Drew and Bob: The Masters of Movie Art

The great video above is from "Beyond the Marquee" and is part of an ongoing web series devoted to the movies. We had the pleasure of visiting the exhibit the day of the reception. Unfortunately our plans for the evening precluded us from staying for what looked like a wonderful gathering. Tom Peak, the son of artist Bob Peak was there early and he spoke to several of us about his father's work. I saw Drew Struzan pull up and get out of his car just as we were leaving. It took a lot of energy on my part not to blow off our plans for later in the evening and just follow him inside.

I'd taken one cell phone shot before I noticed the sign asking that there be no photography. I stopped immediately but after seeing the work displayed in the above video, my guess is that it will not offend anyone too much if I share that picture here.

The works here are by the late Bob Peak, an artist who defined movie illustration design in the 60s and seventies. I'm staring straight ahead as I type this and I have his work for Excalibur on the cover of the Laserdisc on the wall. According to the exhibit notes, Bob Peak was most proud of the campaign art he did for "Apocalypse Now". This art for "Silverado" hung on my wall in the form of a poster for several years. I may dig it out and return it to it's previous spot.

I have written a couple of posts on the Drew Struzan documentary, including the listing on my ten favorite films from last year. The exhibit gave me a chance to see the detail work on some of those iconic images. I envy those with the powers and imagination to create in this manner.

If you are in the Southern California area, you really should take the trip over to Forest Lawn Glendale to see the exhibit. The museum there is lovely and although it might be disconcerting to be at a cemetery, the views are spectacular and it is free.

Lone Survivor

I must tell you, I am pretty damn devastated right now. This movie is a tribute to the warrior spirit that defends us in some of the darkest places on Earth. The fortitude and physical stamina that it takes to become a Navy Seal is hard for anyone to imagine, and that's just the training phase. When these men stand up for us they take risks and make sacrifices that frankly put the rest of us to shame. There are moments here when you will wince with pain from what you are seeing, and then you will remember that you are only watching a movie and the men that when through it were not just acting, they were living and dying in this nightmare. Much like the brutal opening of "Saving Private Ryan", the combat sequences here are relentless and unforgiving. Director Peter Berg has made a real effort to put us into the fight visually and emotionally and he does a terrific job.

There is a slow build up to the mission's combat and that gives us a chance to learn a few things about our heroes. This was a group story rather than just focusing on the titular figure. Even the Seals that are not part of the ground team are given a place in the story. It is a tough culture of warriors that we are peeking at but they clearly have a sense of loyalty and comradery. It's clear that they are all capable, even the freshest among them. They are doing a job in a place that is far from home and all of them would love to be at home but as we hear in the narration, there is something that burns in them that makes this job their life. At the end of the film we get glimpses of what they sacrifice to do the job, and no one could say that they should not be honored for the choice they made.

The staging of the battle between the Taliban forces the Red Wing team encounters is up close and personal. We can see the injuries that they inflict and that are inflicted upon them. The spray of crimson in these shots is not the grotesque joke of a horror film or a mindless action movie. It is a visualization of the ugliness of war. Death can be sudden or it can be prolonged. The team never stops fighting for every chance they have, even when the odds are overwhelmingly great. There are two sequences that especially bring home the toughness and the desperation of the Seals. They are twice forced to fall back from positions in a way that is hard to watch. It is not a planned exit strategy but a nearly suicidal leap of faith that moves them down the side of the mountain. As the bodies spin through rocks, trees and assorted brush, we witness the brutal effect on the human form and roll our fingers up and duck our heads in coordination with the Seals. In a regular action film, you would see the spy/soldier/explorer walk away with a minimal amount of damage. This film shows you what the damage would really look and feel like. It is not something that you just brush off.

Some of the secondary team are taken out in a shocking moment that reflects the capricious nature of battle. We watch as four men fight for every inch of their lives and make the most of every opportunity they get, and at the same time we see a dozen others who get no opportunities and no choices and they are gone in an instant. All of them could have been in the fight if given a chance, but that is not the way war works. It sometimes snuffs out the strong and smart and brave without giving them the same valor, even though they deserve it no less. The four main actors are all excellent in their roles, but Mark Wallberg and Ben Foster deserve a little extra notice for the exceptional work they do in playing out the grim parts of the story. Foster's final scene is a heartbreaking combination of acting and direction that is sad and grim and real. Wallberg has an opportunity to actin some non combat scenes toward the end of the movie that reveal a little bit more about why we are fighting in Afghanistan. The Taliban may have been freedom fighting mujahedin at one point, but they are oppressive bullies who are trying to gain control over a population that is not all on their side. There are people in Afghanistan who want to be left to their own devices and traditions. We can only hope that they will be able to carry on when the U.S. has moved out. I was unprepared for the emotional wallop that the final act gave me and while the movie tries hard to remain non-political, this part of the story does carry some weight in explaining why our presence has been needed.

