Turner Classic Movies Presents Casablanca 70th Anniversary Event

Turner Classic Movies Presents Casablanca 70th Anniversary Event





There is no reason to go into detail or review the story of this classic film. If you need that kind of information you are on the wrong site. What kind of person are you who would not know and love this movie? I'm not sure I want to know. I can say that once again the movie was the pure delight that it has been since I first saw it when I was eight years old. It would be twenty two years old when I saw it on a Sunday afternoon movie program, probably KHJ TV channel Nine here in the Los Angeles area. In those days old movies were the backbone of the local channels, back before they started buying re-runs of TV shows, strip programming of game shows, and daytime talk shows. Only the network affiliated stations could afford original programming like soap operas, so the locals usually played movies from packages they had leased or that belonged to their parent companies. KHJ was an RKO station and probably had the rights before all the repackaging and corporate mergers turner small time outfits into branches of the mega firms. Sundays in the 1960's were filled with Bogart Flynn, and Cagney movies. Musicals were offered but were frequently cut down to fill time slots. With a strong narrative like this, there was too much danger in cutting things out so the time slots would be adjusted to get all of the movie in.

Robert Osborne with an Intro to the Film.

My parents almost named me Laura May, but since I wasn't a girl they nearly defaulted to Kit Carson. I lucked out and they finally decided on the name of the main character from their favorite movie, I became Richard (usually Rick to them) because of Casablanca. Bogart and Bergman are so terrific in this that many other performances might be overshadowed. I noticed two great sequences where Ingrid Bergman does all the acting with her eyes and mouth, no dialogue, no gestures, just her face, and what a face. One of those scenes is where she is watching her husband Victor Laszlo take over the room and order the playing of the French National anthem in response to the Germans boisterous Deutchland Uber Alles. She is amazing, but what many will miss is how good Paul Henried is in that scene. You can feel the passion he brings to the cause as you read her eyes and know that it was hero worship that lead her to marriage with him, not sexual passion. He sometimes comes off as a wet blanket but if you are watching, you know how good he had to be to overcome the great love story at the heart of this movie.

I guess I should not suggest that Claude Rains would be overshadowed, after all next to Bogart himself, he had the best lines in the film. His stammered thank you upon receiving his winnings after claiming to be shocked about the gambling is hysterical. There are so many casual asides with Bogart and the evil Major Strasser, that an inventory would be pointless, but pay attention to the playful way he gives those lines or the gleam in his eye as he looks at another potential romantic victim. He is the most lovable cad in the history of movies, because he plays the part not as a letch, but as if he were really interested in all the women he exploits. He is charmed by Bergman's beauty, envious but not licking his lips like a wolf. Of course he turns out to be the ultimate hero by choosing sides like Bogart does when his ability to ignore the tragedy going on in the world finally runs out.

Two films never leave me dry eyed. Along with "It's a Wonderful Life", "Casablanca" pretty much guarantees waterworks from me. As Rick sits in the dark of his bar, in the most distant place he could retreat to, his forlorn curse about encountering Ilsa again is heartbreaking. When Rick tells Ilsa that they will always have Paris, it is a grown up response to the sad dilemma they find themselves in. It also means that we have to suck it up and accept that they will never be together. That is tough because that is what we all want ultimately.

The event last night wasn't sold out but it was at 80% capacity and everyone was happy to be there. The other eleven theaters were not doing any business but a seventy year old film, still managed to bring in a crowd on a Wednesday night. It was my wife's birthday and she seemed happy to be spending it in our favorite club, after all Everybody comes to Ricks.

Prometheus Trailer Premire at AMC

Last week I checked on one of my Facebook links and there was an invite for me to attend a Special Event at the Downtown Disney AMC Theater. The new trailer for the movie Prometheus was being launched with an on-line streaming event that included a Q & A with Director Ridley Scott. Now Sir Ridley Scott is one of the masters of modern cinema and I am Jones-ing for this movie like you would not believe. He is maybe the most creatively visual of the major directors out there. His original background was in art and advertising. "Alien", "Blade Runner", "Legend", and "Gladiator" are all stunning works of visual splendor. If you have seen the teaser trailer for "Prometheus", you can tell it is in a similarly grandiose style.

