Paramount Summer Classic Film Series-Sunday Double Feature

 

Viva Las Vegas

Over the years, I have had to make a lot of choices as to how to spend my movie time. When I was a kid, if an Elvis movie was on tv on a Friday or Saturday, that is what I watched. I loved the King and was not very discriminatory about the quality of the films. I know I saw parts of this movie when I was younger, but I was not sure I'd seen the whole thing. In the more recent past, I missed a chance to see this on the big screen at the TCM Film Festival. Last Sunday helped me remove my doubts, I had seen the movie, and just forgotten parts of it. One of the Paramount Staff (Zack I believe) told the programmer, Steven Janise, that after watching all of the Elvis movies in a recent binge, that "Viva Las Vegas" was the best. I seem to remember thinking "Jailhouse Rock" was pretty good, but after our screening Sunday, I would not disagree with the "Viva Las Vegas" rating, it is terrific entertainment.

The story of course does not matter, this is not really a drama, and it barely counts as a romantic comedy. The value of the film is in the musical numbers and the pairing of Elvis with the great Ann-Margaret. The two of them have great on screen charisma, and even some romantic chemistry, but the dramatic elements are unimportant and the script does little to address that. There are at least ten musical sequences that are held together by the slim fabric of the story, and those are the things you come to a movie like this for.

The title song gets three showcases, the first is over the titles, with glimpses of Vegas in 1963 shown underneath the credits and making me nostalgic for some of the long gone venues of old Vegas. Elvis gets a showcase presentation of the song, which reportedly was done in a single take, the only time that happened in any of his films. "Viva Las Vegas" is also the exit tune, and it's a good thing the song and performance are so catchy, otherwise a third appearance would be tiresome instead of joyful. Ann-Margaret had some cool dance numbers to songs that were not so easily digested as pop tunes but worked well for the setting of Las Vegas life. Another swinging number by the King is a rendition of "What'd I Say", the Ray Charles number. Elvis does Ray proud with his version.

The only flaw in the entertainment value of the film, comes in the climactic Grad Prix race. Instead of focusing on the contest between Elvis' character "Lucky" and all the other drivers, the majority of the drama is in frequent crack ups of cars in the race. Several of those accidents looked life threatening, but they are only in the film to add a visual flare, there were no stakes. The one crash that should have killed the Count, Lucky's friendly rival, appears to have had no effect since the Count shows up at the end, uninjured and swinging along with everyone else at the celebration. It's all in fun but those crashes looked like anything but fun to me. Fortunately, the King and his Queen, sing and dance again, so all is forgiven.

A Hard Day's Night

The same year that Elvis was in Las Vegas, The Beatles were taking over the world with their own film. The story and plot are just as lazy as the first of our films. This is just a day in the life of the pop group as they get ready to perform on a major television program. "A Hard Day's Night" hold together a little more strongly as a film because it knows it is not taking itself seriously, and all four of the lads get to show their cheeky sense of humor. There is a mix of stage based performances with outlandishly staged musical interludes where the four Beatles are just goofing off for the camera.

Watching the films back to back like this, makes it easy to see how the popular culture was changing in the decade. Although "Viva Las Vegas" is in color with a hip setting, "A Hard Day's Night" black and white photography and mundane London locations, feel so much more innovative and creative. The humor of the film is sarcastic without being nasty, and the four leads all look like they are having some fun at their own expense. It just feels completely modern in contrast to the Elvis film.

Of course the biggest reason for the success of the film are the eleven or so songs from the Beatles, including the title song. The pop melodies of the era were very different than the styling of earlier rockers. It's not hard to think of each song as "three minutes of joy". The songs themselves will stand up without the visual scenes, and that is not the case with many of the tunes in the Elvis film. It would be easy to say that these sequences were precursors of the MTV style videos that would become the standard visual introduction for many artists in the following years.

The subplot about Paul's Grandfather gives the story a chance to get out of the rehearsal studio presentations of the musical sequences. When there is no music though, the scenes are still very amusing. The idea that Paul's grandfather would try to cash in on his grandson's fame is particularly funny. The whole movie is an entertaining high from start to finish. You don't need to smoke, swallow or inject anything to get the effect, you just have to watch and listen. 

