Two Gabba Gabba

Werth: Happy Film Gab-iversary, Wise!  Our little celluloid-loving blog has just turned two!

Wise: Happy Gab-iversary to you too, Werth.  It's hard to believe that another year has passed, full of thrills, chills, and the eternal cage match between Joan and Bette.  

Werth: Joan would never put herself in a cage.  

Wise: And what better way to kick off a celebration of ourselves, except by revisiting some of our most popular posts from the past year, including one celebrating the birthday of one of Hollywood's biggest stars: Kirk Douglas.  There's nothing better than sharing some cake with a guy who looks great in a loincloth and whose talent is even bigger than the cleft in his chin.  


Werth: But we're not all about lantern jaws here at Film Gab because sometimes we get a hankering for the softer side of things, like dudes in dresses.  

Wise: Or the stranger side, like when we discussed Hollywood's oddball auteur David Lynch.  

Werth: Fun Film Gab fact: Kyle MacLachlan's tuckus is almost as popular among Film Gab readers as Julian Sands' rump.   

Wise: Talk about a celebrity cage match! 

Werth: One of the biggest defeats at the box office this year was Disney's John Carter, a sci-fi flop overstuffed with Martians, mayhem, and Taylor Kitsch attempting to act through his abs.  We had much better luck with our voyages with time and space traveling hunks.  

Wise: Of course we're not adverse to disasters, especially when it gives us a chance to revisit a modern classic like Titanic and plunge into shipboard romances of various stripes.

Werth: Maybe they would have had better luck forming a ragtag band of misfits determined to fight injustice instead of getting caught up in the pitfalls of romance.  

Wise: Some of the most enduring Tinsel Town romances are between celebrities and their political party, much like a certain tap-dancing tot or particular tough guy with brains and a penchant for fast-talking showgirls.  

Werth: We here at Film Gab have a penchant for great actresses, especially those with long and varied careers who aren't afraid to get a little pig's blood on their hands.  

Wise: So, Werth, are there any entries from the past year that you wish had attracted more readers?  

Werth: Well I'm still mourning the loss of gap-toothed classic Ernest Borgnine. A 61-year career in Hollywood deserves props... even with films like Bunny O'Hare on his resume. What about you, Wise?  

Wise: I'd have to say that our salute to Hollywood's funny ladies is one of my favorites.  It's just too bad that a giggly blonde never got a chance to share the big screen with a legendary fast-talking brunette.  

Werth: I know one silver screen pair that's destined for more laughs.

Wise: Join us for another rollicking year of leading ladies, Hollywood toughs, big budget bonanzas, gut busting comedies—

Werth: —And the finer side of Julian Sands.  

   

 

Honoring Ernie

Werth:  Hiya, Wise!

Wise: Oh, hi, Werth.  I thought you'd be a little more glum this week after hearing about the passing of Ernest Borgnine.

Werth: It's always sad when a Hollywood legend heads for the heavenly box office, but it's also a chance to salute that artist's accomplishments. And with a talent as big as Borgnine, there's a lot to celebrate.

Wise: Although often remembered today for the broad humor of his WWII-set sitcom McHale's Navy (1962), Borgnine was a talented actor, deploying his gap-toothed smile and hulking shoulders indelibly in countless roles, whether comedic or dramatic.

Werth: I would say that Borgnine's television career actually took a backseat to his film success with classics like From Here to Eternity (1953), Johnny Guitar (1954), Bad Day at Black Rock (1955), and The Catered Affair (1956) pre-dating McHale and The Dirty Dozen (1967), Ice Station Zebra (1968), The Wild Bunch (1969), The Poseidon Adventure (1972), and Escape from NewYork (1981) coming after. Perhaps most laudable is the movie he won the Best Actor Oscar for, Marty (1955).

Wise: Oscars trump Airwolf every time.

Werth: Marty is one of those movies that I can't believe ever got made. It tells the story of a Bronx butcher (Borgnine) who gets harrassed by everyone from his brother, to his mother, to his customers about being a 34 year old bachelor. Choruses of "What's the matter with you?" dog him wherever he goes.

Wise: I'm sure Clifton Webb could relate.