I had to go through a complicated process which involved signing up for a movie promotion site I had not heard of before in order to get the passes. Here is the PDF file that shows the ticket:

Of course my daughter Amanda is as big an "Alien" geek as I am, she believes all the best movies open in June to celebrate her birthday, so she was looking forward to this as much as I was. Well it was a rainy day here in Southern California, and the freeways were slow and the parking lot at Downtown Disney was Full. We had to wait like vultures for a spot and then scamper through the rain to get to the Theater. There was a long line for the theater the screening was in, but when we got to the end there was an attendant who directed us with our invitation to the front and a lanyard and pass to go on in. Yeah Stubbs card membership.

The front of the theater was set up as you see in the picture at the start of this post. There were a view brief announcements and then the trailer was screened for us in 3-D. Here it is in all of it's magnificence.








After the awe that we just witnessed, Ridley Scott and Co-Producer and Co-writer of the film Damon Lindelof came out and began the Q & A with a series of questions from on-line viewers, most of which came through Twitter. There were some very descent questions and a good deal of jocular ribbing when it came to keeping mum about the plot of the movie.

When the guests left, we were given another chance to salivate over the 3-D trailer. The movie was shot in 3-D, not converted to 3-D. The questions suggest that there are aliens in the film but they are not of a type we have seen before. There was also a very intriguing question about the impact that the story presents on our religious faith and place in the universe. The two film makers thought the question was particularly relevant to the theme of the movie and suggested that we will have some similar provocative questions once we have seen the film.

On our way out of the theater we were presented with full sized posters for the movie. Clearly they saw that we were coming. It was a great experience and I can hardly stand to believe that we still have almost three months until we get to sit down in the dark and experience the whole thing for ourselves. It should be exciting, frightening and profound. Of course it will also look spectacular.

AMC Has added the video feed from the event stream to their site. Here it is for you.

Watch live streaming video from prometheus at livestream.com

prometheus on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

John Carter of Mars

This movie is going to suffer an ignoble fate at the box office and that is just too sad. The source material has been an inspiration for science fiction films and fans for decades. The fact that this project was never developed into a film property before now has hurt it in strange ways. It should be an anticipated series of films based on an original character that was popularized in a set of stories told in books. The books unfortunately are nearly a century old and the modern audience has no familiarity with the characters. Edgar Rice Burroughs' other creation, Tarzan, has been adapted for films since Elmo Lincoln first played him in the silent days. Audiences that may never have encountered a Tarzan book have seen a version of Tarzan at some time or other. He is a character that entered the public consciousness and has stayed there even in long fallow periods. John Carter on the other hand has remained a literary icon, for the community of science fiction and fantasy aficionados and those things that were original about the books have been strip mined for movies since Buck Rodgers and Flash Gordon to Star Wars and Dune.  So the material here may seem like old hat although the character of John Carter precedes any of the other modern heroes.

The trailers do not do the film justice. It looks too much like there is a somber theme, attached to a CGI crapfest which comes from the studio that brought us the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise which was a success and the would be "Prince of Persia" franchise that failed. The emphasis in the previews is on the spectacular look of the movie and the alien creatures that inhabit that world. If you don't know who John Carter is, you probably won't care much about seeing the movie. I have to admit that I voraciously consumed Tarzan novels when I was a kid, but never dove into the John Carter story. I remember in college, when we had seen "Star Wars", my debate coach John DeBross, tried to encourage me to read the stories since so much of the Star Wars mythology drew on the Burroughs work. I was too distracted to get around to it and my knowledge of the series is severely limited as a consequence. I can say based on the movie I saw today, that I am encouraged enough to take up the task of catching up with a hundred years of science fiction history.

