last 10 years are the hottest on record, or that the Himalayan glaciers will be gone in 20 years. In other words, this boy has been crying wolf for a long time. Chicken Little is going to need to show us that the sky is falling and not just ask us to trust him. Skipping past the dispute over whether this is a real concern, the film simply presents a vision of the world as if it is going to come out this way. I did not find it moralizing and pedantic like so many "message" pictures, I found the ideas intriguing and the sadness of the film very convincing. It does not point a finger at anyone and say, "it's the oil companies fault" or "we need to stop the developers" or "the political system is against saving the planet". The story just suggests that a Malthusian nightmare is upon us, without getting political.

Surrounding the plot are references to environments disaster, the usual Big Company conspiracies, technical breakdowns, blatant sexism, but at it's heart are a couple of great ideas. That we don't know what we have till it's gone, and that people should matter. If that is political, then you might see this film in political terms. I thought it was a well made detective story with a fascinating setting, that makes the characters involved much fresher than they would otherwise be. The relationship between Charlton Heston and Edward G. Robinson is the love story in this movie. That Robinson's character Sol, remembers what the world was like is the moral center of what takes place. And the journey, Heston makes to see the world in a more humanitarian way, both thru the environment and through people is the point of the story. Most people remember the final line of the movie and use it as a punch line. They say it out loud as if they are revealing the twist in a Twilight Zone episode or telling you that Darth Vader is...you know. What they are ignoring is the individualism that this movie is really about. We humans are something that should matter. We just saw the movies moral center turned into a product, anyone who ignores that doesn't get the movie. Like the sucker punch at the end of "Planet of the Apes" this is a film that is about ideas not action.

I have loved Edgar G. Robinson as an actor, even before I knew who he was. The Bugs Bunny cartoons that used his likeness as a gangster, created the stereotypes that most of us have of mobsters in the 1920s and 30s. This is his final performance and he is as far from a tough guy as you can imagine. It is not hard to see him as the intellectual "Book" that assists the detective in investigating his case load. In essence what he is playing is the equivalent of an internet search engine without the technology. He has two great scenes in the movie, one where he shares a meal with Heston, featuring food that the detective will never have seen before, but that Sol can remember and pine over as the past that is lost. He knows what we have lost, and Heston doesn't, until he shares, with Sol this decadent pleasure. It is Sol's trip home however, that really shows to Thorn, what he is losing and what we have all lost. The trip home is the second great scene and it features the biggest art production of the movie, the L.A. Sports arena. That's about as futuristic as anything gets; OK there is a brief image of a computer video game, that was probably dated two years after the movie came out. Like the rest of the film, the Sports Arena is just background for a story, it is not the feature that everyone should be focused on. As a result, the need for "futurism" stays unobtrusively in the background, while the ideas stand out.

Lots of good actors are in the movie, Joseph Cotton shows up for two scenes, Chuck Conners is one of the bad guys, Brock Peters is Heston's boss. I recognized a lot of character actors in the movie that I have seen a million times over the years; Leonard Stone, Whit Bissel, and Paula Kelly are names most people won't remember, but I have always tried to give credit to the no name, credit after the film performers.

This movie came out in 1973, if I saw it with anyone, it was with a my friend Mark Witt, who I have not seen or heard from since the summer of 1975. Mark was not a big movie fan, but he liked some science fiction stuff and I seem to remember that he and I went to the El Rey Theater on Main in Alhambra to see this. It is also possible that this is one of those movies I saw by myself. I am certain that I saw it more than once in a theater. I had no reservations about going to a movie alone, I guess I still don't. Before I got hooked on Gene Hackman as an actor, Charleton Heston was probably my favorite. In the 1970's I pretty much saw everything he was in. Soylent Green stands out as one of the best movies he made. It was not one of the classic epics that he was a part of, but it was one of the three really smart science fiction movies he made. If I can't get the video to post, here is a link to the great title sequence.



http://www.artofthetitle.com/2008/11/25/soylent-green/

At The Earth's Core-A Movie A Day Day 5

Ok, get out the chips and jalapenos, the cheese has arrived and there are gallons of it. This is a good example of how undiscriminating I was as a film consumer, when the weather was hot, I was bored and the theater was air conditioned. At the Earth's Core brought me in because of the name Edgar Rice Burroughs, and the fact that it was sort of science fiction based. Even at the time I knew what crap this was, but that did not mean that I did not enjoy it. There were in fact two other movies from the same producer and stars, that came out in the mid-seventies. I think they are both on this list so you may be reading about them later. I remembered the People that Time Forgot much better than I remembered this (I guess that would be ironic).

