Live in the Movie Moment

Hello Lance's Werthwhile Movie Fans!

I know it's been awhile since I've posted something scintillating, but I've made a resolution for 2018 to share my classic cinema burblings with all off you more often.

Sometimes I'm daunted by the amount of time I want to take talking about movies when the rest of my life is so consuming. There is not enough time in the day for me to be a television executive, a man about town, and write about why Darren Aronofsky's mother! nails all the classic Female Gothic tropes without bothering to make us care about his tortured heroine.

Today as I was trying to take a nap, my evil brain stayed awake and pestered me with the thought, "What if rather than expounding on films in movie-nut detail, I look for the little things?" Movies should be indulged in full, but often when we think of them, a single image or scene evokes all the feels.

So here is a list (in no particular order) of some of my favorite moments in film:

Dorothy Malone's frenzied dance while her father croaks on the stairs in Written on the Wind (1956).

Marilyn's "fuzzy end of the lollipop" speech in Some Like it Hot (1959). 

Gene Tierney watching Darryl Hickman drown after she gives him a rubdown in Leave Her To Heaven (1945).

The end credits of West Side Story (1961).

The helium-infused warehouse gun battle in Broadway Danny Rose (1984).

The scissor scene in The Furies (1950).

Martin Balsam going down the stairs in Hitchcock's Psycho (1960).

Peter O'Toole watching the approaching lone rider in Lawrence of Arabia (1962).

Olivia de Havilland hollering at the phone from her "small, private elevator" in Lady in a Cage (1964).

Gloria Swanson descending the staircase at the end of Sunset Boulevard (1950).

Those fucking twins in The Shining (1980).

Little Edie's Flag Dance in Grey Gardens (1985).

Bette Davis not watching her husband die of a heart attack in The Little Foxes (1941).

The Star Destroyer swallowing up the screen in the first scene of Star Wars (1977).

Parker Posey freaking out about the Busy Bee in Best in Show (2000).

Marlene Dietrich as a Mexican madame at the end of Touch of Evil (1958).

Judith Anderson fondling her old boss' nightie in Rebecca (1940).

Toshiro Mifune getting perforated at the end of Throne of Blood (1957).

Hattie McDaniels giving Scarlet over-the-shoulder side eye in the wagon when Scarlett prattles on about not being interested in someone she's totally interested in in Gone with the Wind (1939).

Robot Maria's sexy dance in Metropolis (1927).

Joan Crawford getting her cigarette lit by a pack of gents in Humoresque (1946).

Susan Kohner throwing herself on her mother's coffin in Imitation of Life (1959).

The kid trapped under the ice in Damien: Omen II (1978) (with honorable mention going to the reporter who gets attacked by satanic ravens and then a semi.)

Christopher Walken's watch scene in Pulp Fiction (1994).

Dustin Hoffman's live coast-to-coast un-masking in Tootsie (1982).

Peter Lorre screeching from his cell in Casablanca (1942).

Spock's death scene in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (1982).

Faye Dunaway orgasming to ratings-points in Network (1976).

Partygoers parachuting out of a doomed blimp in Madame Satan (1930).

Tallulah Bankhead trying to seduce John Hodiak while he reads the paper in Lifeboat (1944).

Glen Close losing her shit at the end of Dangerous Liaisons (1988).

Lana Turner taking a drive after she's been dumped in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952).




Here's hoping 2018 is full of magical movie moments.

Where Have All the Bad Guys Gone...?

As I spent this week in London with my beloved, we toured some Tudor mansions, ate meat pies in a pub, and curled up on a couch together to watch a movie from the vastly superior European Netflix catalogue. I usually let my partner choose the flicks we watch because his taste is much more specific than mine, so while it wouldn't have been my first pick, we cuddled together and watched Disney's villainess prequel, Maleficent (2014).



Maleficent isn't my cup of tea- and my reviewing it would only make me sound like an annoying film snob, but the movie did make me think about a bigger cinematic issue: Why do movies keep un-villainizing our most cherished villains?

The character of the wicked fairy Maleficent in Walt Disney's original animated classic Sleeping Beauty (1959) is a wonder to behold. Silkily voiced by the superb Eleanor Audley (who also did the voice of the wicked stepmother in Cinderella (1950) and was Oli-vah's snooty mother in TV's Green Acres) and animated with a rich fluidity, Maleficent slid onto the screen amidst a sickly green cloud with her chin held high and her disdain for all the princess-normative nonsense on full display.

