March 2008

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The Monday Movie Quiz #169

No mistaking this week's quiz movie for a classic, but-- to answer everybody's question up front-- yes, I like it! More than that, I revere its star, and hope you do, too. So what's the title? If you know it, send me an email by late Sunday-- if you're right, expect to see your name in next week's disguised winner's circle.

Posted by Steve Monaco at March 31, 2008 2:17 AM

 

Last week's Movie Quiz winners

Her name may not appear on the poster, but MGM knew who to put front and center in the picture, and many people now believe that Marilyn Monroe was the star of The Asphalt Jungle (1950). She was actually billed eleventh from the top, in a small but definitely memorable role in one of the best caper movies ever made.

Written and directed by John Huston, The Asphalt Jungle is a stark, unromantic crime film about a jewelry store heist and the various characters involved. No less than half-a-dozen subplots are woven together, connecting the ex-con mastermind behind the gang to the lawyer handling the swag (and his mistress Marilyn), as well as all the other lowlifes in the gang. The head thug in the last group was played by the great Sterling Hayden (The Godfather's Capt. McCluskey) in his first starring role. (He plays a character named Dix, whose first line is, amusingly, "Don't bone me!" Well, it amuses me.)

They may look happy (at least some of them), but every character in The Asphalt Jungle is doomed, mostly by his or her own greed. The double-crosses and bodies pile up, until by the film's end, everyone's either locked up or dead. One of the film's most memorable final scenes is the arrest of the gang's mastermind, a dirty old man who can't stop watching a hot young babe dance-- he stays drooling over her long enough for the cops to catch him.

The final scene, where a fatally-shot Dix tries to get back to his old Kentucky horse ranch, is justly famous-- Sterling Hayden could croak with the best of them, and Huston's direction is both grim and beautiful.

Congratulations and a bag full of hot ice to the following quiz winners: Wayne Palmer, Joe Rosenberg, Song-Un Lee, ron frigstad, Bob Redwing, Bill Hearne, Thomas Miller, Bill Kelly, Fred Lorence, Nancy Louis Rutherford, E. Yarber, Marjorie Thieman, Jack Sparks, John Seffl, Michael Mattson, and Kevin Musolino.

Posted by Steve Monaco at March 30, 2008 11:03 PM

 

Leonard Nimoy's first closeup-- before and after

While he'd made his film debut a year earlier in a couple of uncredited bit parts, the 1952 boxing film Kid Monk Baroni was 21-year-old Leonard Nimoy's big break. Even though he wasn't the "star," the future Mr. Spock was the main character and is in nearly every minute of the movie. He played a young fighter named Paul Baroni, cruelly nicknamed "Monk" because of his apelike face. After the money starts rolling in, though, Monk tries out a new medical wonder procedure: plastic surgery.

The plot gave Leonard not only the chance to show his acting chops, but allowed him to delay revealing to the world his true beauty. At the beginning of the movie, he sports a brow second only to Frankenstein's monster:

Then the makeup is removed, and like a butterfly that stings like a bee, the transformation is complete and Leonard's real face is seen-- in magnificent closeup-- for the first time.

Posted by Steve Monaco at March 27, 2008 2:43 PM

 

My movie year (not yet)

Some more movies from my vast library that I can't bring myself to throw away unseen, but can't quite bring myself to watch.

Truck Stop Women (1974), starring Claudia Jennings. The imdb one-line plot synopsis: "A mother and daughter who run a brothel for truckers fight back when the Mafia tries to take over their operation." Today, it would be a reality series. In its third season.

Sukeban Boy (Japan - 2006), directed by Noboru Iguchi. A synopsis from a cult-movie forum: "Sukeban has a problem. The foulmouthed, hard-fighting son of a biker, the teenaged boy has been cursed with the looks of a pop princess. The looks lead to teasing, the teasing leads to fighting, the fighting leads to expulsions. What's a biker who's nurturing conflicted feelings for his gender-confused child to do in such a situation? Simple! Dress the boy up as a girl and enroll him in an all-girls high school." (Another reality show!)

