Chef

Every few years a movie comes along that focuses on food and makes you want to eat, now. I remember seeing "Like Water for Chocolate" and hoping I could find a Mexican place that cooked food like that. When I saw "Eat, Drink, Man, Woman" I wanted to consume foods that I had never heard of before. "Big Night" romances Italian food so much that it might be better to eat than to fall in love. Hell, even food made by a rat was appealing a few years ago. This movie sits in that tradition. Nearly every scene will have your mouth watering in hopes that this restaurant, or food truck, or just that guy, would appear on the scene and you'd be able to enjoy a meal that reminds everyone why people watch the Food Network in the first place.

Along with the great looking food, there is a nice story here about living your passion. Chef Carl has a history of promise but a present of so what? When an opportunity to impress a food critic goes wrong, he must figure out how to restore his status as a Chef and balance his personal life, especially with the son he has neglected since divorcing the kid's Mom. This story will not surprise you. It goes exactly where you think it is going to end up. It does take that journey in an entirely charming and entertaining path, so even though you know the destination, the journey is still worth your time.

Jon Favreau has cast himself in the movie that he wrote and directed. It is a nice return to the indie roots that he has not haunted much since directing some pretty big films in the last few years. For my money, he is a great storyteller and makes a picture worthwhile without special effects and big budgets. He is however helped by some star power. Dustin Hoffman shows up for a couple of scenes to create a motivation to get out of the rut the chef has been stuck in. Scarlett Johansson buts in a little time as a minor character that gets as stimulated as we do by the process of creating great food. Robert Downey Jr. appears in one scene, steals focus for the whole sequence and than leaves us with a sense that the world is a weird place. The standouts however are not the big names but the more modestly familiar. Sophia Vergara is the most wonderful ex-spouse a person could have. If there is a flaw in the script, it is that we have no idea why the two exes are no longer together. They understand one another better than anyone else in the story. John Leguizamo and Bobby Cannavale are terrific background characters. In the second half of the movie Leguizamo steps out a bit more and the movie is better for it. Emjay Anthony is a young kid playing a young kid. He has a pretty good part and shows a nice amount of promise. Finally, Oliver Platt is in the movie, and he is wonderful in the role of a food critic that pushes the story forward.

Several other elements about the story make it a little more unique. There is a solid little critique of social media culture contained in many segments of the movie. There is also a very good demonstration of the power that culture can have for the benefit of people as well. That benefit is not just limited to the economic process of connecting with customers, but also finding ways to connect with human beings. I appreciated that it was not a complete satire on the on-line world. It should be a good reminder to everyone that what you spill onto the net, is going to stay there and all of us should be cautious with that responsibility.

"Chef" is great counter-programming for the summer. In a season filled with sequels that are not as great as we might want, and original blockbusters that are loud and somewhat crude, it is great to have these smaller films that get by on wit and charm to make the summer days more passable. This movie will be a crowd pleaser, but the crowds will be moderately sized. I've been trying to get to it since it opened at the end of may, so for many of you I am late to the party. I feel satisfied by that because this was a good mid-summer bracer and leaves me hopeful that other films will come along and charm me for the rest of the year as well.

Jersey Boys

Let's do a checklist to start with.

Do I like Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons?      Yes
Do I like Clint Eastwood as a Director?                Yes
Did I like the stage version of Jersey Boys?          Yes
Do I love musical films?                                        Yes
Did I like the Movie Version of the story?             For the most part

For the record, my wife loved the movie and does not have any of the reservations that I have except for one. I'll tell you what that is at the end of this post, but for most of the film I had a great time and enjoyed the songs, staging and look of the movie. It does lack something and I'm having a hard time articulating it but I will try. Some musicals can expand and fill a screen with color and dance and energy as a way of opening up the stage bound version of the play. An intimate story like this suffers a little from being so close on the characters and by keeping the structure of having each of the "Seasons" narrate different parts of the story, Eastwood and the screenwriters (who also did the book of the musical) remind us that this is a theatrical piece more than a film. The energy of a movie is different and the transitions and storytelling work in completely different ways than in a stage musical. The reverse is true as well, "Beauty and the Beast" as a film flowed like a stream over a perfect hillside and into our hearts. The stage version feels like it is a wave engulfing us in it's musical tropes. It is a different experience and for me not as satisfying.

