Whenever you can listen to a live orchestra play a film score, go. When the film is included, question your sanity if you skip it, because these are great experiences. If you are dealing with a John Williams score and the film is "Star Wars" you can just pencil me in and meet me at the door. I love film music and scores. I enjoy classical music although I am not an aficionado. So this was an event that was easy for me to book and look forward to all summer.
The first time I saw Star Wars, at the Chinese theater in Hollywood, on opening day, I was awed by the sound of the film and the music. The score reminded me of the music from the 1930s and 40s. Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Max Steiner were my training ground for what film music should sound like. I was a big fan of Jerry Goldsmith's Patton Score and this horn and string dominated score reminded me of some of the same heroic themes and triumphs of that film.
The title sequence of course is legendary as the opening scroll moves up the screen and then the music transitions to the action of the attack by the Empire's cruiser. When Darth Vader appears on the screen we get a villain's cue and the music again clues us in as to who the good guys and the bad guys are. When we get to Tatooine, we start to get the recurring themes that will come up for the rest of the film. Luke is on a heroes journey and there were a some great scenes with his theme. The dual sunset is one of those moments and the discovery of his Aunt and Uncle's burned bodies is another.
Leia has a theme as well and both themes will be used for the subsequent films. Ben Kenobi's sacrificial death also is an iconic music moment and it pushes Like's desire to succeed even further. This is a film, much like "Jaws" that gets half of it's emotional energy from the score. When played by a live orchestra the music is even more stirring. By the time we get to the throne room medal ceremony, we have had a succession of great music highlighting terrific action scenes and character points.
Throwback Thursday on the KAMAD site will be a regular occurrence in the next year. As a motivational project, to make sure I am working on something, even in a week where I don't see a new film in a theater, I am going to post on movies from 1975. Along with 1984, this is one of my favorite years for movies and it is full of bittersweet memories as well. 1975 was my Senior Year in High School and my Freshman Year in College. The greatest film of the last 60 years came out in 1975, as well as dozens of great and not so great cinematic endeavors. Most of the films in this weekly series will have been seen in a theater in 1975, but there are several that I only caught up with later. I hope you all enjoy.
Breakout
It's been a month since I posted one of these Throw Back Thursdays films, in that time I have traveled literally from one side of the country to the other. So many logistics have been involved that it has not been reasonable for me to catch up on a film for the purpose of this series. One thing however that I did do while pausing the viewing of films from 1975, was acquire a couple of those films for later use. Today's film would be one of those. I was sure I had a copy of the Charles Bronson/Robert Duvall film in my collection, but when I went to find it, there was no disc or box. I was puzzled because I wrote about this movie back in 2016, but I guess I must have watched it on one of my services. Thankfully Kino Lorber had a nice Blu-Ray with extras. [By the way, while writing this I went to the Kino Lorber site and dropped a bundle]
This is a terrific Bronson film that came out right after "Death Wish" and right before "Hard Times" so it is in the sweet spot of his most productive era. The film was also on the cusp of the new marketing strategy by the film studios of front loading their films into as many locations as possible, simultaneously. This strategy would be revolutionized by the film "Jaws" the very next month after this was released. Get paid now instead of slowly rolling out your film. With heavy advertising the movie did quite well and returned a profit with a couple of weeks.
"Breakout" is based on a real life prison break from Mexico, by a shady character who was accused of murdering his shady partner, but the body was not identifiable and the convicted guy proclaimed his innocence vehemently. For legal reason, the producers never refer to the book that the film is made from and they don't even use the famous "inspired by true events" tag. The Mexican government was not happy that a movie was being based on the real escape, the first to use a helicopter, and the film makers tried to distance themselves from the story because there was also an implication that a relative of the convicted man was framing him to keep an inheritance out of his hands.
Robert Duvall plays the prisoner, and he does most of his acting with a look of stupor on his face. The character is going mad, drinking excessively, and is physically declining so that gives the plot a sense of urgency. Jill Ireland plays his loyal wife who is plotting escapes but not having a great deal of success. She hires Bronson, a plane pilot with some smuggling background to help her get her husband out before he just gives up the ghost. There are some effective scenes when she visits him in prison and she struggles with the unwanted attention from the guards who search her and a lack of desire to have a conjugal visit in the pigsty of a room that she and her husband are given. Ireland was a beautiful woman but sometimes a bit wooden as an actress. Here though, she acquits herself quite well opposite Duvall. Even though her character loves her husband, she does have a rather flirty relationship with the impish pilot played by Bronson. He seems to be doing the job as much for her as for the money, and he develops a big crush on his client.