Paramount Classic Film Series-Robert Rodriguez Presents Terminator 2

 

We are more than halfway through the Summer Classic Film Series at the Paramount Theater, and I have fallen behind in my posts on the films that I have seen there. Saturday last, I went to the screening of Terminator 2 presented by Robert Rodriguez. The local film maker and Austin hero, has picked several films for the Summer Series and is introducing them himself. He tries to choose films that he can give some personal insight to, often through his connection to the film makers that he has worked with or connected to. These week we got some James Cameron stories. 

I loved the story he told about meeting James Cameron. Back in 1994, he ran into his close friend film maker Guillermo del Toro, at the Virgin Megastore in Hollywood. Del Toro was meeting his own friend at the location and asker Robert if he would like to meet his buddy James. Of course, and when they were talking, Rodriguez mentioned that he was working with a new Steadicam and Cameron said he had one of those, but he wasn't using it to make a film, he was taking it apart to re-engineer and improve it. He told a similar story about visiting Cameron at his home and finding an Avid editing complex, not just one device, set up in a giant screening room. I like thew fact that all three directors met at the Virgin Mega Store in Hollywood. It had the best Laserdisc Sales set up of any retailer and I visited there often. 

"Terminator 2" was the biggest movie of it's year and the most expensive movie ever made up to that point. I have always preferred the original film over the sequel, not for any defect in "Judgement Day", but because the tools used in making the first film are just more meaningful to me. The stop motion animation, the puppetry are all so cool. Terminator 2 ups the ante on effects, and although it uses some of the first really dynamic digital effects, there are still a plethora of  practical effects and make up in the film.

The brilliant twist was to turn the original model of a Terminator into an ally rather than just the antagonist. Kyle Reese still kicks ass but having your own terminator as a protector is just awesome and Cameron, Schwarzenegger and Edward Furlong have a great time playing with that concept in the movie. I mentioned practical effects a minute ago, maybe the greatest of these was the way co-star Linda Hamilton sculpted her body to become the bad ass no nonsense momma bear in the film. Also, when you see the doubles in the film, Hamilton at the end and the security guard at the mental hospital, Cameron used a really old school tool, twin siblings. 

I did not have my shirts in time for the screening, they arrived  Monday, so let's just pretend I was at the club when a gunfight broke out and i was lucky to get out of TechNoir and make it over to the theater to see the movie. 

Fly Me to the Moon (2024)

After the first 10 minutes of this movie I was afraid I was going to be disappointed. In an attempt to create the character that Scarlett Johansson plays, the script creates a series of moments where her bright go-getter, thrives on besting men who are too dim to see the argument that she's making for the advertising campaign she wants to undertake. She relies on manipulation, lies, and downright fraud to convince people to go with her ideas. Since she's supposed to be the romantic lead in the movie, it seems strange to start off by making her an unsympathetic character. The goal might have been to do a Howard Hawks type comedy ala "His Girl Friday". The problem is that it seems rushed in concept not just execution.

Fortunately things calm down when she reaches Florida and encounters her romantic counterpart played by Channing Tatum. Her character, Kelly Jones, is still manipulative but feels a lot less smarmy and condescending. Instead she is showing her smarts and being wily at the same time. Tatum as Cole Davis, deservedly needs some direction with the obstacles he faces, but at least he's not portrayed as a witless man who can be turned simply by the slightest of feminine manipulation. After their meet-cute, we get a much more sophisticated and well-developed character relationship between the two of them. The setting of the late 1960s at Cape Canaveral and Cocoa Beach gives the filmmakers a chance to add some nostalgic romantic elements to the film as well.

Setting the story against the first attempt by man to reach the moon is fine, I think most of us who lived through that era consider it an important period of time. The the complications of NASA and the space program were fraught with danger and uncertainty, but also the thrill of exploration and discovery. Tatum's character is supposed to be the launch director of the mission, a pilot who lost out on being an astronaut because of a heart afib. He's a competent and sincere person, who lives with the guilt that comes from being a survivor of what up until that point, had been the worst disaster in manned space flight, the fire that killed the three astronauts of Apollo 1. He feels responsible, because he was in charge, not because of any real neglect on his part. One of the best things about this film is the sincere respect given to that incident, and the understandable grief that it evokes in one of our main characters.