Werth: Marty winds up at a dancehall where he rescues fellow sad-sack Clara (Best Supporting Actress nominee and wife of Gene Kelly, Betsy Blair) from being dumped by her date. The two begin a conversation with talk about how neither one of them is such a dog, their thoughts of suicide and crying, and how kindness is what's important in a relationship.

Wise: Try putting that in your OkCupid profile.

Werth: The movie has shockingly little to push its plot forward. It literally is the story of how two plain people find each other in a world obsessed with looks and coupling. Previously a television movie aired in 1953, Paddy Chayefsky authored the simple plot and dialogue, making Marty and Clara unassuming heroes for anyone who's ever felt forgotten or overlooked. Without being maudlin or preachy, Marty celebrates those in the world who aren't lucky enough to have big dreams and ambition, but still yearn for a human connection.

It's a beautiful exercise in restraint and Borgnine brilliantly worked a soft side into his typically hyper-toughie character. It's a film totally bereft of glitz and glamour and it rightfully earned four Oscars including Best Director (Delbert Mann) and Best Picture.

Wise: In Bunny O' Hare (1979) Borgnine plays Bill Green, a junkman with a past who turns up to scavenge the plumbing fixtures from recently foreclosed houses before they get bulldozed.  Things get complicated when he starts to feel sorry for the titular character, a mild-mannered widow played by Bette Davis.

Werth: What?  Davis is mild-mannered?

Wise: Bunny is also a non-smoker.  Which do you think was the bigger challenge?  Anyway, the two embark on a road trip in Bill's rattletrap camper, and they form a grudging friendship after Bunny discovers Bill's past as a bank robber and convinces him to teach her how to pull heists to get revenge on the bank that took her house.  Instead of keeping the money, Bunny sends it to her deadbeat adult children, Lulu (Reva Rose) and Ad (John Astin as a creepy playboy with a gambling habit and a penchant for bimbos and silk bathrobes).

Werth: I hope people who are currently having mortgage problems are paying attention. 

Wise: Of course their crime spree doesn't go unnoticed by the local police, especially Lieutenant Greeley (Jack Cassidy).  Greeley vows to haul in the criminals despite being distracted by his Nixonian paranoia toward hippies and by his fixation on his recently hired, pert-nosed criminologist assistant (Joan Delaney).

Werth: Joans are very distracting. Just ask Bette.

Wise: Photographed in a cheapo 70's aesthetic with awkward camera moves and flat lighting, the film is about as visually interesting as the kind of home movies that turn up in a rummage sale.

Werth: Sort of the Me Decade's cinéma vérité.

Wise: More like cinema charité.  Still, it's impressive what two pros like Borgnine and Davis can do despite the mediocre film that surrounds them.  He transforms from a suspicious loner to noble daredevil, while Davis blooms from a downtrodden housewife into woman who throws off drudgery in favor of happiness.  Their romantic chemistry doesn't exactly shoot off fireworks, but both actors give deeply humane performances and elevate this junky fluff into something special. 

Werth: I don't know if Ernie gets Film Gab where he's at now, but I hope he knows how much happiness he brought to millions of movie lovers everywhere. Rest in Peace Mr. Borgnine—

Wise: And thank you.

The Hunger Gabs

Werth: Hi, Wise.  

Wise: Tell me, Werth.  Do you have...The Hunger?  

Werth: While I do have an extensive video collection, I tend to shy away from vampire lesbian flicks.  

Wise: No, I meant The Hunger Games—the new movie based on Suzanne Collins's ballyhooed dystopian teen series where a bunch of pouty-lipped pre-adults are forced to fight each other to the death.  

Werth: Sounds like the sales rack at Abercrombie & Fitch.  But I do love any good flick that takes place in the bleak near-future where individuals must battle each other for survival.  


Wise: I know, The Vow was awesome.  

Werth: I was thinking more along the lines of John Carpenter's Escape from New York. Picture it. 1997. America's at war with the Commies and Manhattan's crime rate is so high the whole island is turned into a maximum security prison.

Wise: Wait—1997? I thought this blog was about the future?

Werth: The movie was made in 1981—so back then 1997 was the future. Donald Pleasance is the President and his plane gets shot down by a terrorist worker's group and crash lands in Battery Park where the prisoners take him hostage.

Wise: This is so '97.