Maleficent was left off the guest list for the christening of little Princess Aurora... on purpose. So she shows up to the blessed event anyway and curses the baby to die on her sixteenth birthday- in her eyes, a perfectly reasonable response to such a public slight. Emily Post would have suggested nothing less. Maleficent was evil and unrepentant about it. And it made her glorious. So much so, that I felt bad when she got a sword in the heart at the end.

But these days, you can't have someone just be evil. Maleficent in 2014 (played with high-cheekbone realness by Angelina Jolie) has to be a wild fairy who was wronged by a duplicitous lover, so she holds a grudge and curses his kid. That grudge gets all complicated, however, when she spends some time with dazzling Aurora (properly blond Elle Fanning) and regrets cursing her, ultimately risking her life to save her. What? Maleficent lives happily ever after with Sleeping Beauty? Whatever happened to the grim in Grimm's Fairy Tales?

And it's not just this movie. Other iconic baddies have had prequels made about their sad beginnings in the attempt to explain how come they are so nasty. Darth Vader isn't a pitiless, power-hungry Sith Lord. In the tedious Star Wars prequels he's an annoying young man who throws a tantrum because the Jedis won't let him marry his sweetheart and who loses his shit over not being able to save his mom.

This doesn't make him embrace the fragility of life and cherish every moment. Nope. He goes and kills a bunch of kids and then all of his Jedi pals before burning to a crisp and being turned into the wheezing, metal monster we all know and love.

What about Oz's Wicked Witch of the West? It wasn't enough that she should be a green, vengeful witch who wants to get the pig-tailed girl (and her little dog too) who crushed her sister under a house. In the disastrous Oz the Great and Powerful (2013), Theodora (Mila Kunis playing her That 70's Show character in a pointy hat), jealous of Oscar's (the horribly miscast James Franco) attention to other women, is tricked into biting an apple to lose her feelings for him- but instead is turned into the broom-flying green baddie we are more familiar with.

Once again, being hurt and rejected by a man doesn't result in nights spent in front of the TV with a pint of Ben & Jerry's. Romantic disappointment for women equals murderous personality change.

This is just the tip of the villain origin story iceberg. Snow White's Wicked Queen, Hannibal Lecter, and Norman Bates have all gotten modern makeovers that delve into their pasts to explain the evil characters that previously appeared on the screen.

What's wrong with someone just being evil? Do we really have to be spoon fed an origin story to confirm why our big screen meanies are so mean? Maybe it's our attempt to explain evil in our fictional worlds, when we can't in the real one. Maybe we think if we can get a grasp on why Darth Vader used his death grip without a care, we'll understand the likes of Osama Bin Laden, ISIS, and Boko Haram. Or maybe studio execs just like to squeeze every dime they can out of film franchises. Either way, I am comfortable with Maleficent cursing newborns while wearing fabulous cloaks just cause she wants to.

For this classic film lover, it's good enough to just be bad

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Goodbye Ziggy

I've lived in New York City for going on 25 years. I've seen lots of changes. I've seen the great 90's dance clubs turned into shopping malls. I've seen Chelsea turned into a daycare center. I've seen Times Square turned into- well, another daycare center. But with all the losses of favorite restaurants, bars, and assorted other institutions, nothing makes me sadder than learning that the grand old dame of one-screen theaters, The Ziegfeld, is closing. Over the last couple of years the rumors have run thick that the historical movie theater was hemorrhaging money- and any time I went to see a movie with an audience that was smaller than some of my birthday parties, I always figured this grand movie house's time was limited.

But to actually hear that this great cinema relic is closing is disheartening. Nowhere else in this city does a space invoke the reverence for movies that the Ziegfeld does. With it's 1100 red velvet seats, wide screen, and old-school lobby, the Ziegfeld conjured the feeling of a movie palace that pre-dated its 1969 opening. You almost expected to see a red-capped usher with a flashlight help you to your seat. When a film opened at the Ziegfeld- it was an event! Lines wrapped around the block- but the place never felt crowded. Movies felt like movies at the Ziegfeld- even when they were not necessarily the best movies.

So in honor of the passing of this great institution, here are some of the movies I remember seeing at The Ziegfeld.