This movie has a couple of things going for it that might make it worth your time. First, there is a Victorian setting for the scientists making this journey, and the production design emphasizes that era. I'm a sucker for that early "Steam Punk" type of design. I loved the Nautilus from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and the digging machine in this movie is an echo of that design. The costumes of our two heroes are simple but say everything about the fussy professor and the dim but rich and stalwart muscleman that is our lead. A suit like the one Doug McClure wears in this movie would be at home in 1880 England or 1960's or 70's San Francisco.

A second reason to see the movie is the lovely Caroline Munro, a Penthouse Pet that broke thru to B movie stardom in the 1970's. She did several of these cheapo films and had a nice following among male film goers. She is best remembered for a nice part she had in the James Bond film, "the Spy Who Loved Me". I did not have any posters or pictures up on my walls but I have a recollection that she had a nice selling poster like Linda Carter and Farrah Fawcett. That was the last I remember of her although I'm sure she had a fine career that I was just not aware of.

The movie has exploding bird people, giant turtle like dinosaurs, ape like creatures with misshapen skulls, primitive tribal people that don't speak (until after a confrontation scene that would be rendered unnecessary if someone simply said hello and answered) and then they do speak , English (if a bit Tarzanese). The production of the special effects is so cheap that the wires are visible on flying creatures, and the sets are repeated endlessly as our protaganists move through tunnels and jungle that all look the same for a reason.

I can't recall the circumstances of my seeing the movie, I doubt that Dee and I were together, we had just started dating seriously and this would not be a film to impress a date with; although she did make me take her to see Mahogany. The movie is a relic that was creaky when it came out, 34 years later, it has not improved. Still, a lazy evening at a Drive in would be just about right. I can't believe I missed that opportunity with the hot girl I was dating. I'm sure I would remember even less of the movie then.

Meatballs A Movie A Day Day 4

This was not too much of a surprise when it comes to expectations. It is exactly as I remebered it, a rather gentle summer comedy with a vivid Bill Murray and a cast of unknowns. This came out in the Summer of 1979, which as far as I was concerned was one on the great summers of my life. I had graduated from USC, was getting ready to go back for grad school and did not have or need a job. I had some money saved and I decided to spend most of the summer in the pool. Dolores had a new job and I picked her up after work most of the summer, but that meant that my afternoons were my own and this movie was one of those lazy summer afternoons in 1979. I probably swam in the morning, saw the movie in the early afternoon, went back home and got in the pool, then picked up Dee and went to get food.

Bill Murray stars in his first movie and plays the character that he played in a dozen films since. He is a smartass, quickwitted slouch, who doesn't fit in but everyone looks to as a leader(Stripes, Ghostbusters). This movie has a very genial feel to it. It is a couple of years away from the 80's and the need for nudity to sell even mainstream comedies. There are a few references that are risque, but I have heard much worse in a single episode of Two and a Half Men.

There is not a lot of plot, kids and councelors at a summer camp for eight weeks. They learn about each other, they bond, hijinks ensue and there is a underdog sports theme to boot. No one is out of control and the pranks play as normal practical jokes rather than the kind of actions that demand hideous revenge. There are two or three great scences between Bill and the kid played by Chris Makepeace. These display a nice understanding of what counts for warmth that is not maudlin. Actually all the actors get a couple of good bits. The difference between yesterday's disappointment and todays little jewel is not the caliber of actors but the tone of the story. This movie meanders it's way to the conclusion also, but it is a pleasant walk thru a forrest compared to Nashville's nightmare trek down an urban alley at night with money hanging out of your back pocket. No one is going to get mugged by Meatballs, it won't change the world, just your foul mood.

NASHVILLE A Movie A Day Day 3

This is a movie that I saw once in theaters and remembered as being odd and somewhat appealing. After watching it today, i wonder what I was thinking. I know that Altman was a unique artist and had a meandering style, but this movie goes on for nearly three hours and there is not a character you would want to spend ten minutes with. This film is mean spirited and unpleasant. Frankly it has no narrative drive and the only thing that it has going for it is the music.

Ironically, the music is showcased in a manner designed to make you dislike the people who make the music. They are either philandering cretins, lost souls, indifferent businessmen or fakes. The songs are often accurate versions of themes that might be used in a Country Western Concert or bar, but they lack much passion and the way they are filmed seems to suggest that we should pity people that enjoy this type of stuff. I know I listened to "I'm Easy" on the radio a lot in 1975. It was a pretty song that was performed in a plain but honest voice. The scene it appears in in the film is one of the few that reflects any emotion that real human beings might feel. All the women listening are convinced that it was written about them, but after the following scenes you realize it was not about them but to get them. It is a seduction song that works because it sound sincere but it is used in a manipulative way by the character.