We were originally scheduled to see this when it opened wide, with our friends who currently have a son serving in the Marines in Afghanistan. I know they would be proud of all the American forces fighting on our behalf, but they might also be reminded of the danger their oldest is in. This is the kind of film that honors American efforts in the war on terror rather than mocking it. Hollywood has tried to feed us stories in the past about American hubris or arrogance in these conflicts. Certainly we have been less than perfect, but an audience should get a chance to see the valiant efforts of our troops as well as the faults in our policies. This film has been a success because it is a well made look at real people doing an unimaginably difficult job and trying to live up to the values we want the world to know us by. I may have lucked out that our plans fell through to see this with them, I escaped the specter of weeping in front of my friends and knowing that they have so much more reason to weep than I do. Thank Goodness we have such men to depend on.

007 Double Feature At the Egyptian

For the second week in a row, I made it down to Hollywood to catch a classic on the big screen at the Egyptian Theater. Actually there were two classics, both James Bond films from the heyday of the 1960s. These are the two films that most turned 007 into a a massive popular cultural phenomenon and the most consistently successful film series of  all time. The pairing was irresistible to me and although I could occassionally hear the snickering of hipsters in the audience over the costumes in the movies or a piece of plot line that seems a little fantastic, the general response was one of love from the hundreds of us who managed to make it there and see the first and greatest James Bond, Sean Connery.

Goldfinger

It was just last June that I saw Goldfinger on the big screen along with another Sean Connery feature "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade". I can and do regularly watch this film. It is as entertaining as any movie you are likely to see and it is in my opinion the greatest of all the James Bond films. I won't relive the entire countdown to Skyfall that I did in 2012, but there are a few posts that you might enjoy here.

This first is a memory piece and review that I did early in the year leading up to Skyfall.

This is the KAMAD Video Blog that I posted after the Father's Day visit to see 007 and Dr. Jones together.

I did notice something a bit odd in last night's screening. The end credit did not list the correct movie coming up next in the sequence.  Here is the way it looks in the DVD remaster from a half dozen years ago:

It properly lists "Thunderball" as the next film. On last night's print the film listed was "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". Amanda and I talked about this and she is of the opinion that this was the original listing because they did not know that "Thunderball" would be next due to all the legal issues surrounding the property. I tended to agree with her except that "You Only Live Twice" came before "OHMSS" and "Thunderball" was released the year after "Goldfinger" so they should have been in production at the time they did release the third film. The answer according the IMDB is:

 In the original end title credits, which featured the famous "James Bond will return in..." teaser, the next film advertised was On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969). However, when the producers began pre-production, they were unable to secure the Swiss locations needed for the film and decided to make Thunderball (1965) instead. The end title teaser was later changed to advertise "Thunderball".

 So that mystery is solved for the moment.

Thunderball

I don't think I have a previous post exclusively on "Thunderball".  I do however have this section of a post that I have copied over for you:

The original "Thunderball" was one of the biggest blockbusters of the 1960s. When adjusted for inflation it stands as the most financially successful of all the Bond movies. The audacity of Goldfinger was multiplied by a bigger canvas for the story telling. More exotic locations and bigger set pieces are put into place. As a kid I wanted the 007 lunchbox with all the frogmen fighting underwater. It was an image that sold all of us on the adventure we had coming. As far as I know, this is the first story to exploit the idea of nuclear terrorism. It was not of course the last. Here was SPECTRE as a real organization, with a board of directors and a chairman presiding over crime and doling out death as a punishment for failing the company. In a way, with all of the numbers, and secret locations and passwords or codes, it is the mirror image of MI6, and the bureaucracy that Bond actually represents.
There are great sequences in the picture and some real imaginative gizmos in the story. The jet-pack is just so outlandish that it gives the ejector seat a run for it's money as the most over the top toys of 007 in the early films. The miniature breathing apparatus looks like it could be practical for emergencies. Bond gets taken for a ride in an early Mustang, he has an underwater version of the jet-pack, and he gets yanked into the sky forty years before Batman uses the same technology in "The Dark Knight". The problems with the film have to do with pacing. A slog through the stuff at Shrublands, hide and seek in the Mardi Gras like parade in Jamaica, and the underwater battle looks cool but needed some editing. "Thunderball" is like one of those great Thanksgiving meals with so many choices, that are so rich and you want to try them all. When you do, you feel a little sick afterwards. "Thunderball" doesn't exactly make me sick, but my blood sugar is usually a little high after I watch it. I should get up and go for a walk, but I usually just fall asleep contentedly. Another blogger El Santo, did a fantastic piece on the music from "Thunderball', that goes way beyond the theme song. I hope he is OK with my linking it here, you should read and listen.

