Great book—and the movie looks good, too.

Last night I watched a double feature that turned out quite well: Paprika (2006) and The Gang’s All Here (1943).

Paprika is an intriguing science-fiction anime with a good plot and good characters. Really quite remarkable and well worth seeing.

The Gang’s All Here is the quintessential Busby Berkeley musical: he directed, it’s in Technicolor, and he seemed to have an unlimited budget. It is, of course, surreal in the extreme, from the very beginning (a disembodied man’s head floating in darkness, lit only from one side, singing “Brazil” in Portugese, panning to a docked ocean liner disembarking passengers and unloading cargo at the same time, with one cargo net of fruit leading to Carmen Miranda’s hat and then to her routine, interrupted by a welcome car from the City of New York, presenting her a key to the city and getting a pound of coffee in return—and with wartime scarcities, the recipient hosts the bag of coffee beans and says, “Now I can retire.”) The cast is good: Alice Faye (with her wonderful contralto voice), Carmen Miranda, Benny Goodman, Eugene Pallette, Charlotte Greenwood, and Edward Everett Horton. Well worth renting. Some other wartime touches: a big party to sell war bonds, the actual war footage a 30-second montage of the hero walking through the jungle, with newspapers headllines superimposed, all proclaiming significant victories for the Allies—nothing to unsettle morale in wartime.

They also want propaganda:

The Pentagon is attempting to influence filmmakers and future movies depicting the U.S. conflict in Iraq. Vietnam-era war movies like “Apocalypse Now” and “Born on the Fourth of July” helped stereotype Vietnam veterans as crazy or psychologically damaged. To prevent this from happening again, the U.S. Army has assigned a lieutenant colonel to an office in Los Angeles, given him the job of reviewing movie scripts about the Iraq conflict and deciding which ones will get military assistance in their making. If the Army approves a script, it means the filmmaker can gain valuable access to bases, ships, planes, tanks and Humvees, and receive advice from the military in making the movie. In exchange for advice and access to these props, though, the filmmaker must agree to address any “problems” the Pentagon finds with their script. If the filmmaker refuses, the Pentagon can pull its offer. Some filmmakers view the Pentagon’s script advice as a subtle form of censorship or an attempt to spin the war. Filmmaker Paul Haggis, who wrote and directed the Iraq war movie “In the Valley of Elah,” said he believes the Army is not interested in telling honest stories about soldiers or the war. “They are trying to put the best spin on what they are doing,” he said. “Of course they want to publicize what is good. But that doesn’t mean that it is true.”

Source: Los Angeles Times, July 7, 2008

From Carefree.

Last night I stayed up to watch the fireworks from my balcony: nice view, nice evening. Megs did not like the fireworks at all (sudden loud noises are not entertaining, says Megs). Yesterday I applied the mix of brown sugar and salt to the ribs, and today I’ll cook them. We’ll watch a movie, probably.

I just started Carefree, a Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movie, songs by Irving Berlin. So far, so good. Titles were done in fingerpainting, which I liked. I hadn’t though of Astaire as a golfer, but early in the film he does a terrific number that includes belting a line of golf balls down the fairway and it’s clear that he was pretty damn good. The Wikipedia article does say “Astaire was a lifelong golf and horse-racing enthusiast.” On reflection, it makes sense: Astaire had exquisite control of his body, and mastering a golf swing would be child’s play for him.

See golf dance here.

The first movie in which I saw parkour and recognized it as the sport was District B13 (Banlieue 13), produced by Luc Besson, a gratifyingly entertaining film. The next was the first Daniel Craig James Bond film, Casino Royale. Here’s a nice selection of video snippets from various movies. I expect we’ll be seeing a lot more in American films.

The mock documentary is now a well-established genre. It seems almost always to be used for comedy, but Death of a President is quite an amazing film that uses the form to explore the likely aftereffects of a presidential assassination. Extremely well done—you have to see it to see what I mean—and the aftershocks ring true. Well worth renting.

If you have a Netflix subscription, a Wifi hub, and the Roku. Read here.

Some truly great movies don’t get the recognition they deserve, and Bye Bye Blues (1989) is of this number. I don’t believe it’s even available on DVD, though I have a video cassette edition. Starring the wonderful and luminous Rebecca Jenkins, the film includes some great music along with a solid story. If you ever get a chance, see this film. I hope that this will be made available on DVD sometime soon.

The Film Club: A Memoir, by David Gilmour, is a wonderful book—certainly a book that any father who has a son would do well to read. The eponymous club has two members: David Gilmour and his son Jesse. Jesse was totally disengaged from school as a 15-year-old, failing and unable to get any traction, and his father offers him a deal: drop out of school, don’t have to get a job, no drugs allowed, and watch 3 movies a week with his father. The book follows their lives over the next few years, talking of the movies and the life events that occurred. I literally could not put it down: brought it home from the library, started it, and just now finished it. Absolutely wonderful. It’s also nice that Gilmour and I seem to have much the same taste in movies. We both think Ishtar is superb up until the two protagonists go into the desert, when it pretty much falls apart—but the first is as good a comedy as anything I’ve seen. We both think The Searchers is overrated. (Those two opinions are not all that common, I think.) We agree on other things that are more often recognized: that Marlon Brando, James Dean, Gary Cooper, Steve McQueen, Clint Eastwod, and Cary Grant are all great actors with the sense to be still. The list of movies mentioned in the book is long and makes me want to take a couple of days and just re-watch many films. Great stuff.

Last night I watched Thirteen Days, the movie made about the Cuban missile crisis. It’s long, but it’s extremely well made and totally absorbed me. It’s done as a thriller, and it indeed addresses a time of great crisis—and no one knew how it would end.