John Huston, who had just starred in "Chinatown" the previous year, and was getting ready to shoot "The Man Who Would be King", did one day of work on the film as the mysterious grandfather of Duvall's character. It is very murky why he is working against Duvall, it seems to be tied up with something in their business but those exposition scenes were apparently cut and Huston is only on screen for about two and a half minutes in three brief scenes. Randy Quaid plays Bronson's partner and he gets involved in the plot at one point by trying to dress in drag and connect with Duvall in the prison. This was the second of two escape plans that failed before Bronson lights on the helicopter idea.
The prison scenes will remind you of why you never want to go to jail in Mexico, and the corruption starts at the beginning with the murder of the Man that Duvall is supposed to have killed. He does have a companion in the jail who is sympathetic and facilitates the plan, unfortunately, unlike in the real life incident, he does not make it out with his friend and that is the button on the end of all the visual promotion material for the film. To make the actual escape more engaging and exciting, someone has to die and that is going to be the loyal Mexican compadre of Duvall.
One more spectacular moment takes place late in the film when a spy, trying to thwart the escape for Huston's character, ends up in a fight with Bronson on an airstrip after the fugitives have left Mexico. Plotwise it is never clear why the CIA is working with the grandfather, and the fight feels like a last minute addition. However, if you were disappointed in not seeing the Nazi mechanic in the airfield fight in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" , getting dismembered on screen, there is a shot in this film that should make it up to you.
Charles Bronson plays a different kind of character her, much closer to the pre-murder Paul Kersey in his earlier film than the vigilante that Kersey becomes. While not as slyly humorous as his turn in "From Noon till Three", it is still a comic performance and he nails it pretty well. If you have not seen this film, I would recommend it to you, it is a couple of hours well spent with one of the great action stars of a different and earlier generation.
The film world is full of movies based on plays. Nowadays, there are plenty of plays, usually musicals, that are based on films (See Disney, Back to the Future, Almost Famous and The Producers). This is a play based not on a film, but on the behind the scenes moments of the making of a film, the transcendent and incredibly hard to film "Jaws". If you are visiting this site for the first time, take a look around, you will see that "Jaws" is revered above all other films (with maybe one exception) by the author of these pages. It is a film that I know I have seen well over a hundred times. It will then come as no surprise to longtime visitors to KAMAD, that a play about the making of the film would draw my attention. Last weekend, we made a special expedition to NYC for the purpose of seeing this particular work.
"The Shark is Broken" was written by Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon. Ian Shaw is the son of actor Robert Shaw, who portrayed "Quint" in the film and was notoriously cantankerous on the set in addition to being well lubricated during his time on the film. Robert Shaw was said to have bullied his co-star Richard Dreyfuss mercilessly and that the two even had some physical set-tos. Dreyfuss has always contended that it was a difficult relationship in shooting but that ultimately he had immense respect for Shaw and they were friends. Ian Shaw was inspired in part by a drinking diary his father had kept, and he knew the film is a key part of his father's legacy, so he started writing. I believe there is a great deal of honesty in the play but that it is also an entertainment first rather than a documentary, so obvious license will be taken in telling the story.
While it might seem strange to start my discussion of the play with the stagecraft rather than the story or the acting, it is not a surprise at all. The set is open from the moment we entered the theater. The only other Broadway style productions that I have seen recently were "Hamilton" and "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child 1/2" and as I recall, there is no curtain raised in either of those experiences either. So the set is right there for as long as you are in the theater before the play begins, and it is hard not to start noticing things and feeling right about commenting on them. The physical set is a cutout of the Orca, Quint's ship, which is the setting for the last half of the movie. There are some props in the hull of the ship but for the most part the action takes place in the small cabin around the table that you see in the film. It looks appropriately claustrophobic and intimate for the three actors to operate in.