There are some other great songs in the film, that are undermined by contrasting scenes and uncommitted performances. Ronee Blakey is an exception in one segment where there appears to be some real life in the audience, musicians and singer. This a film that begs for you to enjoy the soundtrack but skip the movie. Unfortunately, if you have seen the film, the grime and sadness will haunt your appreciation of the tunes.

Obviously this is a slice of life picture, and the brief insights that we have into characters is simply a portrait drawn at that moment. The problem I had was that there were really no pleasant slices of life to go with the bitter view of America that this film wants us to have. Geraldine Chaplin's BBC reporter is supposed to allow us to see that this is a distorted look at our nation, but she is so stupid and unpleasant that we simply want to get out of the scene she is in and move onto whatever is next. Irony and distance will be damned because we can't stand her.

This was one of the films I saw because reviews were so positive and later on the Academy Awards were generous in nominating the movie for five Oscars. Looking at it thirty-five years later makes me mad at myself for not standing up and pointing out that the film makers are naked, there is no beautiful suit and we are all too scared to say so. I did enjoy my brief sighting of two future favorites, who had very small parts in the picture. Jeff Goldblum is doing magic for no reason whatsoever, I don't think he has a line, and if he did, it was certainly not memorable. Scott Glenn appears as a soldier who is in the background of a lot of scenes and he has a part that is ultimately important to the spiteful view of our country. He is accousted at the airport while in uniform, and asked if he killed anyone this week. Later he is unable to prevent a tragedy and walks away, like America did in the Vietnam war. I case you can't guess this is not a fond memory of 1975. Thank God that we had JAWS that summer for us to look back on with admiration.

The Day of The Jackal A Movie a Day Day 2

Well day two of the project was a little different. I had a lunch appointment so I ended up watching the film in two parts instead of one entire sitting. This was not a continuity issue for me since I remember the film well and I think I saw it just a year or two ago, so I knew where I was the whole time. The Day of the Jackal is based on an international bestseller that I actually read when it was on the bestseller list. When the film came out in 1973, I was deep into spy novels and intrigue on an international scale. The idea of an assassin pursuing a well known public figure was very interesting. We had had several political assassinations when I was a kid. I remember them as dramatic and frightening. The year before this movie came out, an American Presidential candidate was shot and nearly killed, so this material was not in the realm of the fantastic but of everyday international tension.

The movie is probably a little long and staid for audiences of today. We have become jaded by action as a substitute for suspense and character. I thought it was great in the suspense department even though you know that De Gaulle is not going to die at the hands of the Jackal. There are several near misses as the French Security police and Scotland Yard are sending information back and forth and each piece of data brings them closer to nabbing the assassin. Today, much of the procedural process would not make sense since our communication technology is so much more sophisticated. Waiting for a photograph, dashing for a telephone, relying on a police officer on a motorcycle to bring in key information is so 1963, which is when this movie is set.

In this story, the killer does rely on murder to escape the clutches of the police, but it is not in the form of a shootout or a car chase. Rather, key witnesses, and associates of the Jackal become victims to prevent them from offering assistance to the police or becoming an obstacle to his accomplishing his mission. Most of these people are innocent of anything other than being in the right place for the Jackal to exploit. He cleverly lifts a wallet, paints his car, seduces both men an women, to stay ahead of a massive French search effort. The interrogation technique that the French Security forces use to even discover the plot and give a codename to the assassin, are probably so politically incorrect today, that the police would be seen as the villains in a remake today. The killer is played by Edward Fox, and up until today I did not realize that he is not the same person as James Fox, even though their names are clearly different. Those two actors are brothers and resemble each other enough, that without looking closely or thinking about it, I just confused them with one another. As a younger man, Edward Fox is very good looking and could have been a good choice as James Bond, if Roger Moore had not worked out, although he would have been criticized much as Daniel Craig was for being blond.

All of the Jackal's personality is conveyed in his planning, improvisation, and ruthless pursuit of his goal. The only hero that stands out is the Police Commissioner, describe by his boss as the best detective in France, played by future Bond Villain Michel Lonsdale. He is just as dogged and ruthless as the Jackal but a lot less lethal for those he encounters. This movie develops slowly, but builds tempo going into the last forty minutes. There are plenty of twists and bits of business that will keep people that have a reasonable attention span involved.

I am pretty sure that I saw this movie with my friend Art, in fact he may have gotten us in for free since he worked at the Edwards Theater. I do know that we both read a subsequent Fredrick Forsyth book, The Odessa File, and we saw that movie when it came out a year or two later. There are a couple of other memories that stood out for me. In the finale,several people have cardboard periscopes to see over the crowd at a parade and public function. I always wondered why I never saw those things here. A periscope like that would be great at the Rose Parade or concert. I guess people here would simply not be patient enough if someone in front of them raised a cardboard tube that might block their view. The Jackal also uses cordite to make his skin gray, and I thought that was an interesting trick but I would never try it. Finally, the trailer for the film tells just enough of the story that it sucks you in, and there is a nice graphic with de Gaulle's profile and a crosshair that is used well in the trailer also.