Werth: So the only man that Manhattan Prison Warden Hauk (Lee Van Cleef) can turn to is war-hero turned bank robber Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell). Snake only has 24 hours to sneak into the city, find the President and rescue him and get a full pardon before Snake's head explodes.



Wise: What?

Werth: It's complicated, but John Carpenter has always been a writer/director who didn't necessarily rely on plot believability. His knack for creating fast-paced action-horror movies revolved around creating a hero and a cast of characters that stood out from the seemingly pointless point A to point B stories. 

Russell was practically a Carpenter muse portraying several studly heroes in classics like The Thing (1982), Big Trouble in Little China (1986) and sequel Escape from L.A. (1996). In Escape from New York Russell unashamedly relishes playing the un-repentant anti-hero. He doesn't so much wink at the audience as wink, sexily snarl and then blow some dirtbag's head off.

Wise: I assume that's how he snagged Goldie.

Werth: Snake is dropped by glider into the hellish landscape of dilapidated, crook-murderer-psycho-infested New York City in the hopes of finding the President. Along the way he runs into a cavalcade of 1980's character actors like Isaac Hayes, Harry Dean Stanton, Ernest Borgnine and Adrienne Barbeau—and her breasts. The whole film is good, dirty fun with shots of the desperate crew running through such cherished NY landmarks as a Chock Full 'o Nuts store. 

Considering the whole thing was shot on the lot in L.A. and in St. Louis, Missouri, the "NY feel" is better than it deserves to be. And with a classic, cheap-but-creepy synthesizer soundtrack composed by Carpenter himself, Escape is one of those cult '80's flicks that is a fun place to visit even if you don't want to live there.

Wise: In Children of Men (2006), Clive Owen plays Theo Faron, a civil servant in 2027 Great Britain—the last stable nation amid a worldwide crisis of pollution and infertility.  Kidnapped by his ex-wife Julian Taylor (Julianne Moore) who now runs a militant immigrant rights splinter group, Theo makes a deal to smuggle Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey), a young pregnant refugee, out of the country and to a medical community sequestered in the Azores.  

Werth: I wish someone would do the same with Snooki.

Wise: Loosely based on P.D. James's novel of the same name and directed by Alfonso Cuarón, the film is a compelling mix of the possible and the improbable, filled with everyday details seamlessly mixed with futuristic contraptions that make the film's grim view of the future seem particularly close at hand.  This is the guy who directed the third, and best, Harry Potter movie, and he's made his career finding the perfect balance of conflicting tones.

Werth: Which in cinema usually means really dark lighting.

Wise: Even more vital to communicating Cuarón's vision is Owen's performance: casting off his matinee idol looks, Owen transforms Theo from a man riven by despair into a guardian of a hope he never knew he possessed.  This isn't the typical sci-fi action hero bluster—although there's plenty of gun play and chase scenes—instead Owen creates a man who had lost his soul, but now finds his way.  

And he's not the only one showing off his acting chops: Michael Caine has a delightfully daffy role as a pot smoking eccentric; and Julianne Moore uses her fragile beauty to portray a woman who's lost everything but her ideals.  

Werth: Speaking of losing ideals, are you ready to battle your way through the crush of teens to see The Hunger Games?  

Wise: I think I'll save my fighting spirit for next week's Film Gab.

 

Auld Lang Gab!

Werth: Happy New Year, Wise!

Wise: Happy New Year, Werth!

Werth: Any fun plans for New Year’s Eve?

Wise: I’m coming to your house to watch your favorite New Year’s movie.

Werth: I know! I just love hearing you say it.

Wise: Between the curry-rubbed baked brie and the copious amounts of mid-level champagne, what will we be watching?

Werth: Well, Wise, you are really in for a treat, because my favorite New Year’s Eve movie is 1972’s The Poseidon Adventure.

Wise: You mean the re-make?

Werth: Bite your tongue! I pretend that disaster of a disaster movie never happened. In this case (as with most) the original really is the best. Irwin Allen produced this all-star adventure flick about the S.S. Poseidon and her passengers and crew as they ring in the New Year at sea. No sooner do they finish Auld Lang Syne than a tidal wave hits the ship and capsizes it, literally turning everyone’s world upside down.

Wise: Sounds like a dud way to start 1973.