Most of the passage of time and change in setting is determined by the lighting and by the screen scenes on the large background screen that contains images of the ocean that the film was shot on. The play actually starts when we see the image of a shark fin in the background, and then a cloud of smoke and steam erupts from the location as the image sinks below the surface. It is the first of many laughs that will fill the auditorium for the next hour and a half. The lighting indicates time of day, sometimes the golden hour, and occasionally the choppy seas the actors were enduring. This simple tech solution to the environment probably keeps costs down but it also encourages us to keep our focus on the actors.
Ian Shaw trained as an actor and has appeared in multiple plays, films and television shows, but it is his resemblance to his father that is the most striking feature when the story gets going. Obviously, he did not have to train for that, just a little hairdressing and makeup to fit the part. His voice, while not a perfect echo of his fathers stentorian voice, it is authoritative and familiar to all of the fans of the film. He gets several inflection moments just right, but he does not seem to be merely mimicking the clips of Robert Shaw from the film, it is an acting performance not a replication. The story does start off lightly but it does go to some dark places along the way, so even though the play is largely comic, Shaw adds plenty of drama to some of the passages. He honestly portrays his father as a driven creative alcoholic with a very competitive nature. His nature was not always easy to accept and that is part of the plot as the three actors are trapped in unpleasant conditions with one another for weeks in this confined space.
Robert Shaw was a veteran screen actor when he took the role of Quint. Richard Dreyfuss had worked in films but was just moving up to featured status and he was just of insecurities and anxiety. It was in large part his belief that he had whiffed his performance in "The Adventures of Duddy Kravitz", that lead him to accepting the part of Hooper, the smart aleck college grad who would butt heads with Quint on the shark hunt. In a way, it was the contrasting personalities of the two actors that helped create the dynamic that makes the film such a great character piece. Alex Brightman is the actor who gets to play Dreyfuss in this production, and he knocks it out of the park. His energy and staccato delivery of lines, matches the tone that Dreyfuss had in the film. Brightman has to do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to the comedy, because he is the most physically active character in the play, in spite of the sub-plot about him being physically overwhelmed on the shoot. He has all many of the big punch lines to the humorous script and just like Dreyfuss himself, he is not afraid to mug a little for the audience.
The part of peacemaker seems to have fallen to Roy Scheider on the Jaws set, and here actor Colin Donell does a solid job as the voice of reason on the set. His appearance as Chief Brody is visually well cast, and he has the moderate voice range that is characteristic of the actor he is playing, particularly between the two more outlandish characters he plays against. I think it is the lines that he has, that sometimes draw attention to the theatrical nature of his part. He is a part time narrator, part time mediator, and often is the wall between the tension of the other two. As a result, he sometimes feels like he fades into the background and when he does get a chance to shine, it feels a little more obvious that he is now speaking, rather than having a natural transition to his lines. Donell does get to shine in one regard for sure, he strips down to a swimsuit as Scheider to sunbath on the deck and he is chiseled, unlike Dreyfuss/Brightman, and his physique drew a few awes and in-takes of gulped air from appreciative audience members.
Story structure starts the play in the eighth week of shooting on the water, when nerves are beginning to fray, but at least there is a sense of gallows humor about the logistics of what Spielberg was attempting. The characters are killing time by telling stories and making jokes, and in Shaw's case, drinking obsessively. By the tenth week, they are playing made up bar games when no deck of cards is handy, and the talk gets to be more serious, although there is usually some levity to be found. When Dreyfuss tosses Shaw's bottle overboard, the unpleasant physical confrontation brings a whole lot of matters to the surface. The name calling seems a lot less just guys kibbitzing and more in line with real tensions. Everyone tells a little bit of their character's back story and the writing seems a little more self conscious in these moments. It is well known that the Indianapolis Speech was critical but also trouble from the start. Shaw ties to wrestle it into a coherent shape but his intoxicated performance destroys the impact of the scene, and this is the dramatic climax of the three characters on the boat. The audacity of featuring the greatest scene in the movie as a failure is remedied in the coda of the story as Ian Shaw does a credible job of performing as his father when he gets a second chance to do it right. No curtain needs to drop, the lights just go down and the memory of the film, combined with the live performance, provides the chill on the back of the neck that punctuates the whole enterprise.