The romantic parts of the film start working as the two characters clash over little things, and they work their way through mutual obstacles. Lurking in the background is a shadowy character who invents a plot, an hour into the film, that might be the main selling point of the movie but also something that may in fact be unnecessary to make the romance work. Woody Harrelson plays the mysterious government operative, who's using Johansson's character to create an alternative moon landing scenario. The idea is to twist the conspiracy theory of the moon landing on its head, and make the subterfuge a sort of insurance against failure as opposed to a substitute for success. So screenwriters Keenan Flynn, Bill Kirstein, and Rose Gilroy have concocted a story that allows them to play the conspiracy card and then dismiss it. Thank goodness, otherwise this film would have been sunk from the get go. 

Basically, this is an adult film, with charismatic leads in an interesting setting, but with unbelievable plot twists and incidents. In other words, it's a typical Rom-Com. Perfect for date night, but insubstantial beyond that. We don't end up on the dark side of the moon, so you can live with it. 

Body Double (1984) Revisit

 

Contains some Spoilers.

Paramount Summer Classic Film Series-Jaws and Point Break

 

A change of pace for the Paramount Summer Classic Film Series, a Video post for the Sunday Movies.

MaXXXine (2024)

There was probably no way that my most anticipated movie of 2024 would live up to my expectations. The bar had been set too high and I amped myself up for months looking forward to this film. I can't say that it's a disappointment, but maybe more of a let down. I wanted something more, and I thought I was going to get it when I saw the opening 5 minutes of the film in a preview with the film "X", that this is a sequel to. Mia Goth has a great moment at the start of the film, and her character of Maxine has flashes of that brilliance throughout the film. However those are only moments and there's a lack of consistency in the character which was frustrating.

Those of you not familiar, "MaXXXine" is the continuation of a story that we got in 2022 set in 1979 in Texas, about a group of wannabes trying to make an X-rated film, and running into a couple of older people who resented their youth and their sexuality. This movie tries to continue the story by tapping into a connection that was made near the end of that film. From the very beginning I knew who the villain of the film was going to be, and the lack of suspense there undermined what I was looking for in the movie. The film does manage to create the same tone that some of the sleazy action films of the mid 80s had. The most likely comparison that will make sense is to the movie "Angel" 

where the featured ingenue is a student by day and a hooker by night on Hollywood Boulevard. The gritty streets, over the top clothes and mannerisms on the street people from the 1980s feels like it was matched pretty well in this movie. Director Ti West has also tried to slip in some red herrings with the presence of the Night Stalker, the notorious killer who terrorized Southern California in 1985. For the most part the connection needs to be stronger, we're not sure why the LAPD detectives who are investigating the murders of young women in the adult film industry believe that the deaths are unrelated to The Night Stalker, especially when the media seems to be playing up such a connection. This is simply part of an incomplete storyline about the investigation of the murders. Maxxxine is a witness, and ultimately a target, but seems to be incapable of deciding how to proceed in the situation. That is not the way the character in the previous movie and the first 5 minutes of this movie would react.

Kevin Bacon shows up as a sleazy private detective who is working for an unseen superior, trying to track down Maxxxine and lure her to an address in the Hollywood Hills. We know right away that this is where bad things are happening, because some of the girls that Maxxxine works with mention that they were going to a party in the Hollywood Hills, and later we see them being abused on video camera. It's not until the climax of the movie that we see the totality of what is going on, but the mere fact that we didn't see the murders of those girls first hand, doesn't mean that we can't see what's coming.

Another subplot that lacks development, but should be the most important part of the story, is Maxxxine being cast in a traditional film and starting to play that part. Instead we get the director pontificating about being ruthless in pursuit of her objective, and therefore acting as a role model for Maxxxine. But we already know that Maxine does not need that kind of role model, she is capable and driven and I would pity the fool who goes up against her. We even get a brief sequence, that has nothing to do with the main plot, which shows exactly how brutal Maxxxine can be in pursuit of her goals. This was exactly a flattering image of Buster Keaton, let's just say some impersonator did get something busted. (Nut Busted Keaton should be the credit name for the character)