Werth: Indeed. But as the Academy Award®-winning theme song says, “There’s got to be a morning after.” The rest of the film follows a small group of survivors as they struggle to climb to the bottom (now the top) of the ship to escape certain death by drowning and or/fiery explosions. Based on the exciting Paul Gallico book of the same name, Allen really makes some fun design and special-effects choices. When young Robin Shelby (played with borderline annoying juvenile pluck by Eric Shea) goes to the men’s room and stares hopelessly at the ceiling where the toilets hang with their lids open, we get a real sense of the pickle these people are in.

Wise: Please don’t ever use the words “pickle” and “men’s room” in the same sentence again.

Werth: I promise. Topping the effects is the stellar cast assembled to play this intrepid group: Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Stella Stevens, Roddy McDowell, Red Buttons, Jack Albertson, Arthur O’Connell, Leslie Nielsen and the one and only Shelley Winters.

Wise: Please tell me Shelley lives.

 Werth: No spoilers! But her performance as Belle Rosen, legendary in camp circles, earned her a well-deserved Best-Suporting Actress nomination. All in all it’s a fun flick that actually makes you care about the characters so that you are invested in whether they survive the ordeal... or not. It became the first hit of Irwin Allen’s disaster dynasty that would go on to include The Towering Inferno, The Swarm and the inevitable Poseidon Adventure sequel.

Wise: Sounds like the perfect way to start 2011.

Werth: I mean, as long as you’re not trapped in a capsized luxury liner, you’re doing better than these folks, right? So if after the stroke of midnight we’re still sober enough, what would be your pick for a follow-up New Year’s flick?  

Wise: Well, I thought it might be a good idea to follow the deadly histrionics of The Poseidon Adventures with something a little quieter that focuses on domestic conflicts.  I’m thinking of Todd Haynes’ Far From Heaven.  

Werth: I love that movie. Tell the New Year’s connection!  

Wise: A small but pivotal scene takes place on New Year’s Eve, but the majority of the film feels autumnal.  Julianne Moore plays the apotheosis of the 50s housewife struggling with the dawning knowledge that her seemingly ideal, ad executive husband, played by Dennis Quaid, is actually gay.

Werth: That makes him more ideal in my book. 

Wise: Not for her unfortunately.  The revelation destroys her marriage, plus the friendship she strikes up with her gardener, played by Dennis Haysbert, causes all kinds of gossip and backbiting among her proper Connecticut neighbors who rigidly, but politely, adhere to divisions made along racial lines.  It’s really the story of one woman’s discovery of the hollowness of her achievements and her subsequent determination to make a more honest life for herself.  

Werth: It’s so dramatic!

Wise: Melodramatic, actually.  Todd Haynes made the film as a tribute to the Douglass Sirk “women’s pictures” of the 1950s, and he uses the lurid color palette, the heightened emotionalism, and the undercurrent of social critique characteristic to those movies.  The cinematography is lush, gently floating though sets filled with crimsons, ochres, lavenders, jades and chartreuse.  Sandy Powell’s costumes are glamorous and chic, but somehow real.  And the score by Elmer Bernstein is perfectly calibrated, romantic when it needs to be, anguished and occasionally brittle.  

Werth: Elmer is my favorite of the Bernsteins.

Wise: Of course, the performances are fantastic too.  I don’t think I can say enough about Julianne Moore and Dennis Quaid.  They both forgo their usual more contemporary, method-inflected acting style and delve into the more mannered performances of the 50s.  You might think that all this artifice would make a stilted picture, but like opera, the rigid form actually allows for a more moving experience.  

 Werth: It provides a gorgeous contrast between artifice and reality- which is something we all can relate to in our non-cinematic lives.

Wise: I should also mention how great Patricia Clarkson is as the neighbor and best friend and the fantastic Celia Weston as a pernicious gossip.  Even the child actors seem perfectly cast, screeching and stilted and interchangeable with the onscreen children of Lana Turner and Jane Wyman. 

Werth: Is there anything not to like about this movie? 

Wise: Not really.  It’s kind of a perfect film.  

Werth: Amen. So, dear readers, from both of us here at Film Gab, may your 2011 be as perfect as The Poseidon Adventure and Far From Heaven—

Wise: Minus the drowning and the heartbreak.

Werth & Wise: Happy New Year!