"Jersey Boys" the movie tells the same story of the rise of a group of New Jersey delinquents to pop stardom and the tribulations they go through. The songs are worked into the story as part of the backstage process but the songs don't tell the story as in a traditional musical, they just highlight moments from the story. It worked on stage pretty well because it is done in a minimalist style. The mind's eye fills in the blank spaces and connects the dots. In a film, all of that is done for you and the songs stand out as non organic parts of the film. They are not what the story is about. This is not a hodgepodge "Frankenstein" creation like "Rock of Ages" or "Mama Mia", which strech songs that already exist to fit them into a story. These songs are distinct and could be performed at any point in the story. They only advance the story by their success or style, not by their subject.(The one exception being "Oh What a Night", which is tied into an event early in their careers but the song came later in the history of the band).

The integration of the songs into the film is smooth and the staging in several scenes is excellent. The first performance of "Sherry" was choreographed in the style of pop groups at the time and looked terrific. The Ed Sullivan performance was also a standout scene, it was another one that advanced the story but the song mattered not. The staged version in a nightclub of the debut of "Can't Take My Eyes off of You" was also special. When the big band horn section comes in with a curtain revel, it sends chills through the audience on screen and in the theater. The end credits seemed to have the things that a musical needs, choreography from the whole cast, a willingness to suspend disbelief and everyone sings. If the whole movie had been like that, it would have been different enough from the play that it would stand out. It feels like they played it pretty safe by sticking closely to the style of the play and that';s where I think my reservations are for the most part.

The great Christopher Walken appears as a mob connected guardian angel, but that old song and dance guy does not get to do much until the credit sequence. I assume the guys in the lead roles are the actors from the Broadway version of the play because I did not recognize any of them and they are all talented singers and performers. Their acting styles seem to emphasize stage theatrics more than film acting. The reunion at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction is a good example of what I mean. They let staging, costuming and body language do the acting. The makeup conveys the passage of time rather than their facial expressions. That reservation that I mentioned that my wife shared with me has to do with the make-up. I did not see Clint's much derided film on J.Edgar Hoover, but the biggest criticism I remember reading was of the make-up job on Leo. I guess Clint is not very focused on this aspect of the film because the make-up work here was not very convincing. Even though it is not supposed to last long since we flashback almost immediately to the younger versions of the actors, I think the depiction of them as older needs to be convincing, and it was not.

All in all I liked the movie but I can't enthusiastically say I loved it. There are moments that impressed me but there were several times when the picture was just not working the way a film should. I applaud Clint for trying his hand at a musical. He doesn't embarrass himself, but I suspect that the remake of "A Star is Born" that he has been connected to will probably need more than Beyonce to get made.

AMC Classic Series: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

Willy Wonka on Wednesday at AMC. Could not talk the wife into accompanying me to the theater which is weird because she loves the movie and it is hot out today. Of course the fact that we were up till late in the morning after going to the Kiss concert may have had something to do with it. I on the other hand have no self control even though I too an tired. I'm going to link to my official post from the movie a day project in 2010. I do have a few extra comments to make however and I plan on being brief. There are only two other parties here to enjoy this classic on a Wednesday afternoon. Still, it seems hopeful.

After watching this I have decided that at my funeral, I want to be dressed in a purple, velvet set of tails, a copper colored top hat and a brocade waistcoat. Willy Wonka rocks the fashion scene. On the way back into town we stopped in Vegas overnightand I dropped a twenty into the Willie Wonka slot machine. It is a little strange to use a kids movie to pick an adults pocket, but of course it is targeted at baby boomers with nostalgic genes like me. When the Oompa Loompas come out for the bonus, it's as if you are one of the naughty children on the tour and they make an example of you. 