The screen fills with production shots from the 1974 shoot and the actors take a well deserved bow. The play is entertaining as anything you might hope to see. Sometimes the play is a little obvious in the laughs it goes for, but those laughs still come and a real fan of the movie will enjoy every moment of it. The three actors are superb in their parts and although Shaw is the real focus of the story, Brightman walks away with some of the best moments. I flew 1700 miles, just to see this play. We did do a couple of other things on the trip, like eating at a couple of great spots, but even if we had not, for this fan of the Movie "Jaws", the trip was worth it.
This movie came out before I had started the blog and this is the first time I am getting to write about the film. I said it last night when I posted an update on Facebook, this is the jewel in the crown of Christopher Nolan's Batman Trilogy. Both "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight Rises" are excellent films, but the middle film is the finest second act in a superhero trilogy you are likely to encounter. We are past the origin story and Batman is a looming presence over Gotham. The crime lords are beginning to chaff under the attention they are getting from the District Attorney, and things seem to be turning around for the city, just as Bruce Wayne wanted. Enter the Joker, a figure of chaos, who at first seems like an enemy and then a potential ally to the underworld kingpins, but looks are deceiving, as we will be reminded on a regular basis.
The opening set piece with the daytime heist of mob money from one of the banks secretly controlled by the criminal elements of the city, is a terrific starting point. The crime is filled with audacity in execution and violent subterfuge by the man who planned it. When the last clown standing takes off his clown mask and reveals the clown make-up he is sporting, we know that we are in the company of a deranged criminal who does not follow any rules or patterns. This will undermine both the criminals and the cops for the rest of the story. This is the performance from the late Heath Ledger that won him a posthumous Academy Award, and it was richly earned. Ledger gives the Joker mannerisms that suggest he is bat shit crazy in every scene, but he also has a voice that commands respect because of the level of intelligence behind it. In the scene at the fund raiser, when he takes notice of Rachel Dawes, he pushes his sweaty hair back behind his ear, with a knife in his hand, like he is primping for a meet cute, while armed and dangerous. When he gets caught and is baiting the officer who is standing watch over him, he manages to smirk in an antagonistic way, in spite of the fact that he is still covered in his trademark make-up. Ledger underplays so many scenes despite being the most flamboyant character in the story.
One of the things that makes this film work well is that Bruce Wayne gets to be part of the plot in addition to being Batman. His love triangle with Rachel, his planning of the extraction of the accountant from Hong Kong, and the series of moments when he seems set to reveal himself, are all more engaged in the story than the billionaire usually gets. When he manages to safe the life of the man who is going to reveal his identity, it is in his best detached and clueless rich guy persona, a part he plays regularly in the film. Christian Bale has to do most of his acting in these scenes since the costume does so much in the Batman moments. One of the jokes that people sometimes make about Nolan's Batman concerns the gravelly voice that the Batman uses to cover who he is. I think too many people believe it is just an attempt to intimidate criminals (which it is) but they ignore that he is also avoiding being identified.
Director Christopher Nolan has put together a great series of action sequences which are mostly justified by the plot, even if logically they can't all come out the way they are supposed to. I have already mentioned the opening heist, but Batman has a heist of his own when extraditing Lau from Hong Kong. The spectacular removal from the building is a moment from a 60s era James Bond film, but played as serious rather than comic. The stunned security men are befuddled at the smashed window and the pane flying into the upcoming day looks just brilliant. Both the Joker and Batman have an action scene that plays out their own plans simultaneously, as Harvey Dent, claiming to be Batman, is transferred across town, there are gun battles, crashes, the end of the Batmobile and the birth of the Batpod, and it climaxes with a tractor trailer cartwheeling front to back on the streets of Gotham.
Harvey Dent, played by Aaron Eckhart, is the White Knight of the city that Batman wants to step aside for, but of course the Joker has a different goal. Certainly Harvey has reason to feel embittered and resentful. The fact that he can be tipped over to the Dark Side has been hinted at a couple of times in the course of the film. I just think that the final Two Face challenge is such a reach that it is the only flaw in the carefully constructed plot. It works, but only barely, and I think you have to see the film several times to be convinced that it is not just a plot contrivance.