The book Groupthink details how the Bay of Pigs campaign came to be. The author explains that he analyzed this particular manifestation of groupthink not because it was famous as an example of things gone wrong so much as because the recordkeeping requirements of the Federal government, particularly in the Executive office, meant that he had a complete record of meetings and a complete analysis of outcomes. He noted that examples of groupthink abound in business, but when the failure occurs, there are few records and much careful covering up and shifting of responsibility so that it becomes impossible to get the true story.

As a result of that experience, President Kennedy (and those around him) learned that he could not simply trust the experts—he had to somehow use their expertise without delivering himself into their hands, and he applied those lessons in the Cuban missile crisis.

I was 22 at the time, working in Cleveland, and I remember one day at lunchtime, we came out on the street and looked up to see whether missiles were coming. We knew we wouldn’t see them, but everyone was expecting them. It was an incredibly trying time: poised on the brink of thermonuclear war, not knowing what would happen.

The movie captures that tension and in taking you along through the internal process of decision-making, amplifies it. This is definitely a movie to see. And because of the detailed records that were kept, you see something very close to what actually happened. Highly recommended.

And, I should note, you can’t help but contrast the methods of handling that crisis with the way Bush has handled subsequent crises. But Bush need fear no such movies, since his Executive office has been careful to destroy the records that the law requires be kept.

Apparently at least one movie (The Exorcist) really did cause talk about driving mad some who saw it. But… read the details.

This is pretty cool. If you already have Wifi in your house, then this device will play the Netflix see-it-now movies through your TV. Tim Gideon’s review at the link is pretty thorough. It begins:

As a confirmed Netflix addict, I was immediately intrigued by the new Netflix Player by Roku, an on-demand video streaming device that works with the popular movie rental service. How does the Roku box compare with the Netflix device of my dreams? My dream device wouldn’t require a PC, just like Apple TV—Check. It would be diminutive and discreet, yet have excellent connectivity (HDMI with surround sound, S-Video, standard composite and component ports)—Check. It would be incredibly easy to set up and would update available films on the device whenever I updated my queue online—Check. I’d pay an upfront cost—say $100—for the box, but my monthly subscription fee wouldn’t increase—Check. Lastly, it would have full access to the entire Netflix library—No check there. Well, four out of five ain’t bad—in fact, that’s pretty fantastic.

Interesting article. Before you read it, guess what the five movies are.

Also, the science in Iron Man.

Not at all resembling the substance of Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels or Snatch, this latest Guy Ritchie movie has somewhat the style but treats a totally different issue. Well worth seeing and discussing. Particularly recommended to the proprietor of Kafeneio.

More Jackie Chan.

Get ready.

Susan Spano in the LA Times lists the best films to see Paris. I ask The Wife: what films that should be in the list were omitted?

If springtime in Paris isn’t going to work for you this year, rent a movie and pretend — until you can book a flight and go. Here are my Top 10 picks for films that best show off the French capital.

For scenes from these memorable films, go to latimes.com/reelparis.

1. “Ratatouille“: Last year’s animated hit about a rat named Remy who has a talent for cooking; directed by Brad Bird of “The Incredibles.” The Paris backdrop is almost as good as the real thing, all air brushed and rose colored.

2. “An American in Paris”: The 1951 classic starring Gene Kelly as a struggling American artist and Leslie Caron as a pretty young parisienne; their “American in Paris Ballet,” set to the music of George Gershwin, makes you want to go to Paris and fall in love, even if the scenery is right off the back lot.

3. “Love in the Afternoon”: Director Billy Wilder’s 1957 bittersweet romantic comedy about an American playboy (Gary Cooper) and the mischievous Paris gamin (Audrey Hepburn) who attempts to entrap him; lots of the action takes place at the Ritz, with views of the Place Vendôme out the window.

4. “Le Divorce”: A 2003 movie based on a sly comedy of manners, by novelist Diane Johnson, about the fundamental incompatibility of a French family and an American family; scenes of contemporary Paris, plus French actor Thierry Lhermitte as sexy Uncle Edgar.

5. “Funny Face”: Released the same year as “Love in the Afternoon,” with Hepburn again, this time opposite Fred Astaire, dancing their way through 1950s Paris from beatnik cafes in Montmartre to the couture ateliers on the Rue du Faubourg St.-Honoré.

6. “Gigi“: From a 1944 novel by Colette and 1951 musical comedy, this 1958 Leslie Caron vehicle won nine Oscars, with songs by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe; set in a glorious Belle Époque Paris, with costumes right out of Georges Seurat’s “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.”

7. “Breathless”: The landmark 1960 French New Wave film with a too-cool-to-be-real Jean-Paul Belmondo and heartbreakingly young Jean Seberg running from the cops on the mean streets of Paris.

8. “The Day of the Jackal”: 1973 thriller based on a Frederick Forsyth novel about a hired assassin gunning for French President Charles de Gaulle.

9. “Is Paris Burning?”: A 1966 psuedo-documentary-style re-creation of the liberation of Paris during World War II with a platoon of stars, including Belmondo, Kirk Douglas, Orson Welles and Simone Signoret.

10. “Amélie”: From 2001, an eccentric romantic comedy about a shy young waitress looking for love, chiefly in Montmartre; a popular debut for Audrey Tautou, who went on to star with Tom Hanks and Paris in 2006’s “The Da Vinci Code.”

Yesterday I watched In the Valley of Elah, with Tommie Lee Jones, Susan Sarandon, Charlize Theron, et al. It has a lot of resonance as we read more and more accounts of how many Iraq and Afghanistan vets are suffering breakdowns and how the VA is simply not funded, staffed, trained, or organized to help them—to the extent that the VA lied about the number of suicides and suicide attempts recently.

The movie is a good mystery and also puts a human face on how our troops are suffering under the unceasing stress of combat.