Peter Ostrum, who plays Charlie, reminds me of my friend Johnathan Yenny when he was a little boy. He is serious but has a ready smile, and is willing to help in any way he can, and he is a dead ringer at the same age. The part of Charlie was cast very well in this film, and his scene at the end when he swallows his pride and shame and does the right thing is all the more effective because he was not a child actor like the other kids but just seemed like a real little boy. Gene Wilder just turned 83, and he is missed on the big screen and the small. There are plenty of other films of his that I need to catch up on, like "The World's Greatest Lover", but he will always be identified as the magical Mr. Wonka in my head. 

 I've probably violated some federal law by taking a picture of the movie while it is playing, but it was a lovely scene and I wanted everyone to know that it really was up on the full sized screen.

For some reason, my original comments on the movie are one of the most viewed pages each week on the blog, so it is not hard to find. It might even be listed over on the right side of the home page, but if it is not, just click here and you will be transported by the Wonkavator immediately to that post to finish your visit. Sorry, no lifetime supply of chocolate comes with your visit, just a lifetime of warmth and good memories.

Billy Wilder Blogathon: The Lost Weekend

I'm stepping out of the format for this blog to participate in a blogathon for Once Upon a Screen. Aurora has invited us to post in any way we would like on a Billy Wilder film. I was lucky in that no one had yet selected Wilder's first Oscar winning project, "The Lost Weekend". Maybe the reason that it had not been chosen yet is that unlike "Double Indemnity" which came out the year before, "The Lost Weekend" has not aged well. It does not fit into a well loved genre like "Double Indemnity" and "Sunset Blvd.", it is not a beloved comedy featuring another Jack Lemmon performance, and it is as straight forward a drama as you might expect from any other film maker rather than Wilder. There are some very nice elements to it but it but it is also over the top and melodramatic and it sells out at the end, these are not characteristics of a Wilder film.

The previous film that Wilder wrote and directed was the film noir featuring Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray. At the end of that picture, both of the protagonists are dead and the film is bleak. In "The Lost Weekend" we are shown how miserable and devastating alcoholism can be. Ray Milland gets to act his ass off because there are sequences that are truly harrowing. When the end comes, and the gun is in his hand and the bullets are in the gun, Wilder pulls back and and gives us an exit from the bleakness. Maybe that's how the book that this is based on ends, I don't know, I never read it, but it sure feels like an ending that would come from studio notes rather than following naturally from what we spent the earlier hundred minutes contemplating.

Wilder appears to have chosen the book to make a movie out of because he wanted to work on the topic of alcoholism after having worked with Raymond Chandler on "Double Indemnity." Alcoholism is the subject of this film but it is not the vague drinking done by most film characters in the forties. Boogie drinks to forget Ingrid Bergman, that's sad but romantic. There is nothing vaguely romantic about the way Don Birnam drinks. He is compulsive and he is a mean drunk. He is not a genial soul who is released from his limitations by drink. The rye that he is fond of is cheap and it's purpose is intoxication and it releases a man with monstrous tendencies. When drunk, he ignores two different women who are flinging themselves at him. When lacking funds to pay for a drink he loses any sense of self respect, begging, stealing and generally being an ass to others. Sometimes he can wax poetic in a state of inebriation, but he can never remember how to put the word together again when he is sober. As a writer, the blank page mocks his lack of sober creativity.



The problem with the film is that it is so melodramatic. Don sweats out his time as he waits for the next drink. He visualizes singers on stage as dancing versions of the top coat he left in the cloakroom that has his bottle in it. He raises his voice and bugs out his eyes so often that you would think he would get sick from doing that, those facial gestures would become a cause rather than a symptom of his illness. Don has a girlfriend who is trying to help him and a brother who is an enabler at first and then a proponent of tough love. Each of them has over the top moments in which their acting styles seem unnatural. Part of this is the times. Actors were less naturalistic at this point and combined with the subject matter it feels like it is too much. There is almost no subtlety in any of the performances.