The film is filled with actors who do a fine job in their parts. Most of the criminals get short shrift but the cops, many of whom are tainted, get a chance to show off a bit. Eric Roberts is slimy as hell, Morgan Freeman is as cool as you would hope, but the heroic center of the film is Jim Gordon, played by Gary Oldman. Gordon is a cop who tries to play it by the book but knows that the Batman is the linchpin on pushing Gotham back from the brink. His part in the capture of the Joker is a fun twist and his distraught father in the last scenes are demonstrations of Oldman's talents.
The electronic and orchestral score makes a dramatic impact on the film, although the lack of melodies probably keep it from being memorable. Humming along to the strum and dang of the score is not really possible, but the score is effective time after time in evoking emotions and mood. The action scenes have the parts that are most like traditional tunes, and Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard have divvied up the two antagonists to create wholly different personas for them musically. It is a very distinct score from the Tim Burton Batman films and several elements from the first film are repeated here, in completely appropriate ways.
Even though the Joker succeeded at spoiling Harvey Dent as a hero, Batman and Jim Gordon snatch victory from the jaws of defeat by changing the narrative and turning Batman into the dark figure of the story. The combination of Batman's faith in the citizens of Gotham on the ferry, and the sacrifice he makes to become a fugitive, give the story the bump it needs at the end to reach an emotional crescendo. The final narration from Gary Oldman makes the conclusion pay off with goosebumps.
A few weeks ago, at the Paramount Summer Film Classic screening of "Clash of the Titans", Director Robert Rodriguez previewed for us the above trailer. The film is set to premier on Netflix later this week, but we were inviter to the World Premier last night at the Paramount here in Austin. The audience was packed with kids and people who had worked on the film and the house was raucous. The film was shot in Austin and the main contributors are members of the Rodriguez family.
The film is the fifth in the franchise and it does not stray far from the formulas that came before it. Two young kids get involved in a spy plot because their parents are spies. They accidentally release a video game virus that combines with a program partially developed by Dad that will allow the designer to control all electronic mechanisms. The become spies themselves and fight back using the tech that has been given to their parents by the spy agency they work for.
One of the reasons that the audience at the "Clash of the Titans" was specifically invited is because the film is filled with Ray Harryhausen images, including sword wielding skeletons and crab like robots. This is a lot of fun and reinforces the fantasy elements as much as the gadgets do. The story is thin, like a kids film is likely to be, but it does have some values about family that are certainly admirable. It is clear this is a movie for families to enjoy together. The fact that parents were at the show last night, who had grown up watching the original films, and they were now bringing their own children to the series is part of the reason Rodriguez has returned to the stories.
We had a great time and the movie is light and breezy, so go ahead and stream it when it drops this week.
This is the Movie we covered on the Lambcast this week, and usually, by the time of the podcast recording, I will have posted my comments. That did not happen this week. We had a full slate of activities that kept me busy and then I did the show, edited and posted the podcast, edited and posted a You Tube Video of the podcast, and finally remembered I'd not put up my own thoughts on my own site. That is about to be rectified.
"A Haunting in Venice" is the new Hercule Poirot film from director Kenneth Branagh. I have long been a fan of the theatrical films featuring the Belgium sleuth, although I have never read any of the Agatha Christie books that he sprang from. This is the third in the series from Branagh and it is quite a bit different from the previous two. "Murder on the Orient Express" was a serviceable remake of the 1974 version, but lacked the romance of that earlier film. "Death on the Nile", was delayed two years by the pandemic and only was released last year, which made this film feel like a very quick follow up. Nile was a lush film that compensated for the convoluted machinations of the plot by creating a setting that was exotic and looked inviting (even if at times it was just CGI magic). "Haunting" scales back on the landscapes but ups the directorial flourishes with Dutch angles and fisheye lenses around every corner. The plot contains a supernatural element that also allows for some horror tropes to creep in, jump scares and reflections especially are dominate.
Michelle Yeoh and Tina Fey are the two biggest names in the cast, and after the star packed casts of the other films, this story could use the lower profile performers more convincingly. I did wonder whether Micelle Yeoh's casting was a stunt, because there is not any background on the character, but after the movie gets going, you will probably not feel that way about her presence. Tina Fey on the other hand was an interesting take on the character and her more modern persona fits better with the Post War aesthetic that the story focuses on.