A couple of things about the movie stand out and should encourage viewers to seek it out. To begin with, the tone of the film is set pretty effectively with the bookend story that puts the author Burroughs into his own fictional work. The start of the movie details the background of the John Carter character without revealing too much. It provides a reason for us to want to follow this character into the story. The technology for his transportation to Mars is partially explained and it turns out it is less space travel than astral projection. The performance of Taylor Kitch in the lead is fine, he seems a little contemporary at times, but plays the southerner he is supposed to be solidly due to some appropriate dialogue and vocal tone. He is a gentleman from the South, not a redneck farmer but a Captain in the Army of Northern Virginia. He manages the transition to life on Mars (Barzoom) about as well as any man of the times could hope to.  The other strong part of the story is the Princess of Mars that he comes to know and defend and is the romantic interest for his character. She starts off a little too eager but settles into a more serious character who finally begins to realize the sacrifices she might have to make to save her planet. She is not so much a damsel in distress as a warrior scientist that needs some common sense and love. The actress Carol Lynn plays her with just a right amount of sensuality but a lot more intelligence. 

Mars is depicted as a dry and barren planet nearing the end of it's life cycle. This is the way it has been visualized by movies since the earliest of times. The origin of this vision is contained in this story.  While there is a significant amount of CGI in the backgrounds and sets, it did not feel overdone. There were maybe a couple of scenes where the goal seemed to be to wow us but most of the time the film makers stuck to their story. The alien races are visualized in an adventure action style that is reminiscent of old pulp novels, horns in their jaws, multiple arms, body tattoos, and friendly and dangerous animals to interact with. There is some good humor in the tribal story of the race that Carter first encounters, that helps keep us in mind that we are watching an entertainment. It may strain at credibility as most fantasy will, but it sets up some believable moments to keep us in the story. The story is much too complicated to try and explain. The character names all sound similar and it sometimes feels like a Russian novel with hard to pronounce names and characters that can easily be mixed up with one another. In "Dune" back in the 1980s, David Lynch gave characters internal dialogue to try to clarify the story. That had the effect of making the movie portentous.  George Lucas would have some long scene of exposition that is stuck into the middle of the story and slows the pace of the movie but then he would try to slam it back into action with an elaborate and overlong set piece.  Here they go for something in the middle. The characters sometimes verbalize plot, usually they try to show it and plenty of times we are left to infer it, which may leave a viewer confused at times. Even if you lose track of all the characters, you still have a pretty good sense of who the good guys and bad guys are.

Your willingness to give into the pulp roots of the story and accept the complications of plot and character will be your best guide for determining if you will enjoy this movie. I was very much surprised by how much it all worked despite my familiarity with the world Burroughs had created. The battles are epic and well staged, the look of the movie seems true to it's roots, and best of all, the growing relationship of the two leads and the resolution of the story left me hopeful about the characters.  They spent a lot of money making this movie and most of it ends up on screen. I am just afraid that it will not mean much to most potential customers and they will move on to some other film that is not as much fun or as ambitious. John Carter does not succeed entirely, but there is plenty here to satisfy the  twelve year old boy in all of us.

AMC Stubbs Program

I was not a fan of the program when it first started. I enjoyed the surprise of a promotion on my ticket with the old Movie watcher program. I must say however, it is nice to know how much I have got back on ticket purchases and concession spending. In the year since the program started, I have received $260 back. You earn $10 for every $100 you spend. That means I spent $2600 at AMC Theaters in the last year. That could be one nice vacation, but instead I had over fifty mini vacations and got to eat popcorn too.

Universal Celebrates 100 Years

OK, I'm a movie whore selling for the man. I just love the promotional stuff studios put out celebrating anniversaries and old films. It makes me want to watch them all again.

FOR SHAME, OSCARS! 2012

Someone else posted this on Youtube and it seems appropriate to share. Some of these might be better known in TV but there are definitely some glaring omissions.

Prometheus - Guy Pearce Weyland Viral Video (HD)

This movie is going to be incredible. This is a fantastic monologue presented as a TED video setting up the premise of the movie. I don't know how much Guy Pearce is in the movie, but this sets the tone for something amazing.