Milland practically crawls through the scenes where he is trying to find an open pawnbroker to dump his typewriter to get cash for another drink. Maybe it is accurate and for the times acceptable, but the fact that all the pawn shops were closed for Yom Kippur felt like an artifact from a different age. When he is reduced to "borrowing" from a woman's handbag, we are not sympathetic, we want this bum to get slammed hard. That he does get some comeuppance turns out to be another throwback. This is admittedly the first film to deal with this topic in a serious manner, and the idea of the DTs is scary. When trapped in the alcohol wing of Bellevue, Don gets a second hand look at what is coming for him. The screaming thrashing patient in the corner foreshadows but does so so obviously that it takes away some drama. When Don's turn finally shows up, it is a horrifying vision undercut by a creaky visual effect of a flying bat. When the bat strikes however, then the movie takes on the real dark tone it has been working so hard to deserve.



There are some great choices by Wilder in terms of storytelling technique. The tight close up on the moisture rings from his different drinks shows us the passage of time without requiring more than a single shot. In another visual shot using a glass of alcohol, we are pulled below its smooth surface into the world of intoxication. There is a beautiful moment in cinematography when the liquid in a hidden bottle refracts some light and reveals itself to a frantic Don who has blacked out on where he hid the bottle in the first place. The story is constructed of a couple of bookends that take place in what would then have been the present, but much of the exposition occurs in a long segment that is essentially an extended flashback. This is the part where the film is most like a Billy Wilder picture.



This was the first of three "message" pictures in a row to be named Best Picture. It was startling for its time but now seems somewhat tame in it's approach. There are dark themes in the story that fit the mold of some of Wilder's great non-comedies, but there is  that heartwarming sellout at the end. Most people will be glad for the ray of hope, but people who saw Joe Gillis floating in the pool at the start of one film, and Tyrone Power stabbed by Marlene Dietrich at the end of another, will wonder why Ray Milland's brains were not on the bathroom mirror.

Gumby Fest 2014

In what I hope will be a long new tradition, Glendora hosted Gumby Fest at the Civic Center on Saturday.  It was a day long celebration of everything "Gumby". I first became aware of it through a banner strung across the entry intersection of our uptown village shopping district. Those of you not familiar with my adopted town of Glendora, should know that it a quiet little bedroom community about thirty miles east of Downtown Los Angeles. It celebrated it's centennial in 2011 and for much of that time was most widely noted for the citrus industry. Of course in the last fifty years there has not been an orange farm or lemon ranch in sight. Just families trying to raise suburban kids in Southern California.  There were some rock stars who lived in the town, and Sally Rand and Woody Strode both called it home as well. The Surfaris originated here as well. It was news to me though, that the Art Clokey Studio where the Gumby shows of the 60s and 70s was produced was located just a few blocks from my home.

Gumby had originated at NBC championed by Thomas W. Sarnoff, the son of legendary TV executive David Sarnoff. Created by Art and Ruth Clokey in the fifties, the cartoon show was a success in it's first incarnation on the network. Later as an independent production, more cartoons were added to the series and those were produced in the local studio. The studio also produced the "Davey and Goliath" shorts for the Lutheran Church, using the same stop motion, clay animation techniques. A revival of Gumby in the early 1980s after being parodied by Eddie Murphy on SNL, produced an additional one hundred cartoon shorts that played on Nickelodeon. Even kids who have not seen a Gumby cartoon know the character because of the toys. This event was designed to celebrate the character, the studio, the creators and the town that spawned this great cultural artifact.

When my visit began, we arrived at the back of City Hall and immediately encountered a series of "eazy up" booths for community based programs. There was a Nature Conservancy, and the Library Outreach, and Kids Summer programs. The Chamber of Commerce and the City also had booths with brochures and flyers about local events. Out on the lawn were several local businesses, also making an effort to participate by showing products and selling services. My favorite local business for nearly twenty years is Richard's Framing. They have done all of my James Bond Lithographs and several other pieces for us as well and they were represented with a nice Gumby reproduction that I neglected to get a photo of. There were several specialized catering trucks serving great foods to make the carnival atmosphere even more appealing.

