Archive for the 'Movies'

ROOM 237 documents the ideas of a group of people who find hidden meanings in THE SHINING after multiple viewings. This seems to be more common in films than in books. Where multiple viewings of a movie begin to reveal previously hidden insights.

But what books spark such a frenzy over hidden signs, symbols, etc.

Alarm bells go off at the very start of Paul Williams Still Alive. Director Stephen Kessler describes his childhood affection for the once-ubiquitous singer/songwriter/actor Paul Williams only to confess his amazement at discovering Williams is – SPOILER ALERT – not dead. You’re taking a mighty risk building your entire movie on a premise that at best is disingenuous and at worst makes you look like a putz.

Consider it part of an entirely new genre: the cinema of the oblivious. Documentaries in which the filmmakers insist on inserting themselves into the proceedings in order to demonstrate their love of their subject only to reveal their ignorance of its essentials. My favorite example of the form is Ultrasuede: In Search of Halston, which is more about director Whitney Smith’s vintage wardrobe and affinity for period hairstyles than the fashion designer.

Kessler tracks down his one-time idol, now twenty years sober and still possessed of a heroic work ethic, and goes on the road with him. Kessler is at times spectacularly irritating, wondering why he and Williams aren’t hitting it off, grousing about the performer’s wife ruining their time together, interrupting Williams mid-story to focus on the narrative he wants to tell.

What stymies him is Williams’ genial refusal to play along. Like Kessler, I remember Williams as a pop culture staple. A talk show fixture who’d guest on any crime drama, Williams would win an Academy Award one night then parachute out of a plane on Circus of the Stars the next. He’s also genuinely talented, writing terrific songs (“The Rainbow Connection”!) and some brilliant, deliberately bad ones for Ishtar. He’s got a hard-won understanding of what fame has cost him and given him, and he won’t allow Kessler to put him in a convenient box. When the director asks if all those game show appearances harmed his career, Williams essentially says sure, but: “Some part of Paul Simon wishes he’d done more Hollywood Squares, and I wish I’d written ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water.’” Williams’ only regrets stem from his behavior when he was an addict. His dogged refusal to view himself as a has-been or a failure means that Kessler can’t see him that way, either. Williams pointedly tells Kessler that the fact that his life in the last few years has been interesting “fucks up your movie – and I love that.” By the time it’s over, Kessler has grown to love it, too, and the curious bond that develops between putative chronicler and alleged subject makes the film a compelling investigation of celebrity. Here’s Williams appearing, shall we say, in character with Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show.



I followed up the documentary with a project from the height of Williams’ fame. Phantom of the Paradise is Brian DePalma’s rock opera take on The Phantom of the Opera. You’d think that Williams, with his diminutive size and his songs’ facility for tapping into isolation, would make a haunting phantom. Instead he’s cast as the villain, and he offers a game performance. An antic William Finley plays the title role without a hint of tragedy – and, bizarrely, with Williams’ singing voice. Childhood crush Jessica Harper is a rock goddess equal parts Stevie Nicks and Debbie Harry. Only Brian DePalma would end a musical with a split-screen assassination attempt. It’s like the man can’t help himself. Enjoy the trailer.

The Spring 2013 issue of Noir City was heaved off the trucks and hawked by our upstanding crew of clean-cut young newsboys on Friday. No doubt you heard their melodious, church-trained voices at appropriate hours throughout your weekend as they enticed you with the wonders contained within the pages of this fine e-lectronic periodical, the house rag of the Film Noir Foundation.

If perchance our adorable cadre of industrious ragamuffins left this tidbit out, permit me to inform you that yours truly took pen in hand to write the cover story on remakes of classic films noir. In the article I go through the decades, trying to figure out what each generation took from the past, and what these return trips to the shadows tell us about the times during which they were made. Don’t expect me to trash all the newer films. While many of the remakes are abysmal, several can stand alongside the films that inspired them – while one or two improve upon the originals. But which ones are the winners? The blaxploitation Asphalt Jungle? The Postman Always Rings Twice that includes the sex scenes? The shitty retread of D.O.A.?^*

Also on hand is the latest installment of Keenan’s Korner, featuring crime fiction and cocktails. This outing includes reviews of the latest books by Dennis Lehane, Max Allan Collins and Lawrence Block. Plus a host of other terrific articles like Jake Hinkson on Frank Lovejoy, Imogen Smith’s profile of Jean Gabin, Carl Steward’s tribute to smoky songstress Julie London, Dan Akira Nishimura’s interview with director Monte Hellman (Two-Lane Blacktop), and Philippe Garnier on the dirty little secret of France’s fabled noir publisher. All of it gloriously interactive and impeccably designed by Michael Kronenberg. Seriously, just look at Michael’s amazing cover, inspired by the work of the late comics artist and publisher Carmine Infantino.

All this goodness sent to your inbox with the contribution of twenty dollars or more to the FNF. Help support the restoration of classic films and provide nutritious gruel for our corps of orphaned urchins. Go on, you know you want to.

^*I can’t lie to you. The shitty retread of D.O.A. is not one of the winners.