In no particular order:

Jurassic Park (1993)
I went alone close to opening day after my shift as a soda jerk  finished at the diner cum Chess King fashion store known as Boogie's Diner. I arrived late and found the only available seat at the end of the very first row. Grumpy at the neck-straining view, I sat down anyway and found myself transported to a world where dinosaurs had been resurrected, and a movie franchise was born.

Death Becomes Her (1992)
I saw this under-appreciated comedy with one of my roommates. This satire on youth and beauty in Hollywood is still one of my favorites. How can you not love a movie that contains a failed musical based on Sweet Bird of Youth that features Meryl Streep cavorting around the stage singing the song "That's Not Me" into a mirror? Director Robert Zemeckis seems to have peaked with his 1994 Oscar-winner Forrest Gump, but the fun of movies like Death and Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) give me hope that we may yet see another great Zemeckis flick. Why isn't Death Becomes Her out in a widescreen format??!!

Independence Day (1996)
This movie is pure popcorn dreck. But there's nothing quite like introducing your younger brother to The Ziegfeld on his first visit to the big city. The giant, alien ships darkening the sky and the White House blowing up seemed scarier there than in any other theater in New York City. Now there's a sequel with even bigger ships- but no Will Smith.

Chicago (2002)
I loved the stage revival and went to this one drunk. I did the unthinkable and hung my feet over the empty seatback in front of me and did all the Fosse moves I could. I'm surprised I wasn't thrown out.

The re-release of the Star Wars trilogy
The line for A New Hope (1977) wrapped around the block. The lines for Empire Strikes Back (1980) went down the street. We just walked into Return of the Jedi (1983). I guess the Ewoks weren't crowdpleasers- but seeing these films at the Ziegfeld reignited all those happy childhood moments. I probably saw all the prequels at The Ziegfeld- but I don't remember... as I shouldn't. I closed the circle by seeing The Force Awakens a couple weeks ago at the Ziegfeld with a Perrier in hand.

Doctor Zhivago (1965)
I saw this David Lean epic with a guy I was dating, hoping that the romantic film would spark love between the two of us just like it did Yuri and Laura. It didn't. I spent most of the time trying to wriggle away from my date's hand.

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
If you ever get the chance to see Lawrence of Arabia on a huge, wide screen- do it. It's how this stunning historical epic was meant to be seen. Peter O'Toole's eyes blaze like blue fire and Alec Guinness and Anthony Quinn's false noses jut off the screen. With set design by the gods of the desert, we found ourselves emptying our water bottles before intermission.

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
This film is so much fun. There was a time when Steven Spielberg and George Lucas working on an Indiana Jones movie together meant a guaranteed good time.  After Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), nothing is certain. Zieg Heil monkey indeed!

The Godfather (1972)
I actually waited to see this movie at The Ziegfeld. It's operatic scope could only be revealed on a screen the size of the Ziegfeld's, I thought. I was right. Having my Godfather cherry popped at the Ziegfeld is one of my proudest cinematic moments. Now where will I watch The Godfather: Part II (1974)?

Chinatown (1974)
Roman Polanski's twisted noir about murder and water rights is a classic. Favorite moment- when Noah Cross (John Huston) asks J.J. Gittes (Jack Nicholson) if he's, "Fucking his daughter?" He was- on screen and in real life. Nicholson was seeing (and by default, fucking) Huston's daughter Anjelica.

Blade Runner (1982)
I don't remember which director's cut I saw at The Ziegfeld, and I don't care. This sci-fi noir is a seminal film and in my opinion, I don't think Ridley Scott has made a film as exciting and visually innovative since. It also means the actor I've seen most at the Ziegfeld is without a doubt, Harrison Ford.

So dear, Ziegfeld, even though you're going to be turned into a corporate event space where the elite will get drunk on Piper Heidsieck, shove canapes into their maws, and thrash about badly on a dance floor, for me, you will always be a place where movies are respected and loved.

Go in peace.

What films do you remember seeing at The Ziegfeld?

And the Real Box Office King is...

Something our current media industry likes to do is get us all excited about dusty old records that have been broken by our brand-spanking new creations. It's how we raced through push button phones, faxes, dial-up internet, and Friendster. But one record that actually hasn't been broken is movie attendance. "What?!" you say. "Star Wars: The Force Awakens has made more money domestically than any other film in history. The press has told us so."
Well... There are other ways to measure movie attendance film history paduwans, and NPR's Bob Mondello has a fascinating story on why Rhett and Scarlett still hold the crown. Sorry Finn and Rey.