As we listened to several young local rock bands play and we walked around the plaza, it was not exactly clear how we should proceed, and then I found the information booth and learned that for the presentations you had to obtain a ticket for each discussion being held in the large seminar room of the library. We had missed the LAIKA Studios presentation, which is too bad because I am looking forward to their next feature "The Box Trolls", but we did slip in just in time for the presentation by"Stoopid Buddies Stoodio" who generates "Robot Chicken" and other animated fare. The five animators who spoke were all inspired by Gumby and they did some comparison talk and showed a couple of short features that they thought fit the mold of Gumby.

  It was very interesting and they answered questions for a lot of people who were interested in animation, including some very young kids who are using frame capture technology on some of their gaming systems to create their own pieces.They were very encouraging and I was impressed with the quality of questions from the audience. We also encountered one bold young man who promoted his own web site during the audience Q and A.We got in just after the introductions so I can't identify these guys for you but they did a great job.

Tickets for the next two presentations were "sold out" (which is a strange term to use since no one paid for any ticket), but we quickly snatched up tickets for the 2:00 presentation "Meet the Gumby Gang". We had a large gap until that discussion so we went down into the Glendora library, where in one of the community rooms a traveling Gumby Museum had been erected. There were old toys on display and several diorama scenes from Gumby Adventures. On the walls were a series of pictures through the years describing the creation of and the creators of Gumby and Davey and Goliath. I wanted to take pictures to post but a sign asked us to refrain from doing so, and I did, at least after I saw the sign. Here is one picture that I took of a photo wall before I realized the no photography policy. I hope it does not offend any of the organizers and if it does, let me know and I will take it down.

We went off site (home) for lunch and came back an hour before our presentation was to start. Part of that time we spent watching clips of Gumby programs and a couple of shorts from the fifties. We would like to have finished the live action/animated "Sound of Thunder" short by William Stromberg, but there was a line up to get into the afternoon event. 

Joe Clokey, the son of Ruth and Art and the keeper of the Gumby flame, presided over the two presentations that we missed and he was a big part of the final presentation of the day "Meet the Gumby Gang". This was a panel discussion involving almost a dozen former employees of the Clokey Studios who had worked on the Sixties era Gumby episodes, the late sixties early seventies Davey and Goliath shorts and the 1980's revival of Gumby. To say the panel was distinguished is to understate the situation. Animators who were major contributors to "The Nightmare Before Christmas", "James and the Giant Peach", "Coraline", dozens of commercials and such non-animated fare as "Star Wars", "Terminator", "The Matrix", and a dozen or more other major motion pictures  regaled us with stories of their formative years at the Clokey studio and their start in the entertainment industry.

I wish I could relate every story that each one told and make it as interesting as they did but it is beyond my skills and memory to properly attribute all of the information to the right person. On the left side of the picture above, wearing the hat is Joe Clokey, who knew most of these guys as a child and asked some interesting questions and made some relevant clarifications when information got a bit conflated. Next to him is Norm DeCarlo, a bay area animator who worked on the 80s revival and subsequent Henry Sellick projects and owns his own studio. He had several dry comments to add to the conversation and frequently inserted a wry observation here and there to what others shared. Next to him is Chris Peterson who also was deeply involved in the 80's revival and who has contributed to LAIKA Studios productions and was part of the team that was Oscar nominated for the 1996 short film "Carhead".  We did not get to hear much from him during the regular presentation, but in the Q and A, he got the opportunity to tell a couple of amusing stories about meeting Clokey and discovering how determined and single-minded Art could be.