Insatiability (Poland - 2003), directed by Wiktor Grodecki. From the same obscure movie forum: "Set in a future world where China has invaded Europe, the action that unfolds is rife with corruption, explicit sex, and surrealistic imagery." What the critics said: ""Featuring some of the most demented onscreen performances since Klaus Kinski." "[Like]Mel Brooks trying to remake Pasolini's Salo."

Posted by Steve Monaco at March 25, 2008 2:40 AM

 

The Monday Movie Quiz #168

Okay, after last week's choice, maybe it's time for a truly good movie-- in fact, it's a great one.

Even if you don't know it, those pics should give you plenty of clues. So send me an email with the title-- if you're right, you'll see your name in next week's bituminous winner's circle.

Posted by Steve Monaco at March 24, 2008 2:07 AM

 

Last week's Movie Quiz winners

There was a veritable surge of email this week identifying the quiz movie in question, the Reagan-era classic Red Dawn (1984), directed by Hollywood's Cold Warrior #1, John Milius, and starring Patrick Swayze in arguably his best-known non-dancing, non-phantom role. It was the movie that asked the question "What happens when the Commies take over America?" and then answered, "We'll kill 'em with teenagers!"

Some readers wondered if I was actually serious in referring to it as "gut-wrenching." "Please, please tell me you're being facetious. Even Harry Dean Stanton couldn't save this turkey." "Gut wrenching? As in vomit inducing?" A couple of longtime correspondents who know me perhaps too well suggested that I chose it as a way of "doing some-- ahem-- 'creative commentary'" on Patrick Swayze's recent news-making cancer. Others mentioned the newly-minted Roadhouse curse, referring to the 1989 Swayze film that just recently lost another of its stars, guitarist Jeff Healey. (But really, wasn't just being in that movie punishment enough?)

For the most part, though, this week's replies involved respect for Swayze and a total lack of same for the film itself. "Lord, did we howl when this movie came on cable during the mid-eighties." "I still laugh my ass off when the Russkies first hit the high school." "Goofy premise." "Ludicrous." And so on.

(My favorite take of the week, however, came from someone with a local perspective: "I live in eastern CO [the story's setting], and you'd have to be a bigger idiot than Milius to believe that our booze-soaked, meth-addled populace could ever resist a foreign invader. These are people who couldn't resist Wal-Mart."

And speaking of John Milius . . .

"You should ask a follow up question for extra points: How many pounds of red meat and cigarettes does John Millius consume in a year?" For those who don't know about him, Milius (Conan the Barbarian) has been Hollywood's premiere rightwinger for decades, and has never met a weapon he didn't love or an animal he didn't want to slaughter. His original screenplay for the Robert Redford film Jeremiah Johnson featured a scene where a herd of diseased cattle have to be put down, and Milius had it written into his contract that he got to do all the killing. (Not only that, but his original draft was for a herd several times larger than the final one in the film.) But at least he's honest about himself: in "The Making of Red Dawn", he even says, "I believe in all that rugged-individualism hogwash."

A mighty group of quiz warriors this week, so congratulations and a pet wolverine to the following sharpshooters: Wayne Palmer, John Seffl, Song-Un Lee, Dean Carlson, Bob Redwing, Nancy Louise Rutherford, Mark Gisleson, Vince Tuss (who reminded me that Red Dawn was the first-ever PG-13 movie), Bill McLaughlin, Michael Mattson, E. Yarber, Thomas Miller, Jack Sparks, Bill Kelly, Bob Aulert, Nalina R. Yale, Fred Lorence, Spencer Abbe, Joe Rosenberg, Kenneth Gramer, Denny Lynch, Bill Hearne, Brian Jennings, Stacy Sarette, Kevin Musolino, Dave Mallow, and ron frigstad.

"Avenge me!"

Posted by Steve Monaco at March 23, 2008 5:52 PM

 

My movie year (so far)

Raw Deal: A Question of Consent (2001), directed by Billy Corben. A stripper claimed she was raped at a frat party gone worse than wild. She was then arrested herself for filing a false police report. So how to know who's telling the truth? Easy-- the entire party was recorded by not one, but two cameras, and this documentary plays extended sections of the real-time drama. But the video actually makes it even harder to be certain what really happened, and the key players are all so repellent that no one emerges as the good guy. Like Capturing the Friedmans, by the film's end you have more questions than answers.