TheKentucky Fried Movie A Movie A Day Post 1

Ok, we started this morning with The Kentucky Fried Movie from 1977. This feels like a movie that I would have seen with my friend Art, but I think he was in Korea at the time so it was probably something that Dee and I saw together. She looked out of the corner of her eye this morning as I watched, and she read. She said that she didn't remember this movie as being this crude, but that is all I remembered about it. One of the reasons I thought I saw this with Art is that we both used to make fun of other movies or people by pointing out that they reminded us of one of the fake trailers in this movie "Catholic High School Girls in Trouble". Mary Ann I'm not sure I would recommend this to you or anyone in the family (except Rick). This film is definitely nasty but also very funny. It is the first film from the Abrams, Zucker and Zucker team that later created Airplaine and the Naked Gun Movies.

There is no story, it is just random vignettes designed to provoke laughter. The longest segment is a parody of Enter the Dragon, that runs about 20 minutes. If you have seen the Bruce Lee film, you will find this hysterical, if not, it will only confuse you but you will still laugh. There is a segment filmed at the Rialto theater in South Pasadena, and I know I sat in the seat that the protagonist was in when I saw "The English Patient". Also, the summer of 1977 contained a lot of Rocky Horror Picture Show screenings at midnight, so the theater looked exactly the same in Kentucky Fried Movie as it did when we saw Rocky Horror (just less rice and toast).

John Landis was the director for this film and there were many trademark references in the movie. I probably should not admit that some of the segments reminded me of stupid jokes that I still make. I cracked up at the line "He's leading the witness!" The visual just takes the point and treats it literally. This movie was like "Saturday Night Live" only it was done without the restrictions imposed by a TV network. Nudity, language, racism, commercial parodies, and the time period make the film very evocative of the era.

There were a series of movies done in this style over the years, including "Tunnelvision", "The Groove Tube" and "Amazon Women on the Moon". You don't see this anymore and that is probably because cable programming took over this genre of entertainment. I got a good vibe from most of the movie, sometimes the timing is off or the commercials that are being made fun of will be obscure for a modern audience. I thought some of the sex jokes were a little over the top, while others were sexy and a little close to home, "Turn on the News." Don't think about whether any of it make sense, just look at it as a time capsule from a very weird time in America.

A Movie A Day Summer Project

I am a little frustrated that the summer school session at Fullerton starts in late June, the same week Dolores gets done with school. I basically have three weeks to myself and can't do much except around the house, Not that I would do much anyway, but having to do it alone is annoying, I've decided on an ambitious writing media project. Since it is summer time and I have a huge nostalgia for the years I grew up in movie theaters, I decided I would launch this Summer blog. I'm going to try to watch one movie a day from the summers of the 1970's. Some of those films my family took me to, but the real reason that I loved this time was that I made most of the choice, I saw films with my friends, girlfriend and by myself. Many of the movies were terrible, (ORCA) but they evoke a mood, time or place. Memory is something that I expect I will someday long for and I better help myself a bit along the way. I went thru the IMBD and pulled films that opened between May and August in the years 10970 -1979. My memory was already a little fuzzy because there were a number of movies that I thought were summer films that actually opened in March or April., To be honest, I may have seen them in the summer since in those days a film could stay in theaters for several months, instead of having to be off the screen in two weeks to get ready for the video release. I picked films that I actually saw with maybe two or three exceptions. The films I did not see were movies that slipped by, but could easily have filled a summer night for me because of my interest in the juvenile, political or sentimental. My kids will tell you I am a soft-hearted marshmallow but I also had a cynical streak. To the best of my ability I will try to recall the circumstances, personalities and reactions I had to these movies. Most of these comments will not be full blown reviews but rather quick insights into a time and personality. I see that this seems very narcissistic, so if you are not interested, don't read, but I hope you might find some of the memories insightful or that they stimulate you to remember trivia that you are glad is a part of your own life. I have no particular strategy for the order in which I will watch the films. They could be from 1971 one day and 1978 the next. To the Left you will find a list of the films I will try to get to. I started out having access to some format of the film in 42 of the 135 movies listed. I have started acquiring more along the way and that will be part of the story as well. If you come across this and have a suggestion or want me to do a particular film, let me know. I will say however that July 4 is reserved for JAWS. It has been a long tradition at the house and I intend to keep it.