Harry Walton started with Clokey Productions in 1968, and as a young kid always wanted to be a part of animation production. He subsequently worked for Cascade Pictures, Coast Effecxts Associates, ILM, Tippet Studio, Skellington Productions, DreamQuest Images, Imageworks and others. He was one of the old timers who could speak to the period when the studio was located here in Glendora and talked in detail about the work environment and the techniques that the studio used to produce their short films.
Seated next to him was Doug Beswick, who started with Clokey a year before Walton, in 1967. He was known at the time as one of the "serious"guys at the studio but he told a charming story about being embarrassed by acting up and ending up in a silly situation confronted by the very serious Ruth Clokey. He has forty years of visual effects work in his background, including creating the armature of "the Terminator". Rich Zim's first job after graduating college was the Gumby animation production in the 1980s. He was quite irreverent and spoke of the falderal that took place at the studio, one episode of which left a piece of clay in Ruth Clokey's drinking water in a mysterious accident. He is another contributor to the Sellick films and directed an episodes of the PJs, the first stop motion series created for TV, featuring Eddie Murphy.

Recognizable by his mane of silver white hair is seven time Academy Award winning makeup artist Rick Baker. He was interested in make-up as a kid but was looking for any kind of job when he got connected by his father who was making a delivery and accidentally ended up at the Clokey Studio in Glendora. His dad suggested that he try going there for a job. So Rick showed up with some of the work he had done and figures he had put together, and they put him to wok doing character design and art direction. As a seventeen year old getting his first job, it sounds like he took every opportunity to learn and every chance he could find to have some mischievous fun. He worked primarily on the Davey and Goliath shorts.Carl Jablonsky who is seated next, believed he had not met Rick before, but Rick remembered a show that they had worked on together where a prop that Jablonski had created ran him over in a scene that they were shooting. Jablonski left film production but has worked in the entertainment industry as a project manager for the theme park industry including stints at Disney Imagineering where his knowledge of lighting and set design was used in many projects. He also worked for the Burbank Studios and ILM. Ron Dexter sitting next to Carl, has directed and shot television commercials for thirty years. He made helicopter gyros for movie shots and steady cams before they were commercially available.

William Stromberg, worked on the Gumby and Davey and Goliath.He also did the short feature based on the Ray Bradbury story "A Sound of Thunder". He did miniatures and and special effects for movies and commercials (including the Chuck wagon dog food adds with the tiny horses and covered wagon). He proudly shared that his two greatest productions were his sons, William a distinguished conductor for many music scores of movies, and Robert, a special effects figure who has won two Oscars and is the director of "Maleficent". A last minute addition to the panel was Alec, whose last name I did not catch but who contributed to lively discussion of Art Clokey. He is a puppeteer and was trained as such by the WPA in the 1930s. He told us about being fired by Art for wanting a couple of weeks leave back in the fifties to work on a George Pal project. Art's comment was "I'm sick of training all these people for George Pal".

The discussion went on for two hours without much prompting from the M.C. Host, the organizer of the Gumby Fest. Once these guys got talking, they had plenty to say and they were all gracious in trading off time and trying to follow up on another tidbit of information to add to the other guys story. In all it was a wonderful experience and I hope that next year, if they have it back, all of you will consider a visit to the wilderness of Glendora for a nice day celebrating a wonderful cultural reference.

How to Train Your Dragon Double Feature

One of the great surprises I've had in a movie theater in the last five years was "How to Train Your Dragon", an animated kids movie that created an amazing world with two exceptional characters to carry us into it. I have it listed as my second favorite film of 2010 and I feel happy to know that it exists in the world because it will bring huge pleasures to those that discover it themselves, and who would not want to live in that world? Hiccup and Toothless formed a incredible duo in that film. Each needed the other to complete a whole. With a primarily silent performance, the Dragon steals every scene he is in. Last night we went to a double feature to launch "How to Train Your Dragon 2".  When we saw the original movie, we had skipped the 3D version and I always thought the flying effects would look amazing in that format. So it turns out I was right. "How to Train Your Dragon" looks wonderful on the big screen and the flying sequences will pull you in and cast a spell over you as you thrill to the play in the skies.