One aspect of the case actually pertains to National Sunshine Week, but not as an argument in its favor. Florida, the state the stripper's case was tried in, had Sunshine Laws at the time (1999), so as soon as it was learned that the unedited frat house party tapes were "government records," requests flooded in, and copies of them were mailed around the world. One radio shock-dolt bragged of having a 50-man kegger with the tapes as entertainment.

Monaco Forever (1984), directed by William A. Levey. Hey, that's me! Actually, it's an excreble short feature (40 minutes or so) that reeks of vanity-production. Its only claim to even pseudo-fame is that it's the film debut of Jean-Claude Van Damme! Here's one of his first-ever closeups:

JCVD, as he's known to his fans, is only given a single two minute scene, playing the character "Gay Karate Man." Even though it's his first time on camera, all of his acting talents are on display. (And note the Kurt Weill soundtrack.)

Posted by Steve Monaco at March 19, 2008 11:56 PM

 

The Monday Movie Quiz #167

A quiz torn from today's headlines, kind of:

Do you know the title of this gut-wrenching classic? Send me an email with the title by late Sunday. If you're correct, you'll see your name in next week's winner's circle (the one nobody puts in a corner).

Posted by Steve Monaco at March 17, 2008 3:28 AM

 

Last week's Movie Quiz winners

It's a Movie Quiz first-- there were more wrong answers last week than right ones! And nearly every '70s Eastwood movie was guessed, at least those without an orangutan. Many seasoned quiz winners not only didn't recognize the snazzy jacket that Clint wore in Dirty Harry (1971), they didn't know that the modest-looking guy standing next to CE in last week's picture clue was the film's director, Don Siegel.

After half-a-century of being in front of the camera, Eastwood has a few roles he's best known for, but Harry Callahan is still probably #1, and the original Dirty Harry is still the best of the series. But Clint isn't one of the reasons the film can lay claim to greatness-- in fact, he wasn't even the first choice for the role. Far from it, as this advance movie poster attests. (And man, wouldn't that version have sucked?)

I know I'm not alone in believing that the true star of Dirty Harry was this guy:

Andrew Robinson was so great in his first film as the Scorpio Killer, he claimed that it derailed his career for many years-- producers actually believed he was as crazy as his character. He improvised (with Siegel's blessing) many of his film's best-known lines (when Harry pulls out his Magnum, the ad lib was, "My, that's a big one") and came up with the body flip during the intense final shootout. Also, while the Zodiac Killer threatened to shoot at a bus full of schoolkids, Robinson's character actually hijacks one, and his insane performance in that scene alone should have gotten him an Oscar.

When the movie was released, a young Roger Ebert wrote, "The movie's moral position is fascist. No doubt about it." Almost three decades later, Dirty Harry can still inspire that kind of argument, and counter-argument. While "Do ya feel lucky?" is still the movie's best-known quote, the one that's really at the heart of it is Harry's reply that he just violated the killer's rights: "Well, I'm all broken up about that man's rights."

Even with the rare sight of Don Siegel without his usual hat, some quiz winners weren't fooled, so congratulations and a hot dog with Harry to the following: Song-Un Lee, Bob Redwing, Joe Rosenberg, Vince Tuss, E. Yarber, Jack Sparks, Nancy Louise Rutherford, Fred Lorence, Bill Hearne, Michael Mattson, and Denny Lynch.

Posted by Steve Monaco at March 17, 2008 12:19 AM

 

My movie year (so far)

Monster Camp (2007), directed by Cullen Hoback. This sweet-natured documentary about real-life gaming is still playing film festivals, and while it's not in the same league as The King of Kong, it's worth a look if it comes your way. It documents a few weekends spent by members of a Seattle role-playing group-- for 48 hours, they dress up as different characters and roam the woods (campgrounds) while acting out a fantasy scenario written by the group's leader. They swat each other with padded weapons while counting aloud the damage points, throw magic spells (dyed birdseed), and have a pretty good time.