As is usual for these plots, there are several false trails and a couple of red herrings that keep things interesting. The supernatural elements all will be explained by Poirot at the end of the film, in a satisfactory way, and although the resolution feels a bit abrupt, it was not the sudden switch in suspects that so often occurs in TV mysteries. Once again the cinematography was exemplary, Haris Zambarloukos has been working with Branagh for a long time and seems to understand the mood he is looking for in the spooky old house on the canal. Jude Hill the young actor from Branagh's terrific "Belfast" joins the cast as well as a boy who is both creepy and sympathetic at the same time.
My guess is that this film will close out the Poirot films for Branagh, three seems to be a magic number after all, but I enjoyed all the films enough to recommend them and I would be happy to see this one again. If you are looking for an adult Halloween film that does not involve maniacs dismembering the cast, this would be a solid pick for your evening.
I would describe myself as a John Carpenter fan, but not necessarily an aficionado. Of the eighteen theatrical releases his films have had, I have seen fifteen. "Christine" from 1983, was one I had missed for years and only caught up with during the pandemic, catching it on one of the streaming services maybe a year or so ago. I enjoyed it, but it did not make a strong impression on me, at least until last night. Seeing "Christine" in a theater, in the dark, with an audience was a frank reminder of how differently a movie can play given the environment in which it is being experienced. There was no daylight streaming through the window. No dogs were demanding my attention, and sitting in a theater is much different from laying on the bed and watching TV. The immersive atmosphere brings out the creepy and haunting elements of the film much more vividly.
The movie has a rock and roll attitude about it from the very beginning. The fact that the 1958 Plymouth Fury is being assembled in 1957, and that Rock music was just starting is not a coincidence. Carpenter's selections of source music emphasize the time period of the cars date of manufacture, not the time of the story. "Bad to the Bone" may have been an 80s record, but it is based in a 50s style and sound, emphasized by the roots rock of George Thorogood and his band. The songs that play on Christine's radio are by 50s artists like Buddy Holly and Little Richard. The transformation of Arnie, the kid who restores and loves Christine, is largely an evolution to a greaser personality and style, even though the film is set in the late seventies.
It is a slow burn after a suggestive opening scene during the manufacturing process. Arnie, a good natured kid who is a bit of a sad sack, is played by Keith Gordon. His buddy Dennis, played by future genre director John Stockwell, is a football player with a lot more popularity but a good heart and a loyal friend to Arnie. We get some good character points about the friends and we see the initial enthusiasm that Arnie has for the dilapidated Fury he catches a glimpse of on their way home from school. Arnie's parents are not monsters but they don't come off as nurturing, and it is a surprise when Arnie starts talking back the them. It is the change in Arnie's personality, rather than the satanic car, which drives the opening half of the film. The killings don't start until well past the mid way point of the story.
We know that the bullies are going to get theirs at some point. After we see what a douche the lead bad guy is, we will all be rooting for Christine to come to life and take him out. Christine however is a jealous lover and Dennis and new girl girlfriend to Arnie, Leigh, also run afoul of her. The early incidents are hints of what is to come but the real violence involves a car taking out the trash. The most visually frightening sequence has Christine aflame, chasing after Buddy, the alpha bully of the group. In a night time scene on a lonely road, she really does look like a car from hell on a mission. All of the deaths will get more vivid renderings with a new version that has been announced.
Practical effects are used for the car to restore itself after being heavily damaged in an act of vandalism but also after the murders of the bullies. It is visually as accomplished as any CGI work, but because it is done in camera it looks far more convincing and disturbing. The great Harry Dean Stanton shows up for a few scenes as a detective investigating the killings, but his part is under developed and we seem to be missing the section where he figures out that the car is possessing Arnie and is really responsible for what has happened.
When I asked Amanda what she had thought of the film, she gushed enthusiastically, that it would be craking her top five list of John Carpenter films. I don't know that I will go that far, but I will say it played really well in the theater and I was sorry I missed it 40 years ago, but completely happy to be seeing it on the big screen.