The viking village of Berk is besieged by dragons, that steal their sheep and other domestic animals and generally reek fire from the sky on the community. "Hiccup"is the odd kid in town who can't just seem to fit in with the rest of the vikings. He is an inventor and a dreamer. He wants to live up to the standards of the rest of the kingdom. Especially tough is matching the dreams of his father "Stoic the Vast". The comedy grows out of his awkwardness with the other viking teens and trying to learn the skills of a dragon killer. There is however a big secret, he has managed to form a bond with the rare, previously unseen Night Fury Dragon. Their friendship is the soul of the movie as the culture clash between vikings and dragons has to be resolved and Hiccup must stand up for himself and his friend. The voice casting was just right and Gerard Butler, Jay Baruchel and Craig Ferguson provide emotional depth and comic highlights throughout the story.

The animators have taken a fierce dragon and turned him into the best puppy a kid could ever hope for. "Toothless" is smart, loyal and has a sense of humor that matches the best of us. That the vikings have a hard time coming to grips with this in the first film is a strong example of how our prejudices create blind spots for us. In the end it all works out but not without a cost. There is a thriving new Berk, and there is the promise of more adventure to come. That was the hope four years ago and now it is time to payoff. I can safely say the movie is a success, if not a total one. I think "Dragon 2: suffered a little bit in my view from having to follow the first film immediately in our screening. The first shone so brightly that the shiny parts of the new movie look just a little more subdued.

To start with, the cute and awkward teens are adults now and not quite as funny as they were in the first episode. "Hiccup" is something of a hero and well respected even though he is still a little bit different. His romance with Astrid continues and Stoic is confident enough in him that he wants to install him as the chief of the village early, a position "Hiccup" is not sure he is ready for. On the horizon is a new threat, a mysterious outsider named Drago, who years before had offered to control the Dragons if granted power. The other chiefs rejected him and now it appears he is back with plans of his own. Drago also has a relationship with dragons, but instead of it being symbiotic it is parasitic. His power threatens the new community of dragon riding vikings and the lives of the dragons are at stake. Another figure has also surfaced, one that means to keep dragons free and safe in a hidden kingdom. Of course that is not going to happen if Drago gets his way.

The new characters are adequately introduced and there is a logical set of conflicts set up, but it feels a lot more traditional than what happened in the first film. The conflict allows for some grander battle and some wonderful flying sequences. There is also a moment that is very disturbing for all the lovers of the Dragon's especially our heroic "Toothless". This is based on a concept that does exist in the natural world, but that may be hard for the younger kids to quite comprehend. It also end with a strong dramatic punch in the guts that may devastate fans of the characters. New characters and the old do manage to come together to confront the threat to their whole way of life.

I would have enjoyed seeing more of the Berk villagers with their dragons. There were two or three quick glimpses of the warm relationship they have developed, but other than "Hiccup" and "Toothless" we don't get much depth on any of those relationships and that felt a little weak. We are introduced to a vast aray of new dragons as well and most of them do not develop in very distinct ways. Unlike the first film where character is part of the story, this felt like the story was driving all the characters. It works but it did feel different enough that it was noticeable to me. In summary, everything works and the movie is beautiful, but it does seem a bit different. The two main characters continue to be the spine of the story and they go through enough drama here to make it a story worth telling. My quibbles are minor and I suspect that this film will be one of the big successes of the summer. I will also suggest seeing it on the biggest screen you can. We were a little miffed because the screening for the first movie was on an over-sized screen and then we were moved to another theater of the second feature, That was really strange and the second feature (which is the new movie being promoted) suffered a bit more by comparison.  It's not as fresh but it is a lot of fun and there is a friendship at the center of the story that makes it all feel right at the close.

AMC Classic Film Series:Saturday Night Fever

I looked forward to this all week. It's been five or six years since I watched this movie and my memory of it has always been strong. I saw it originally when I was the same age as Travolta's character in the movie. In December of 1977, this became the movie that defined a generation. In the 1950's it was "Rebel Without a Cause", in the 1960's it was "The Graduate". For the seventies, "Saturday Night Fever" summed up the uncertainty about who we were and where we were going. The focus of the movie was on youth culture and it was not really a pretty sight despite the fact that it featured some pretty cool dancing and a great looking leading man. I'm happy to report that the film plays well still and it reminds me of all the things that were great about 1970s movies. They were honest, they were sometimes grimy, and they were willing to punch you in the gut or slap your face to make a point. 