Director Hoback seems to enjoy both the game and the people involved, and by the end of the film, I at least liked the latter. (My favorite "character" is the guy whose videogame addiction has caused him to spend five years as a high school senior.) But Hoback also gets in deft observations about the side-effects of gaming in general, like a quick shot of a small house with an unmowed yard followed by a shot of the overweight, middle-aged gamer inside, staring into the screen.

The Thieving Hand (1908), directed by J. Stuart Blackton. Narrative films were only about six years old when this bizarre little comedy was made, which makes its inventiveness even more impressive. A generous man rewards a one-armed beggar with a new artificial arm (from the limb shop, above), but the hand attached is an uncontrollable pickpocket. The innocent owner of the arm ultimately goes to prison-- alas, the existing print is missing the last moments of the ending, so we'll never know what happens in that jail cell with all those tough guys.

(P.S. There's no music track, so use your own. You might be surprised how well modern music goes with silent film.)

Posted by Steve Monaco at March 13, 2008 3:47 PM

 

Great electronica of the past

Posted by Steve Monaco at March 13, 2008 2:13 AM

 

The Monday Movie Quiz #166

Many of you seem to enjoy quizzes with behind-the-scenes pics, and I think this shot is a great one. Everybody knows The Star, of course, but it's the man who's less familiar who's the real clue. What movie did they make together that had The Star wearing a jacket like that? (The actual film was in color, and it looked even worse.) If you know the title, send me an email by late Sunday-- if you're right, you'll see your name in next week's hotdog-eating winner's circle.

Posted by Steve Monaco at March 10, 2008 12:46 AM

 

Last week's Movie Quiz winners

How do you describe Barton Fink, the Coen Brothers' 1991 murder-comedy set in old Hollywood, a movie that's considered strange even for them? A quiz winner suggested, "Weird-- just not in an interesting way" but other readers disagreed with the last part. One of the Coens thought of it as a "buddy picture," and the other one said it was more like Polanski's tales of madness, like Repulsion and The Tenant. (When asked for a name for the genre that would include those movies, he suggested "the person-alone-in-a-room" genre.)

While nowhere near the bloodbath of No Country for Old Men (that's a mosquito on Turturro's head, not an air-gun wound), there's still plenty of gore for what's basically a funny story about artistic aspirations gone awry in Hollywood. Is young screenwriter Fink's next-door neighbor a killer? Or is it Barton himself? And what's with the wallpaper that peels like crazy, and the sounds behind the walls? Not to mention the mysterious box, that may or may not have the secret. (We never find out.)

The cast featured actors who are now well-established as regulars in the Coen Brothers reperiore company. In some instances, the roles were written specifically for them, like the fiery John Goodman (last week's clue #3) and everybody's favorite cadaver, Steve Buscemi as Chet the Bellboy:

(Buscemi's character is cited by some Fink fans as proof that Barton's residence, The Hotel Earle, is really Hell itself. Chet doesn't appear, he emerges from Down Below. Also, water evaporates in the hotel, and the word "six" is said three times in the elevator!)

Most of the praise that came in this week was for the cast, not the movie. Some mentioned John Mahoney as W.P. Mayhew, the alcoholic Southern writer loosely based on Faulkner. There were even more votes for Michael Lerner as studio head Jack Lipnick, who arguably got the best lines. And more than a few found at least one similarity between Barton Fink and the Coens' much different current film, No Country for Old Men-- both have endings that suck.

Winners galore this week, so congratulations and a dose of that Barton Fink feeling to the following: E. Yarber, Vince Tuss, Gus Mastrapa, Wayne Palmer, ron frigstad, Song-Un Lee, Kenneth Gramer, Bob Aulert, Dean Carlson, Bob Redwing, Jack Sparks, Fred Lorence, Bill Hearne, Thomas Miller, Michael Mattson, Brian Jennings, Joe Rosenberg, Don Lehnhoff, Kevin Musolino, Kristy Norwood, Nancy Louise Rutherford, Corey Anderson, Stacy Filkins, and Autumn Hall-Tun.