In a Blog Posting Far, Far Away...

I love Star Wars. Anytime I see the original three movies, I am transported back in time to a golden childhood era when my bedsheets, lunchbox, and underoos were covered with Luke, Han, and Leia.  

 I would gather together the neighborhood kids to act out Star Wars adventures- taking the part of C3PO whenever possible- Leia if we couldn't find any girls game enough to join. I built a Dagobah set in my bookshelf with Play Doh, a crayon box, and some green toilet paper. I even wrote a letter to the main office of the toy company, Kenner, requesting replacement guns, lightsabers, and capes for my action figures who had lost theirs in the dirtpile out back of the house. I was swept up in the cultural lovefest for the franchise and felt part of something bigger than my Kansas backyard. The Force was with me. I love Star Wars.

I preface this post with that backstory because when I say I love Star Wars, I mean I love it with that corner of my heart that will always retain my first experience of sheer glee at seeing the film at age 5. I am not saying these movies are good from a critical standpoint.

Case in point- the prequels. Maybe the kids who saw The Phantom Menace, The Clone Wars, and The Revenge of the Sith have CGI halcyon memories of these movies like I had of the originals. But when I saw them, I felt like George Lucas had opened up my childhood Darth Vader action figure case and taken a dump in it. There was a dour, seriousness to the prequels that no matter how many new weird-faced aliens, Architectural Digest rip-off worlds, or Yoda lightsaber battles got thrown in, I was exhausted by the effort, and unimpressed with the bloated results. We needed three epic-length movies to tell how Darth Vader became Darth Vader? I prefer thinking he was just an a**hole from the Dark Side with some skin irritation and a fetish for face grills. Not even fine actors like Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor or Samuel L. Jackson could breathe life into the turgid scripts. The magic I'd idolized was squandered.

So when it was announced that JJ Abrams was going to do the next chapter in the Star Wars saga, I was at the very least, skeptical. Abrams did a nice job re-booting the Star Trek movie series, but was he the guy to do Star Wars? Should anyone be the guy to re-do Star Wars? Would the fact that George Lucas had nothing to do with it help? Since the entire world went to see the movie opening weekend (and kept going back), I put off seeing the film in the hopes that I wouldn't have to run into anyone dressed as Jar-Jar Binks. I did my best to avoid every Star Wars Facebook post so as not to accidentally ingest a spoiler and finally went to the majestic Ziegfeld Theater last Friday. I sat back with a couple good friends (friends who knew that C3PO was my spirit robot), my 3D glasses, some popcorn, and Perrier (my childhood self would have loved the fanciness of Perrier) and waited to see if the Star Wars film empire could strike back. It did.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is something quite astonishing. It feels like a Star Wars movie. Maybe it's the inclusion of the original cast in meaningful parts (I literally squealed aloud when C3PO made his appearance). Maybe it's the John Williams score that weaves in the musical themes intrinsic to the originals.

Maybe it's the use of models instead of faster than light CGI so we feel like craftsmen put real sweat and tears into the film instead of into green screens and Macbooks. Maybe it's the color palette that seems so familiar- with the sands of Jakku filling in for Tatooine and the jungle outpost of Maz Kanata a soft, green counterpart to the forests of Yavin.  Maybe it's the plot that while jumpstarting a saga of its own, feels so familiar with all sorts of parallels that I won't go into so no one will accuse me of being a spoiler queen. The plot similarities have caused some to decry the movie- but honestly- maybe it's my PTSD from the prequels- I welcomed a return to form, even if the form was very similar. Whatever it is, there is the feeling that the transition from Return of the Jedi to The Force Awakens is seamless.

The new stars of the film (Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, and Adam Driver) are all really engaging. One of my friends thinks Driver's petulantly villainous Kylo Ren should get an Oscar nom. (Not gonna happen.) Even the new robot BB-8 rolls and bleeps into our hearts much like his predecessor R2D2 did almost forty years ago. Abrams has brought this Star Wars into our more multi-cultural world by showing that women and African-Americans can be part of this worldwide touchstone and I applaud that. Now if Poe Dameron is really as gay as rumored, we'll be good to go.

The Force Awakens feels like a visit from an old friend.
An old friend I haven't seen for awhile.
A friend I've missed.