A week ago tonight we watched the last Bee Gee Standing, perform a fantastic set at the Hollywood Bowl. You can't really talk about "Saturday Night Fever" without mentioning the biggest film soundtrack in history and one of the biggest selling albums of all time. The brothers were denied consideration for an Academy Award by a technical interpretation of the rules that year. Had they played the game like everyone else did, they would have walked away with it. Instead, we are trapped with the legacy of "You Light Up My Life" as that years winner, and "Thank God it's Friday" as a follow acknowledgement of the pop zeitgeist of the time. To be honest, it's not that big a deal because the Bee Gees songs from this film are still played regularly and people know the music even though it is more than thirty five years old. When Barry Gibb started the show with several tunes that were included on this soundtrack it was attention grabbing, but when he finished the main set with a dose of songs that included "Night Fever", 16,000 people were standing up doing the hustle.

The movie starts with a bang, you get a Brooklyn eye view of NYC, and then a close up of feet walking to the rhythm of "Stayin' Alive". As we watch the legs move in synchronization with the music we get a close up on the young John Travolta, who was about to become a pop culture god. Tonight in the back of the theater I heard two women wolf whistle when his face came up. Let's admit it, he was a good looking man at the prime of life and between this movie and "Grease" six months later, he became the biggest star in the world. The song is kickin' and is so well known that it is used in teaching CPR because the rhythm is such a match with the human heart rate. This movie is not plot driven, it is really a character piece and we start to know this character within seconds of his appearance on screen. As I watched this, it suddenly became obvious where Tom Cruise cribbed his tooth filled grin crutch. Travolta makes the movie feel alive every time the corners of his mouth go up and he flashes that smile. Even though this is a drama, there is a a lot of humor to Tony Manero's personality.

Film critic Gene Siskel frequently mentioned that "Saturday Night Fever" was a favorite film of his, and it is a well known piece of trivia that for many years he owned the white polyester suit that Travolta wore in the last quarter of the film, including the dance contest. That is another indication of it's iconic status for the film generation that came of age in the 70s. The movie does a very realistic take on the lives of young men in this culture. It is true that there is some hyperbole with the gang fight and the pregnant girlfriend device, but watch the dinner scenes and you will know how real it is. All of the family scenes play out as real slice of life moments. The workplace interaction that Tony and his boss have seems genuine. When you watch Travolta's face as he looks at the other guys who have made their lives at the paint store, you can see that the theme of the movie is not about dancing, but really about the question of who you want to be.

All of Tony's friends would like to be him, as the "King" of their social environment he is to be envied. Stephanie, the girl Tony wants to dance with and romance, wants to be a Manhattan sophisticate instead of a Brooklyn girl poser. His brother wants to be something other than the priest he has been pushed into becoming and his parents want his brother to be the thing that brings them the most comfort, "Father Frank". Annette, the rejected dance partner wants to be Tony's love object. It looks from the outside that Tony is the one who really knows who he is, but as the movie goes on, we see he is just as unhappy with his perceived self as everyone else is. The dancing skills makes him "special", but he is insecure about his own future, and when he sees that even dancing cannot be trusted to show off who he truly is, then he has to face the reality that change requires that he make some decisions about his life. 

The dance sequences are great to look at and a couple of moments are really special. They won't be eternal like Gene Kelly moves, but they feel big and real and relevant to the character in the times. The conversations never sound tin eared even though there are some cliched moments in the movie. The music is timeless even if the dancing is not. The song "How Deep is Your Love" is used very effectively as Tony comes out of the bad night he has had and comes to the point where he admits that things can't stay the way they have been. Musical interludes are sometimes used to fill a story, here they are used to fill out the story. This was a movie of great synergy, between the Music of the Bee Gees and the film star making performance by John Travolta. The tagline on the posters said it all..."Where do you go when the records over?"