The movie is not really a horror film any longer, but rather a suspense thriller. The problem is that there's just not much suspense. The main victim should be stalked more ominously, and the threat should be visualized a little more directly. Other than the occasional interviews by the detectives you don't really see how Maxxxine is being threatened by the secretive employer of Bacon's Detective. In one scene that makes no sense whatsoever, the detective chases Maxine menacingly around the Warner Brothers lot, which then turns into the Universal lot, and puts her in the Psycho house hiding, without a plan. OK, we get the reference to the first movie, but it was a weak scene. Maxxxine can be backed into a corner but she always has a plan, in this movie though,  she just lucks out. And the convenience of at least two lucky interventions undermines the storytelling we'd seen in the two previous movies. The side stories might be consistent for the 1980s style film but as we've said before the things that are happening in the past need to be visualized more in the present. For a film set on the fringes of the pornography industry is surprisingly light on sexuality. There's one passing moment when an X-rated video is being filmed as Maxine walks by, all of the other porn references are to the film that was made in the original movie.

Were I ranking the three movies in the X Series I would simply say they were in declining order. The gap between "X" and "Pearl" is the smallest, those two films were near perfect in the way they mimicked the filmmaking styles of earlier times. They were inspired by films of different eras. Maxxxine is a step down, it gets some of the 80s vibes right but in trying to become something more, like the movie Puritan 2, featured in the storyline, it just doesn't amount to anything nearly as great.

Paramount Summer Classic Film Series-The Muppet Movie

You don't think going to the movie theater is going to be a dangerous enterprise, until you realize at the end of an hour and a half that your face is strained from smiling so frequently and laughing on a regular basis. The soreness of my face is a small price to pay for the joy of "The Muppet Movie". This delightful piece of Cinema from 1979 brings the Muppet team together for their first motion picture, and keeps all of the characters in line with their personalities and comes up with a storyline to connect them all.

I first saw "The Muppet Movie" at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood in 1979. I felt about it pretty much then the way I do now, it is a brilliant and clever application of puppetry to movie making and it delivers a heartfelt message to all of the dreamers out there. The biggest dreamer of all of course was Jim Henson, the creator of The Muppets. Henson continues to inspire filmmakers and storytellers, and some of the innovations found in this movie are still around today.

It is possible that there has never been a more personable character than Kermit the Frog. As the leading man in the picture he is both thoughtful and a little fearful as he confronts the world around him in pursuit of his dreams. Kermit's sincerity is reflected by the circumstances he frequently finds himself in. One of the joys of this movie is the plethora of cameos by actors, comedians, and historical movie people, which populate the background. Bob Hope distributing ice cream, Edgar Bergen judging a small town beauty contest, and Richard Pryor selling balloons are all in this movie together. If you ever get stuck playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, remember that the Muppet Movie will let you connect a whole lot of people if you can just remember everyone who showed up in this movie.

The Paramount Theater was packed with families bringing small children to encounter The Muppets in a format that they probably haven't seen before. Based on the laughter and applause I heard,  the mayhem created by the Muppets continues to be something that the young and old can share. It's probably a little nostalgic for people of my generation, but there's still plenty of things that are funny regardless of the time line. Statler and Waldorf heckling everybody is always funny. I think the joke with Carole Kane reappearing each time somebody uses the word "myth", and she acts as if they are saying Miss, is still viable. Maybe the Hare Krishna reference will seem a little out of date, since that religious group is not nearly as prominent as it was in the 1970s. I still laughed however at that recurring joke.

I want to embrace Fozzie Bear, bring Gonzo the great home, and attend the wedding of Kermit and Miss Piggy. 5 years later we got a chance to do that, and that 1984 film, "the Muppets Take Manhattan" will hopefully play at the summer film series sometime in the future. I got a kick out of seeing the audience respond to an extremely young Steve Martin, a nearly silent Orson Welles, and Mel Brooks looking young and acting silly playing a Teutonic neurological doctor, who's going to do a brainectomy on poor Kermit. Geez there are a lot of people in this movie.

In addition to smiling I teared up occasionally, because this was one of the movies that my late wife and I attended together and loved passionately. The Muppets were one of the things that we shared both before and after we were married. When our kids came along we loved the chance to share that with them as well. As far as I'm concerned the world is a lesser place when there isn't a Muppet Movie on the horizon. Fortunately in 1979 the future would be ripe for these for these characters, and in 2024 we luck out again because they showed up here in the Paramount classic Summer Movie film series.