I will also mention that this film was one from my youth that I know gave me a nightmare or two. When Angelo Palazzi playing the doppelganger of Major François Derval gets stuck in the seat belt in the plane he just hijacked and landed in the ocean, Largo cuts his air hose and he drowns flailing away for help and oxygen. It gave me the creeps watching it and I dreamed about that death on more than one occasion. 

Sometimes there are little things that might slip by on the television screen that will not escape your attention on a screen thirty feet high and seventy feet wide. Last night I remembered one of those weird little details when the image came up for just a brief couple of seconds. There is a dog, taking a leak in the middle of a scene, and it either was too complicated to shoot it over or the editor just thought it was a lark and left it in. I went in search and fopund it on my DVD of the film and thought I'd share it with you here.

 As Bond is trying to escape in the confusion of the parade, two of his pursuers are bisected in this shot by a random animal lifting it's leg and letting it out. Amanda missed it but I have now made sure that none of you reading this will ever miss it again. 

We have a long wait until the next James Bond film, but with a rich 50 year history and opportunities like this screening at the American Cinematique  at the Egyptian, we will always have plenty to talk about. 

 

The Lego Movie

I have a vague notion of playing with Tinker Toys when I was a kid and I know my older brother had an Erector set that I envied because it had gears and motors and a lot of shiny metal pieces.  I never knew the joy of Legos as a kid . When I became a parent, I must have deliberately chosen to keep legos out of the house for fear of the mess and pain they might represent (stepping on a sharp plastic item, barefoot and in the dark was something I wanted to avoid). We did play with the Legos at the daycare or at the doctors office but there were never any sets or instructions, just building blocks. Sometime in the last twenty years, Legos marketing figured out that connecting with brand-name icons would move even more product for kids who wanted their toys to resemble their movies and TV shows. So characters and action figures became part of the Lego Universe and it has all lead to this, a movie about building blocks.

Way back in the early eighties I was listening to speeches that criticized half hour kids cartoons that were basically shilling for toys. You know, G.I. Joe, Masters of the Universe, and My Little Pony. All of those toys eventually had movies made out of them and if you judged by those films, you would know what my students were worried about, but if you started with this film, you would have no worries at all. This is a movie, featuring toys, that is less about selling a product and more about playing creatively. While you will never be able to see this film and not think of the product, you will certainly not think of it in the same way. This movie is anarchistic, colorful and somewhat demented. It is also funnier than most of the comedies that you see being advertised. I have not yet seen , nor am I likely to, "Ride Along", but the jokes in the trailers and ads for that have not made me smile once much less laugh out loud. "The Lego Movie" had me chuckling at the first trailer and seeing the film today, basically repeated the experience for ninety minutes. This movie is a kick and a contender for best animated feature in next years award lineups. 

The story is a hero's quest featuring the "Legos" figures from most of the popular play sets and some that I'm sure were invented for the movie. There is a funky wizard modeled  after "Gandalf" but don't think it is Gandalf because he appears as himself briefly in one sequence. The ancient giver of wisdom is voiced by the marvelous Morgan Freeman, whose voice was delivered to us by the Gods. Backing up Freeman are the voices of dozens of well known movie and TV personalities, all cast for the unique qualities of their voices. I was listening to the voice of our hero, Emmet, and I confused it with the voice of Chris Parnell. Emmet's range is a little higher than Cyril Figus but they both have that plain, somewhat emasculated tone that makes them the vanilla of the cast of crazy vocal performances. The movie features voice acting from; Jonah Hill, Will Ferrell, Will Arnet, Will Forte, Shaquille O'Neil, Billy Dee Williams, Channing Tatum, Elizabeth Banks and a whole bunch more.  Drawing special mention along with Morgan Freeman, is the king of Winter badassery, Liam Neeson himself. I missed his work in "The Nut Job" a couple of weeks ago, but it seems that Mr. Neeson has been regularly employed because this is the second of three films he has coming out in January and February. His dual role here as "Good Cop"/"Bad Cop" is a jewel of comic vocal variety. Freeman and Neeson alone might have been worth the price of admission but there is also the visual spectacular to bring you in.

The city scapes, oceans, clouds and just about everything else is rendered in "lego" form. The effect is hypnotically amazing and very surreal at times. The space craft and cars and building, you sort of expect from the toys, but the backgrounds and scenery are also visualized as lego constructions and it give the movie an odd sense of "pop" art and engineering genius.  This movie is really well imagined and the look might be worth a 3D investment although I was happy with the traditional view that we experienced it through. 