And a winner's circle special commendation to Mark Gisleson, former City Pages associate and long-time quiz regular-- last Tuesday, he posted his last at his page Norwegianity, one of the blogging achievements of all time. By his estimation (and I think, for once, he's being conservative), he's written half-a-million words a year since its inception. For those who will find a lot less to read online from now on because of his departure, remember this: he's retired before. Still, let's take him at his word and assume Tuesday was final. Farewell, then Wege-- careful walking into the light!

Posted by Steve Monaco at March 9, 2008 8:14 PM

 

Great moments in commercial history

If you ever wondered how a certain urine-colored soft drink was first sold to the American public, this corny commercial played constantly in the mid-sixties. The knee-slappin' hillbilly antics introduced kids across the land to a highly-caffeinated soda-pop that tasted like wading pool water. Yee-haw!

Posted by Steve Monaco at March 7, 2008 3:50 AM

 

Important campaign advice for Barack Obama

Maybe it's time to throw away the patch and/or the Nicorette and win one for the Gipper!

Posted by Steve Monaco at March 6, 2008 2:34 AM

 

The Monday Movie Quiz #165

A movie even weirder than those pics make it look-- do you know it? Then send me an email by late Sunday with the title. If you're right, expect the happy ending of seeing your name in next week's rasslin' winner's circle.

Posted by Steve Monaco at March 3, 2008 12:26 AM

 

Last week's Movie Quiz winners

Hard to believe that such a beaming feel-good kind of poster could have its origin in a novel that ends, "In the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases." But the airplane sticking out of the house is a tip-off that George Roy Hill's 1982 movie version of John Irving's bestselling book was going to be faithful to the original's comic darkness. (In that scene, director Hill even played the apologetic pilot.)

Selling the movie may have been a bit tough, considering that its star, Robin Williams, was mostly known at the time for saying "Nanu-nanu." As novelist-househusband T.S. Garp, he was playing a role with at least one foot in unhappy reality, which might have displeased the Mork lovers. It wasn't common then to see TV stars from family-oriented hit shows playing a bastard (literally) in a movie so filled with death and sex. (Especially the latter, and the excruciating scene in the Garps' driveway-- if you need a reminder, go here and scroll all the way to #8.)

Selling the film in other countries, on the other hand, doesn't appear to have been as problematic. In Germany, for example, they took a completely different approach (that's the lovely John Lithgow, by the way, as Roberta Muldoon):

And you won't believe another German poster, with Garp in the background and the star of the opening credits getting full exposure, in more ways than one. (WARNING: Full frontal nudity ahead-- and note the dog ear in Garp's mouth.)

Even Williams' non-fans (like me) admired his work in Garp, in a difficult role that required him to go through many stages of life. (In fact, for a youthful sex scene, he had to have his chest and back waxed to look younger, a job that probably took all day.) Still, he was the weakest actor in the cast, which was filled with acting heavyweights like Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy toward the end of their careers and Mary Beth Hurt (above) and Glenn Close at the beginning of theirs (Garp was Close's first film).

Reader reaction was mixed-- some still love it, some never did, and some didn't feel it held up. I'm afraid I'm in the third group, having watched it repeatedly when it was new. Seeing it now, I find an artificiality to it (look at the top poster) that gives it a little too much sweetening for my taste. But it's filled with great scenes and memorable dialogue, and Lithgow really is hilarious (as when he suffers from his "raging hormonal attacks"). I'd still recommend it to others who haven't seen it, even though I'll never watch it again.

An abundance of winners this week, which is always nice. So congratulations and a plane ride with George Roy Hill to the following astute cineastes: Vince Tuss (who points out the March 2 quiz deadline is John Irving's birthday!), Wayne Palmer, John Seffl, Song-Un Lee, Bob Redwing, Stacy Sarette, Nancy Louise Rutherford, Bob Aulert, Shaun Faulkner, Bill McLaughlin, Fred Lorence, Doug Smith, Joe Rosenberg, E. Yarber, Jack Sparks, Bill Hearne, Brian Jennings, Denny Lynch, Thomas Miller, Kenneth Gramer, Nick Rupar, Michael Mattson, Mark Gisleson, Gene Miller, Gregg Davis, and Kevin Musolino. Nice work, folks!

Posted by Steve Monaco at March 2, 2008 3:28 PM

 

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