All the crazy visuals would be only interesting to look at for a short while. You need a story and some dialogue to go along with it. The plot is not especially surprising, although the idea of the alternate universes of "Legos" colliding is a fun and creative addition to the story process. The characters are realized in the most creative part of the film. The action figures talk like they would be the characters, as if they were being voiced by a creative child. Ferrell's President Business drops in an aside here and there to reveal his true colors in some most amusing comments. Will Arnet parodies both Bruce Wayne and Batman with a voice that is deep and dark and silly at the same time. It took a delicate mind to write some of these lines and not have them come off as loud and obvious at times. Pratt's timing in delivering the gee whiz cliches and oh oh jokes is just perfect. Although we do get sucker punched into more Will Ferrell than I would have preferred, in the end he does a good job as well, keeping his usual screaming persona to a minimum. 

There are some serious attempts to make the movie a message about the faults of conformity, but to do so without kicking the kids that can actually follow directions in the teeth for doing so. The number one song in the "Lego" universe is a parody of upbeat dance infected pop that passes for entertainment these days, but it is also catchy as heck and like the pop music it is making fun of, it is very entertaining. 
Listen to this clip to get a sense of what I mean:


I would strongly recommend this film to adults and children. You will find plenty to enjoy, and a confusing set of messages that don't detract from the spirit of the film. It is hard to imagine that the one film made from a specific toy, that I liked was one about a toy that I know next to nothing about and would seem to be incredibly boring. It is the opposite of boring and it is a terrific way to build your weekend into a winner.

A Little Birthday Flashback

Seeing how I am getting on in years, I'm looking for ways to keep track of the past. Here is a quick list of five movies I've seen from the year I was born.

Lawrence of Arabia Screening

Somewhere over the last couple of years, Amanda has fallen in love with this movie. I have admired it completely since I saw the restoration with my Father back in 1989 at the Century City AMC Complex. Last night was the second time in 7 months that we got to experience it on the big screen. That's in addition to the two times I've watched it on the fabulous Blu Ray Special package that I got as a Father's Day gift. I'm not going to do a complete post on it today, but I will post a link to the Vlog I put up last June, in case you missed it.

Last nights screening was at the Egyptian Theater. The audience was packed and there were hundreds of people seeing it for the first time.

Needless to say we had a great time. Amanda's New Years Resolution is to see this on the big screen every time it plays somewhere in the L.A. Area. That seems good to me. 

The Academy Goes off the Deep End

Bruce Broughton defends actions after rescinded Academy Award nomination - CBS News



Composer Bruce Broughton has been stripped of his Academy Award Nomination for a song he composed for a small Christian based film. The song was a surprise nominee because big time music figures who made contributions to other films did not get nominated and this did. There is not a clear statement concerning a rule violation, instead the implication is that because Broughton is a former governor of the Academy, that a personal e-mail carries with it some extra onus and maybe even intimidation. Having read the e-mail in question, I have to call BS on that. His tentative outreach was not to the entire music branch, and it is the mildest form of promotion you can imagine. The idea that he is using his position in the Academy as a way of gaining a nomination is preposterous. If this were true, no one actively serving on the board could ever hope their work in the industry could be nominated  at the same time they are volunteering to administer Academy business.



These people are shooting themselves in the foot and doing so in a way that is embarrassing and humiliating to a working professional who has given his time to the very institution that is now stepping on him. Unless there is some other issue that remains in the background, this is an incredibly unfair act and probably completely unnecessary. The chance of this piece of music winning the award is zero. There is more pressure in the guilds and production centers to vote for any nominee than this little film could ever muster. If I were a member of the music branch, I would be writing to the Academy at this very moment, protesting this decision. I would also be worried that any time a famous big time musician got bypassed, that someone is going to suffer the consequences of a political hissy fit.







Listen to this beautiful piece of music and know that the people who worked on this still have something to be proud of.



I had never heard of this movie before but I am now going to look for it and try to watch and post on it. I hope that the low budget and other limitations still allow a good story to be told. Mr Broughton, I have heard your music in many films and television projects and they have always been worthy and professional. You have probably heard for years how great the score from "Silverado" was. Hold your head up high and know that you did nothing wrong, this is just the cutthroat industry that you have made your living in for many years. There are wonderful people in the industry but there are also a lot of self important ass kissers. You stepped on someones toes by asking for the same kind of consideration that anyone else would be entitled to and they would usually demand it at the top of their lungs. I'm sorry you have suffered this indignity. I hope that whatever set of envious colleagues were responsible for this travesty will certainly receive the karma they have earned from this tantrum.